Ready is a Decision

Ready is a Decision

One of my earliest memories of a panic attack was when I was in primary school, barely into my double digits. At school that day I had to present an assignment with a speech in front of a class. A normal expectation in terms of syllabus but I was not walking into that school, and I was not giving a speech.

I was glued to the concrete and fear shredded my heart. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t take a step forward. It lasted until my mum finally ceded and took me back to the house of horrors.

At the time, I didn’t understand the panic attack. Unfortunately, neither did my parents. At that time, I was a naughty child who missed too much school. I remember getting into trouble for wasting everyone’s time and not holding up the end of my bargain of going to school.

Then in high school, similar situations occurred except I was older, angrier, and didn’t understand the words anxiety or depression. All I knew was that I could not get out of bed and the adults who should have known were threatening me if I didn’t. It’s only into my thirties now that I question why no adult (parent or educator) tried to help with my mental health.

Sometimes I get angry that I was so harsh on myself as a child, when it was the adults around me who failed. Eldest children are always the guinea pigs. Eldest daughters cop it a little different. I have no doubt if one of my brothers had been the eldest, they would have written literature to understand.

I understand, however, that they didn’t understand themselves even though it was their responsibility to figure it out as the adults. In some ways the educators would not have been able to figure it out because I was never going to tell them the truth about the house of horrors. That I was scared, that we had to leave the house, that there was no food, that I breathed wrong and spent the rest of the day waiting for the reaction.

These days there is much more awareness and action when children start to display classical symptoms of anxiety and depression. When it comes to domestic violence, there is much work to be done.

With presenting and giving speeches as a child as one of the core tasks that sent me into a panic attack, I understand it better as an adult in therapy: the fear of being seen and the survival mechanism of hiding.

In the house of horrors, there were two ways to maintain safety: escape the house or be invisible. Escaping could only be done on the weekends, and the only option was to my Sity’s and given they had their own issues, and we were the black sheep offspring, it wasn’t always the better option. Monday to Friday was going to school but sometimes the fights lasted until three in the morning, so I was there but not present.

Being invisible and silent ensured the beast had no recourse for losing his temper, screaming, carrying on. I would compare the beast to a T-Rex, but I love dinosaurs. Being invisible (or perfect) meant I could hide and it became a safety mechanism.

In school when I could not do that, I had panic attacks. When I entered the workforce, I deliberately made myself smaller as a protective mechanism. Despite that there was no danger in those situations, the result of the domestic violence and my upbringing was that I sustained anticipation of danger and saw being seen as a safety risk.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve wasted a lot of my life protecting myself from danger that is never going to come and that I’ll never be ready. That’s on bad days or when I’ve had to talk myself down from a panic attack because a man spoke too loudly on the phone in the unit above me, or because I had to present my work to my team.

That’s not right of course. Just like it wasn’t right to get into trouble for having panic attacks. How it wasn’t right to be raised in the house of horrors. How every adult failed to step in when they could see that there was a problem.

Ultimately, the more work I do in therapy, the better I am at etching away from the automatic fear. I’m doing a great job too. From never being able to travel on public transport alone to travelling internationally alone (and with a layover!!!). From sitting in the back of the classroom to putting my hand up for a cross-collaboration opportunity. From hiding my poetry to self-publishing it.

I was never ready to do any of these things. I slowly worked through the fear. I sat with it and reassured myself that I was no longer a child, that I had autonomy, and that I was going to look after myself. I’ve written hundreds of pages under the moon, under candlelight, crying, and furious at the work I need to do to do something everyone else can seemingly do without a second thought.

Though I still write those pages to purge the emotions inside of me, it’s no longer about purging to the point of perfection. That’s not possible. I will never be able to undo my life, but I can make decisions about my present and my future. I can decide that I am ready.

This shift in mindset has propelled me forward exponentially. Life is always going to be a little scary when doing new things and that is inherently human.

Instead of deciding to hide, I decide I am ready to show up. It’s okay to be scared, it’s okay to have to take time to practice mindfulness techniques, it’s okay to set boundaries. And I can do it, because I can do anything I set my mind to.

I decided that.