The Panic Attack That Changed Everything
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One Sunday morning in 2018(ish) as I was getting us ready to head out the door to church, I started feeling the tingling in the pit of my stomach that meant a panic attack was imminent. The kids were outside playing and I took a moment to sit down, breathe deep, and tell my body I was safe and everything was okay. Decades of panic attacks had taught me that slowing my body down can slow that misfiring of the fight or flight instinct.
But as I let my muscles relax and used my breath to try and slow down my heart rate, the panic only grabbed me harder, paralyzing me. I wasn’t sure I’d make it to church but I knew I at least had to get the kids inside so I could give into the panic knowing they were safe. Except when I opened the door to step outside, I froze. With an increasing sense of dread, I realized my body could not step over the threshold. It felt like the house was holding me prisoner.
The panic increased.
I yelled for the kids, tears streaming down my face, and crumpled onto the couch as my body took over and the tears came and my heart raced and I shook everywhere. I kept breathing, knowing it would only last 20-30 seconds and then I could recover. Except I checked my watch and realized it had been nearly 4 minutes. The longest panic attack I’ve ever had.
I sent SOS texts as I realized this an anxiety of a different color and I would not be able to do anything the rest of the day but sleep.
My mom and two friends came over and cared for the kids and let me rest. They sat with me after a long nap to help me process the morning. I couldn’t imagine why my body had reacted so strongly to going to church; church was a safe place full of the people I love and who love me right back.
Monday came, but the anxiety never quite went away. I took a leave of absence from my volunteer positions and tried again the next week to get us out the door. And again, the moment I began to get ready for church, the panic rose up. Several weeks in a row my body kept me from going. And I had no idea why.
A couple months later, having gotten back to a baseline level of anxiety, we finally made it to a church service. I’d been lonely trying to figure out what had gone wrong and was hopeful that it was a fluke. But as I sat there, surrounded by the people I’d missed, I found myself wishing I was home – unable to get through music or sermons without journaling or playing games on my phone. Week after week, I was physically present, but mentally…anywhere else.
My body had finally let me return to church, but I was still resisting it.
I tried to reason with myself – I’d been through dry spells before. I wasn’t going to define my faith by “feeling” faithful. But something about this was different.
It was like my body was telling me I didn’t belong there anymore. And I resented it because these people were my chosen family: if I didn’t belong there, I couldn’t belong anywhere.
The more I forced myself to go to church and go through the motions, the more dissonant my spirit felt. I had hit the very bottom of spiritual burnout.
In the years since then, it’s been a long and slow recovery. I’ve learned to listen to the wisdom my of my body – it’s no less valuable than the knowledge in my head or the instincts in my heart. My body knew in 2017 what it would take my mind years to figure out: I could not build a healthy spirituality out of spiritual practices that were only intellectual (and occasionally emotional).
There’s so much I’m eager to share with you about the ways I’ve learned to explore and be curious about my faith. It’s been a years-long pilgrimage of the heart that has resulted in an embodied faith, grounded in tenderness and kindness without all the “shoulds.” Less focus on doing the right things or thinking the right theology or learning the right lessons and more being present to the physical reality I live in.
I’m learning to let myself just be human and trusting that’s enough for the moment.
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