... has only just occurred to me because I'm a cocky son of a bitch wanting to show off and post videos of myself.
I think I'll manage to resist the urge. You know the camera adds ten pounds.
So for a while now, a week or so, I've been meaning to get on here, skip the excuses and talk about my anxiety attack. Apparently I can't do that unless Michael Flatley makes me wanna take him on on the dancefloor and I wind up listening to Peruvian music and scheming and Machiavelling it.
So. I had an anxiety attack. My first ever. And I was very lucky to just be sitting in a doctors office so he could diagnose it all nice and official like. His bedside manner could use a little work, but I don't go to doctors to make friends out of them. I know it's just their pay the rent 9 - 5 and I don't usually need the extra coddling.
Apparently, if you walk me into your office, look at my hand, press my right thumb back and declare that I am not hypermobile and walk out... I. Cannot. Breathe.
Actually, at first I just sort of started leaking from the eyeballs. And no, that's not just a manly cover up for crying. Crying takes some sort of intent, or at least awareness. Nope, I just started leaking and then made weird faces cause no really, I'm leaking and don't know what to do about it. Then I got all embarrassed that people might walk by and be worried that I was crying by myself in a doctors office. So I told myself to stop, wiped my eyes.... and of course continued leaking.
It took me the ten minutes that he was gone to compose myself. The whole time I was very confused. I have H.M.S. I am the definition of hypermobile. I can disjoint my thumb at will. The rest of me dislocates against my will. Frequently. The running joke in my family is that I fall too fast for anyone to catch. Which is totally true.
Anyways... I was diagnosed pretty early on in my teenage years and subsequently had the rest of my life ruined.
Now just in case I find myself amongst the optimistic or the ruin lovers.. hey.. I love them too. I love visiting all kinds of ruins, climbing them, communing with them and just feeling the spirit of anything they have left behind. I think they're beautiful, and awesome in the actual definition of the word, as in awe inspiring, take your breath away awesome.
But a ruin is a ruin. And if the flaming wreckage of my life is functional/pretty/whatever, it is still a ruin.
I had plans. Ten plus years of my life were derailed and shit upon by this stupid disease that took out my kneecaps like a sniper. So.. I've been telling myself I was entitled to a full blown freak out and anxiety attack when some doctor looked at me for a literal not figurative ten seconds and drops the You're Not Hypermobile bomb on me.
So yeah.. that's been up.
The rest is pretty predictable. Obviously, this guy is in quack territory. Even if he's right, that's probably not the way to handle it. We're running tests. I'm going back to my primary doctor tomorrow. I've got some bones to pick with him too. He's apparently been sitting on some important bloodwork.
In the meantime I have asked all the traditional questions in my own non-traditional way.
Really? My son can make it rain and my claim to fame is anxiety attacks?
Wait a minute.. my people make the sun come out.. and are apparently so powerful that they can even make white folk feel something in the air when they do it and I'm a pussy who has anxiety attacks?
Hang on.. what about that time I cursed a boy.. I HAVE ANXIETY ATTACKS?!?!
Unfortunately, the comforting idea that it might have been a one time thing was shot down when I had some oral surgery a couple of days ago and freaked out there too. This time, no reason.
Gah. I'm so upset. SO UPSET. I am not an anxiety attack having person.
And yes, I know that saying something like that and then trying to explain it away is like someone saying, " I don't like black people... I'm not racist though."
However, I don't hate people who have anxiety attacks. I don't think less of them for having them. I've had too many of them (people who have anxiety attacks) in my life to be that sort of ignorant. My hang up is more like.. utter confusion and loss of self. It'd be the same emotion if I woke up tomorrow and was told that it's common for fish to have anxiety attacks. Excuse me what? Oh yes.. didn't you know? You're a fish. Umm.. I would think that was something I should have been told at birth. And yes... I know my control issues are showing, thank you very much.
So now.. I'm a fish who has anxiety attacks. And wants to outdance Michael Flatley. I could dance circles around him I could! You know... if my mama showed me how again... I've forgotten.
My poor mama. I gave her a heart attack. After I left the doctor's office shell shocked my feet apparently figured out that I should not go home and traumatize Bratexander the Great. Somehow I wound up at my mama's door. I've got no recollection of the trip though. All I had on me was my bus pass.
Then I forgot how to knock or ring a bell. So I just stood outside mewling "Mama..mama.." over and over again. When she opened the door, I couldn't walk in.
She later told me I scared her and she thought I wasn't even going to make it inside. She'd thought the doctor had told me I only had x many days left and she didn't know what to do.
Thankfully she patched me up, made me presentable and called me a cab home. Bratexander the Great was not traumatized and does not know that his parental unit was so badly damaged.
So obviously, I want him to learn Gaelic. What? I don't know. My brain isn't functioning fully yet. I haven't been sleeping at night. This started before the attack of doom though. I watched a funny video on youtube that was clips of Reagan from The Exorcist thrashing on her bed set to the song Whip My Hair by Willow Smith.
Don't get me wrong, that video was funny and I cracked up but I'm still petrified by that movie. I believe in possession you know? So... no sleeping at night lest Reagan gets me.. plus watching the new Lord of the Dance equals I need Bratexander the Great to learn Gaelic at the Irish Arts Center.
I also blame Bullseye. Damn them and their money stealing ways. They've got out all their St. Paddy's Day merchandise and we're going back to the IAC here in the city for their childrens open house.
So yeah.. I'm gonna outdance Michael Flatley and my son will speak Gaelic while I do it.
Anywho.. As I spell-check.. I notice I haven't actually talked about my anxiety attack. I've talked about the stuff leading up to it, and the stuff after.
The actual attack was a lot like drowning. Something I have some experience with, because I have asthma. I got a couple of scary attacks when I was very very young that were close calls. Drowning. No air in or out. Just a lot of gasping.
So.. I was leaking in one office for about ten minutes. Then the doc came back and moved me to another room. The first was his office, the second was the one with the exam table and all that. I sat. He sat. He started typing and asking some basic medical questions. I answered the first three or so, started leaking again, and then BAM. No air.
So, crying plus no air, plus hysterically asking what he means there's nothing wrong with me, equals a bonafide anxiety attack. A very nice well meaning nurse came in, asked what was wrong, then stayed with me to try and soothe me through it.
She was nice, but I'm not the sort of person that can be told " It'll all be alright" on a good day, let alone on a bad day. " You're not hypermobile" plus " It's all okay" ... Not helping.
I did eventually calm down though. At least, that's what shell shock feels like, calming down.
Then I freaked out the day before yesterday at the oral thing. Afterwards Punky was all " It's just the medicine making you emotional. You're okay." And I nearly tore her head off with my teeth.
This is apparently because she's a Granny Smith Apple. Look.. I've broken anonymity so bad it's not funny. If Satan ever wound up here, he'd know it was us right away. It's a pun on her last name. Apparently, her father also shoves both feet and a hand in his mouth around his anxiety prone wife.
Granny Smith Apples need to be re-educated.
On to better stuff... I was going to sign off and ask to be reminded to blog later about stuff, but I know I wouldn't get around to it, and the mood would pass. Tomorrow is visit the mama day.
Anywho... Last June, a Peruvian group put on Inti Raymi in the city. Inti Raymi is the Inca winter solstice. It's a festival of the sun. It takes place in Peru every June 24th and is a very big deal even today. Like Superbowl big. Maybe bigger since some people aren't sports fans. For Inti Raymi entire villages shut down and empty. No work, no stores, no restaurants, nothing but going to the festival.
Here a festival is rides, music, stalls, and food. There's some of that in Peru, but Inti Raymi is very different. It's more like a recreation event. Entire groups of people dress as hundreds of parts of people for the recreation. There's an Inca, priests, warriors, soldiers, farmers, dancers and more. Hundreds and hundreds of people in this giant play.
The Inca is like the King. Only, he isn't called King, he's called THE Inca. He leads ceremonies honoring his father the sun, asking for his love and mercy and all things good.
So... last June, a group I won't name because I have a love/HATE relationship with them, put on Inti Raymi. I just wish they hadn't done it in the backyard of a catholic church. Really? That's where we're going to practice our witchcraft? Whatever.
So.. the day of? Cloudy day. The sun could only really be seen in small five minute bursts. I sort of thought it sucked to have a cloudy day on sun worship day, but oh well, what can you do? Can't control the weather, right? Don't get me wrong, it was bright out.. I'm gonna edit some pics and put them up later, you'll be able to see... just no direct sunshine.
Anywho.. there's some traditional food being sold, a small area for vendors, and a place for kids to learn all about the culture. There was some time before the ceremony was supposed to start. It's more like a play than a ceremony really, but.. when it counted, they made the sun come out.
The priest did his thing, the soldiers of the four corners showed up and gave their reports to the Inca, the dancers danced. Etc. Then they start the ritual part and it's cloudy. We're outdoors, so I'm staring straight up at the sky, gauging how big the clouds are, and by my calculations, the current clouds up above us will be covering the sun up for a while. They weren't going anywhere.
But the Inca does his thing anyway, and talks to his father and asks for him to shine down. Bam. Outta nowhere. Sun. Clouds part and it's all but freaking holy. I thought it was a miracle coincidence, but Punky to this day teases me about being so out of touch that I couldn't feel what she felt. She says it was something in the air. Like something had been summoned. She says the only time she's felt anything like it was when she used to practice witchcraft.
That's my Peruvian Voodoo story for the night. I don't care if I didn't feel it, I'm still Peruvian and can claim that my people can make the sun come out.
If you'd like to see it for yourself, there's a show called 1000 places to see before you die. They have an episode in Peru, and it's up on YouTube in 5 parts. If you watch it, they go to Inti Raymi and something similar happens.
Peace and Long Life. Live Long and Prosper.
Just don't tell me I'll be fine.
-Angelwick
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