Heart & Mind
I’m not one prone to worry or stress. I keep a pretty level head and through regular meditation and exercise I seem to find healthy outlets to cope when times get hard. Recently times have obviously been harder than normal and long runs and meditation have become my new best friends. That’s why all of this was so surprising for me.
On Thursday I was working from home when I started to feel a little dizzy. I have a heart condition that I’m always conscious of, so I looked to my Apple Watch to make sure my heart rate was normal. It alerted me that my heart rate was low and the BPMs were moving between 38 and 45 and then jumped immediately to 120. I turned in my chair to go lie down in the other room when I suddenly felt overcome with emotions.
I began crying— no, sobbing— as I sat there. For no apparent reason I heaved big sobs and couldn’t console myself. It came on harder and harder. I felt like my chest was sinking and I couldn’t find air. Everything was spinning as I gasped and doubled over with feelings of doom flooding my body. I rushed to get outside but the dizziness overcame me and I nearly fell over leaving the back door. I collapsed outside and Sara rushed to my side seeing that something was terribly wrong. I sobbed and in between struggling breaths told her that I thought my heart was stopping and that I thought I was going to die. The world shifted into a blurry tunnel vision and my ears were ringing.
Sara called 911 and within moments a loud ambulance rolled down our street and paramedics helped me into the back. I was shaking uncontrollably and couldn’t breath. Convinced I was dying, I tried to explain to them what happened as they connected me to an IV and placed EKG wires all over my body. Moments later we were driving to the ER, me strapped to a gurney bed, and a paramedic by my side wearing a mask and gloves. I felt terrible. So many people struggling with Covid-19 and here I am taking emergency resources to help me and my dumb heart. The medic reassured me that I’m okay and told me not to stress. He said, “It looks like you are experiencing an anxiety attack.”
That was the first time I ever associated myself and the word “anxiety” together.
What followed was me sitting on an Emergency Room hospital bed for 5 hours, hooked to a heart monitor and an IV sticking out of my arm. The doctors ran lots of tests while I waited. I could hear radios buzzing about corona virus patients and learned that there was a whole other wing dedicated toward the pandemic. As I waited I could see my heart rate on the monitor and occasionally it would rapidly beep, alerting the nurse that it was low. The nurses and doctors didn’t seem concerned however, and said that for someone who is quite active it can be normal to experience a low heart rate.
After several hours the doctor came to me to discuss my mental health. He checked boxes as we spoke. The Covid-19 pandemic. The shutdown of our city. A new job. The sole provider in a troubling economy. School closure. A pregnant wife. A chronic heart condition. All major factors that could be causing anxiety. I never felt mentally unstable or unusually worried. I perceived that I was handling all of this just like everyone else. I felt as normal as these strange times permit, but apparently my body and my mind stored anxiousness in ways that were unaware to me. The doctor explained that what I experienced was a textbook anxiety attack.
This is hard for me to accept. I have a heart condition and everything I experienced felt so physical. I could feel my heart slowing down. I could see the numbers on my watch. The dizziness was overwhelming and a strange dissonance between my body and my mind was very tangible. My mind felt clear as my body’s actions took on a life of their own. Despite my mental objections to having experienced an anxiety attack, I’m beginning to accept the reality. When I read stories from others it seems like my experience matches perfectly. The body stores things that the mind may not. Eventually the body may respond in ways that is seemingly out of the mind’s control.
The big caveat to this whole thing is that I do have a heart condition. It’s still unknown whether my heart condition caused the panic attack or if anxiety triggered my heart’s response. I’m meeting with my cardiologist this week to figure some of those things out, but in the meantime my mind is still reeling from the whole ordeal. A fear of loss of control now pervades in my mind almost constantly. Questions around mental health loom in the foreground. The struggling dichotomy between researching online in an attempt to find answers and letting it all go as to not cause even more anxiety weighs heavy. The last thing I want is for this experience to slip into becoming common. I don’t want anxiety about having anxiety to trigger more anxiety.
When life sends me spinning in confusion I’ve found that some form of artistic expression helps ground me. My mind always seeks to craft a story. Even while riding in the back of the ambulance a part of me felt as though it was observing the experience from the outside, simply watching and documenting in order to craft story and meaning from the whole thing— not to share online for social media but for me to better understand who the hell I am and to bookmark a moment that disoriented my entire view of myself. My iPhone became a visual tool to capture the confusion and oddity of the situation. In sitting down the write this— these words are more for me than anyone else. It relieves a feeling of heaviness I carry to express the events and try to get create some sort of artifact outside of me that represents what is happening within.
I share this not to seek pity or comfort but only to better understand. We live in a strange moment in human history. We’ve been through worse before and somehow came out okay. I know that we’ll do the same again, but I’d love to find a way to ride through this storm with calmness with both physical and mental clarity. I wish that for myself and for everyone else. I’m confused, a little scared, and searching for grounding, but optimistic that I’ll reorient myself soon. Here’s to new life turns and unexpected looks into the mind’s internal mirror.
