It was a 3-3 Mexico-India draw which meant that things were no longer continental, they had gone global and I had a world-size, economy-class problem with flying. Long haul flying specifically. And I couldn't even blame an airline having spread-betted my way through the sky on BA, Jet, Virgin and even KLM. (Not even any decent air miles for being such a transatlantic tart either)
Every time I landed back in the UK after having been away with work I would be fine for the first 48 hours - sleeping, eating and the routine jetlag stuff would return to normal- and then, on day three, it would happen. The first and the last times were the worst; times two to five were scary but didn't stop me. The first time was coming back from Mexico City in 2013. I'd survived the half-pint measures of tequila over working lunches (largely due to an accommodatingly thirsty pot plant behind me), I'd survived having my suitcase opened and my underwear sniffed in every corner of the airport by the drugs squad and their dogs, I'd survived the inordinate amounts of melted cheese pouring their way over every food order, I hadn't been shaken out of the elevator by an earthquake despite the foreboding sign in the hotel lobby, and I hadn't been shot on the Paseo de la Reforma (the Champs Elysee meets Bronx of MC).
But waking up back in the UK, I couldn't breathe. Well, I could but only in a really shallow, gaspy kind of a way that got worse when the bathroom steamed up. I went to work and felt weird- distant and far away. The open plan office didn't feel right and I parked myself in an office on my own for the day. Big Anthony, my brilliant personal trainer, got the shock of his life when he suggested I do thirty wide-arm press-ups in the gym and instead I crumpled and threw my arms round him in tears. By the time I got home I was losing feeling in my hands and arms- pins and needles were seeping up my body. I called a cab and ten minutes later was at A&E. It was getting exhausting looking after myself!!
I blamed the sudden altitude of Mexico City - flying straight in to 2000m. But the oxygen levels in my blood were fine and a chest x-ray showed no clots. Phew. But in that case what was wrong with me? I left with two inhalers- a brown one and a blue one. Variations on the same symptoms continued to occur for the next five long haul flights, dispelling the altitude theory, and with the breathing difficulties becoming less pronounced and instead a black hole starting to open up in my mind a little bigger each time. When I flew back from India in February 2015, the black hole opened its cavernous jaws and swallowed me whole.
It was as though I was watching myself sliding and couldn't do anything about it. I was just getting further and further away from myself. I couldn't get out of bed for a weekend. I was clumsy, laboured and in slow, slow motion. And then of course Breakdown hit and the rest you know!
The disruption to my biorhythms seems to have been the trigger, building and building over the last two years and threw my normal coping mechanisms out of sync enough to destabilise me emotionally, physically and psychologically all at once. Curious that it was always the return flight that got me as if coming back to the status quo was on some level terrifying.
What I was experiencing were anxiety attacks. I was so busy worrying about what might be wrong with me that I'd overlooked worrying about the worry. I didn't know what I was anxious about though as my body was starting to manifest physical symptoms of what my subconscious was feeling. Confusing to say the least and frightening for someone who likes to know what's going on at all times!
It wasn't until several sessions in to my therapy that something happened when I was just out and about in town that made me realise that these panic attacks after flying must have something to do with a significant part of me feeling out of control. Not out of control 'crazy' but more 'hurtling down life on the wrong path' out of control. Fundamentally not very happy, not very true to myself out of control.
I'd popped into a jeweller in town to get something valued and as soon as I pulled the box out of my inside pocket I started to feel hot, too hot under my gilet and behind the locked door that was now between me and the fresh air of the street. The jeweller suggested that I leave the box there in the safe overnight as the Valuer wouldn't be there until the morning. I couldn't breathe, I felt hot, I felt sick and I felt stifled. Chlaustrophobic. I wanted to run. Why? I didn't feel in control. Someone I didn't know, was holding something of great value to me and about to take it out of my possession which wasn't what I wanted. Out of control. Unlike the flights, I recognised it this time though, recognised my body tripping 'fight or flight' mode telling me that the immediate world was suddenly a threat. As I quickly and quietly suggested to the shop assistant that I would take time to think about it and come back another day, all I could actually hear as I stumbled to the door was my head screaming over and over again 'Let go, Let go, Let go of my carats!'. Panic punning- now? Right this moment? Seriously?
At least my anxiety has a sense of humour.
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