( this part of the story is going to be from his POV, because I do not remember any of the events at the start occurring.)
Last night, my boyfriend and I were hanging out and everything was going fine. We went to get ice cream then I drove him back to my apartment so I could grab something then I was going to drive him home. When I got to my apartment, he said (realizing what had happened after this all occurred) that there was almost an instant change in my personality. We have the type of relationship where we’re always picking on each other and we both love it, but he said when I walked in the door I started acting really strange. I then apparently saw a spider and asked him to kill it, he gave me shit for not wanting to kill a spider and he said after he did that I started getting incredibly upset and started hyperventilating and looking back on it, it was very obvious I wasn’t myself. He still gave me shit for not wanting to kill a spider, and I apparently attempted to pull him off the chair to get him to kill it, then when he refused I “lightly slapped his back” trying to get him up. He killed it then made me take him home.
(This is where we pick up my memory)
On the drive back, I was like a statue I apparently wasn’t moving my head, and I didn’t acknowledge him. At this point, he was still mad and thought I was just mad too, and just not acknowledging him.
Half way to his house, I started hyperventilating again and had to pull over, by the time I was pulled over for about 2 minutes I lost all feeling in my hands and feet. I was hyperventilating and sobbing uncontrollably, and couldn’t move my head still. He eventually got me calmed down to where I could walk and switch so he could drive.
I continued to have either multiple different panic attacks or one continuous one (not really sure how they work) for the next two hours. I eventually was able to get calmed down and back into reality. At this point I barely remember anything that happened.
He explains everything that transpired, I apologized so many times and every single time he said I have nothing to apologize for, and that it was very obvious that I was not me in that moment and did not have control over anything I was doing.
He’s told me multiple times since too that he’s not going to let me apologize because I have nothing to apologize for. He’s also told me that looking back on it I was very clearly in mental distress, and he was poking fun at it and didn’t recognize that I was having a panic attack, and he thinks that’s why I slapped him. He’s also told me that after all the sweet and amazing things I do for him if he broke up with me because I “lightly slapped his back” he’d be an idiot.
He’s an incredibly good guy, and I feel like I’m an asshole who doesn’t deserve him after I slapped him regardless of the circumstances of the situation. I’ve been abused in the past and told myself that I’d leave the second anyone touches me like that, and never in a million years did I think I’d be an aggressor of it or I would even be capable of it.
For further context, earlier this year I was diagnosed with anxiety and take medication daily for it. I was not off the medication, but going with the advice of my doctor this was the first day I started doubling the dose. However, I have only had one other panic attack in my life and that was almost 8 years ago. Neither of us recognized what was occurring until I had to pull the car over.
TLDR: I had a panic attack for the first time in 8 years, and neither of us realized it. During the panic attack he jokingly made fun of me and I got mad and (his words) “I lightly slapped his back” while trying to get him to kill a spider. He’s told me not to worry about it, I’m incredibly worried about it because I never thought I’d be capable of something like that. This took place the same day my doctor told me to double my dose for my anxiety medication, but I still feel like a horrible person for striking him so Am I a horrible person?
Comments
Absolutely not. NAH. You need to talk to your doctor about all of this. This is abnormal, and I don’t think you did anything wrong.
It sounds like your boyfriend is being very kind and understanding. It’s not okay to black out and assault people during anxiety attacks, no, but given the circumstances, you seem to be catastrophizing a bit. You have some hard work to do in therapy to make sure that things like this don’t happen anymore, and you’d be better off trying to focus your attention on that with the help of your mental health team than worrying about asking strangers whether or not you’re a bad person.
You need something like Ativan as well as your daily meds.
Some of the tricks I use are slow deep breaths (slowly raising the chin to the ceiling on the inhale and slowly lowering it on the exhale) or counting backwards from 200 by 7’s. This helps you stabilize while the Ativan kicks in.