Good morning you happy people… with the most forced cheeriness I can possibly muster. I had a pretty lousy night last night… and was unable to get to sleep until well after 1:30 am. I will get into the whys a bit later, but suffice to say… today is my first day back at work since the July 3rd. To raise the ante a bit, my boss will be out of the office and as a result I will be filling in for him in all the meetings he attends. This essentially is the equation for one of the most un-enjoyable weeks I’ve probably ever experienced.
Don’t Panic
I’ve been experiencing what has been termed panic attacks of varied levels of severity for some time. When I had my first ones… I literally thought I was having a heart attack… and as such was told to rush to the emergency room. At which point they hooked me up to an EKG, did some blood work… and essentially told me that I had had a panic attack. The problem is… were this a one time occasion I could take it in stride. This ends up happening most nights when I go to lay down and start trying to pack away the thoughts from one day and prepare for the next.
Last night was another night where I was in the thrall of the panic rollercoaster, and as such just could not sleep. The particular recipe last night was far less about a heart attack sensation… and more about hyperventilating, a feeling of shortness of breath… which is odd because I know the difference from being a life long asthmatic. I literally tried everything I could think of to calm myself down. I tried some deep breathing exercises and they worked exactly as long as I was doing them. Once I stopped for a moment… my body went back into full freak out state.
Essentially from what I can tell this is all being caused by the very real anxiety I experience at work. Essentially everything is in a state of turmoil. We are a ship without a rudder right now, and without a strong force at the head of our department… we are constantly shifting priorities based on which is thing is the most political advantageous. As a result my work world is pure hell, and I have no stability at all. This is something that I am finding out I guess my mind craves… stability.
What is so frustrating… is I understand what is going on… but I seem to be completely helpless to stop it. I had a pretty major freak out session during the day on Saturday… and at the suggestion of my wife I had a beer and seemed to calm down. So last night I tried the same thing… the last thing I want to end up doing is medicate with alcohol… but I was desperate. Unfortunately… that “fix” seemed to be a one time only thing… and in truth after I had finished my hard cider… everything seemed to get worse.
I essentially know it is work related because while we were in Albany… I had absolutely no panic attacks whatsoever. It was only once we returned… and I started to dread this work week that they came back with a vengeance. Ultimately I am going to have to see some form of medication to get me through these. I’ve never been on any form of a mood altering medication… and I have avoided them like the plague. However I am feeling like I need something, to help my body realize what my mind already does.
Elite Loyalty
Last night I managed to push across the loyalty barrier for the next tier. Upon completing the “purple” tier I got what is probably my favorite loyalty reward yet. I now have the option to display the red thorned “elite” mob portrait ring on my own player portrait in the UI. This is one of those little things that just feels cool. While roaming the world that portrait ring is ubiquitous with danger… and being able to rock that appearance on all my characters is just slick.
Additionally I got the Loyal Helmed Murdantix mount for all of my characters, and you can see my baby warrior riding it. It is extremely similar to the Ancient Murdantix mount that dropped in a raid instance, but it has the extra added bit of having a really cool helmet / blinder on it. For whatever reason it feels so much cooler to me than the old one. I’ve always loved the various “biped running on all fours” style mounts, but this is probably my favorite of them so far. It feels like I am riding a troll or werewolf or something similar into battle.
Of late I have been splitting my time mostly between Belghast@Faeblight the little warrior shown above, and Belgrave@Deepwood my level 53 nightblade/riftstalker rogue. I am still having a blast on both… especially the baby warrior. Which I am sure seems a bit insane since I have a level 60 warrior already. I find it interesting to play through the old content with fresh eyes. I working with the Dark Thane prebuilt spec, and it has changed massively since I last played it. I am enjoying the sense of discovery each time the game gives me a new ability to play with. Essentially it lets me learn the spec an item at a time, rather than being deluged with everything it offers at once at level 60.
On Belgrave, I have just started Seratos and am making my way slowly to Necropolis. I really love the dark bone woven zones of later Dusken… and they all seem to be carnage quest bonanzas. I am a major junkie when it comes to those kill quests… I just wish the reward source stones were actually useful to Belgrave. I have essentially purchased everything I can upgrade wise with them for awhile. I still have yet to figure out what exactly to do with the excess ones. If you guys know some cool use for them other than the gear upgrades… let me know.
As an indication for how much I am enjoying Rift… yesterday I took a break from my NDA bonanza just to get in some play time. That is saying a lot… because I love beyond love the game I am playing that is still under NDA. One of the interesting things about the free to play conversion is the daily and weekly gifts. Which surprisingly got upgraded massively when I bumped up to this next tier of loyalty. Instead of purple boxes… I started getting orange ones… and out of my weekly box I pulled a orange deeps box… which netted a really nice purple dps weapon for Belghast@Deepwood.
I find that the draw of knowing I have a new box every day keeps me logging in regardless of what else I am playing. It is something extremely simple but for me… it is effective. After logging in… I usually end up playing around and questing or crafting or even just hanging out in guild chat and talking. I love that Trion chose to use the carrot and not the stick when it came to the free to play conversion model. It seems to be working, because I am seeing lots of people online quite often. Would be awesome if I could get more of a critical mass there so we could do bigger things.
Wrapping Up
Since I am thoroughly out of it… I need to get this morning thing underway. I hope I survive the day with the small modicum of sleep that I was able to get. I also hope that today ends up being far better than I have made it out to be in my mind. I pray beyond reason that I can have a night off from the panic attack rollercoaster, because it is pretty much the opposite of fun. At least I guess if it happens again I can continue building in Minecraft… which is what ultimately caused me to calm down enough to sleep. I hope you all have a great day… and I hope it is stress free.
Must like our favorite guide to hitchhiking, @belghast reminds us “Don’t Panic,” in Tales of the Aggronaut: http://t.co/9aRTJOJN38 + #Rfit
I had the exact same symptoms in my mid to late 30s. They even put me on Xanax, which I didn’t like and only took when I was deep in panic mode. Some of the things that worked for me, on the prevention side, were eliminating caffeine and talking a daily walk.
I can definitely empathize, but I can also tell you that at least for me it was temporary. I haven’t have a panic attack or had to take anything in well over five years. And have even added caffeine back (but only in my morning coffee.
I’ve learned a few methods over the years to keep my anxiety in check, though like you I prefer NOT to use medication – some times there’s no other choice. I have emergency pills that melt under the tongue if I can’t get my regular methods to work. Deep breathing is OK but not always reliable for me. Advil seems to work because it relaxes my muscle and it’s MUCH less harsh on me than taking my other pills. Sucking on a strong flavoured mint also seems to help, as does vicks vapor rub (not sure why, maybe it brings back memories of being a child being taken care of?). I also have some instrumental soundtracks that work. What works for each person varies, but I hope you can at least relax soon. =) There’s never any shame in it especially if you have to talk to a doctor for help, I think there are far more people suffering from some form of anxiety these days than not.
Tales of the Aggronaut – Don’t Panic – http://t.co/P1zlniRcB9 The joys of dealing with panic attacks… also hit a new loyalty tier in #Rift