Initially this letter started with the story of how lately I have unfollowed every Instagram Coach, Therapist, psychologist and spiritual guru online.
The bottom line is still the same I originally drafted, but now it starts like this:
Last night I had the worst panic attack of my life.
It came out of nowhere and lasted for over two hours.
I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, felt nauseous and dizzy and my chest was so tight I thought I was going to die. This has happened twice before and every other time I thought I can make it alone. I just need to breathe slowly.
Yesterday was different.
If someone wasn’t going to help me, I wasn’t sure how to make it.
It started at 8 pm. At 9 pm I called a few friends until one picked up the phone and came over. She drove for an hour to come to me, while talking to me on the phone for the whole drive.
When she got here, she sat me down and helped me breathe. Without hesitation she collected all my used snotty tissues from the floor and threw them away, “Nadia, your snot is the least of my concerns right now”
She didn’t speak much. She cut up an apple for me because I hadn’t eaten much but also felt like I couldn’t keep anything down, slept next to me in my bed, put on ‘Friends’ and watched over me to make sure I would make it through the night.
On top of feeling the panic attack and all the things that led up to it, feeling abandoned and unsafe, I felt guilty, selfish and like a huge burden. But she kept saying: “I got you. I am here.”
I don’t have a community in London yet, like I did in Brighton and last night through shallow breaths and excruciating pain I thought who can I call, this person, we’re not that close, this person is always unreachable, this person lives too far away - and I called them all anyway because when you feel like you’re dying there is no time for excuses.
Ok, so circling back to unfollowing Instagram coaches.