Mind over obsession - the bike ride I almost missed

7-28-13
I live near a river, and by good fortune I also live close to one of those bike paths that used to be a train track.  The path winds down in a gentle slope from my house (which is awesome on the downhill start of my ride, but killer on the uphill end of my ride) down to the river.  The path goes through a beautiful wooded area, then follows the curve of the river.  Ducks and geese graze (DO ducks and geese graze?) along the side of the path.  Hawks circle overhead, and children play and scream and laugh on the playgrounds that I pass.  Teenagers sneak a smoke on the path in little clusters.  

It sounds idyllic, doesn't it?  But when I went riding yesterday, I missed all of it.  I was deep in thought about a personal issue.  I was turned it round and round in my head, chewed it over, replayed scenes in my head that were distressing, and imagined all kinds of troubling potential outcomes to my problem.  In short, I was obsessing.  It's funny how I can be in the thick of obsessing and not even know it.  Why is that?  Because that's just what my brain does.  It always has.  It's my normal.  My default setting.  Comfortable, but not really.  

But I caught it - caught the obsessive loop mid bike ride.  I stood back and realized that I was drowning in a whirlpool of troubling thoughts that spun around me.  I shut my eyes for just a moment. (Just a quick moment since I was speeding along a bike path - I didn't want to fling myself into the river and end my ride with a swim.)  

Now, one thing I am learning is that pulling myself out of that whirlpool is not easy, but it can be done.  (I didn't believe that when I was younger, but I do now.)  It's not enough to shut my eyes and turn my head away from the troubling thoughts (the way a baby turns away from a spoonful of mashed peas - lips pursed, face all scrunched up).  I have to replace those thoughts with other thoughts.  I try to find something positive to obsess about.  As I write this I'm realizing how strange that sounds.  Or, ideally, I try to just be where I am.  

I keep reading bits and pieces about mindfulness - the ability to be fully alive in the moment.  I intend to keep reading up about it - but on this bike ride, I thought I'd give it a try.  It was the perfect summer day in the midwest - 75 and low humidity - a respite from the stinky hot humid days we 'd been having.  I focused on that, and on the sun sparkling on the river, and the winding, wooded path, and cool breeze on my face under the shadows of the trees.  I passed the screaming, laughing children under the watchful eyes of their mothers who chatted together on benches.  I skirted around the huddles of teenagers, and got close enough to smell the cigarette cloud that clung to their clothing and hair.  I passed the grazing geese and ducks and watched their babies peck at the foliage by the river, and wondered if "graze" was the right word for what they were doing.  It felt good - really, really good.  I am lucky that in my world I'm usually pretty safe.  (It's not that way for many in this world, and my heart aches for those people.)  If my head stays with the rest of me, it should follow that I shouldn't be so worried, shouldn't it?

July 6th Panic on a high wire - why I couldn’t watch the Grand Canyon crossing

July 6th, 2013

Panic on a high wire - why I couldn’t watch the Grand Canyon crossing

I had no intention of writing anything about the recent high wire crossing over the Grand Canyon, but my head has latched onto it and cannot let it go.  (Obsessive thinking, anyone?)  Before it was aired, I had little desire to watch it, but I got sucked into the hype.  So that evening, I watched Nik Wallenda take about 100 steps over the canyon, then left the room.  I wonder how many other people who have experienced full blown panic attacks had to walk away.  Sure- I feared for this man’s life, and didn’t want to watch him plunge to the canyon floor in case of a misstep, but the experience of watching him touched a deeper fear that I did not yet understand in that moment.  So instead I watched my daughter watch the TV from the safety of my kitchen.  

If you’ve ever experienced a panic attack, you know that it can feel like you’re walking a wire - just trying to get from this point to that point without falling over.  

It was difficult not to put myself in his shoes.  Mr. Wallenda is obviously a much cooler customer than I am, and is far more in control of his nerves than I have ever been or he never would have pursued this endeavor in the first place.  And the guy was nervous - you just had to listen to the audio to pick that up.  Of course I would never walk out on a high wire over the Grand Canyon - the most obvious reasons being that I’m not a high wire walker, not trained, not strong enough, and I just don’t know how.  Most people don’t.  But add to that the anxiety monster - I would get about 10 steps out and begin to fear having an anxiety attack.  That would be my greatest fear - not the winds and the updrafts (as described in dramatic detail by Jim Cantore), not the wild shaking of the cable under my feet, not the potential of a sudden thunderstorm (also described in dramatic detail by Jim Cantore) - but the fear of fear.  Mr. Wallenda had every reason to be nervous about real potential dangers.  That’s healthy and normal and is what helps us to survive in this world.  But fearing fear.........not healthy.  

So I have to marvel at what the man accomplished.  Sure - it was an amazing physical feat, and I’m so glad he lived to kiss the ground on the other side.  The mental task is almost beyond my comprehension.  Even if I knew how to walk a wire, I would have walked about 10 steps out, and the internal dialogue would have started.  “What if I panic?  What if I panic?  Am I panicking now?  Oh my God am I getting dizzy?  I think I am.  What if I get dizzier?  What if I black out?  I’m gonna die.  Oh look...there’s an eagle!!”  Ok - I wouldn’t have noticed the eagle.  I would have been too busy looking inward, trying to figure out if I was getting dizzier or possibly blacking out, and about to plunge to my death. Or even worse - embarrass myself!  On national TV.  

Actually, I never would have been able to take that first step. Those of us with panic disorder tend to work ourselves up into a frenzy well before the feared event. We simply imagine it, and the stories start. (They are stories because they aren't real - our brains create all of these possible horrible scenarios that have not yet happened, and will likely never happen. More on that later!) And when the stories start, we are robbed of the wonderful present, even if we're in the safest place in the world.