Here For the Hope

I took this picture while at the apex of a panic attack.

This isn't something I've shared with a lot of people, but I want to talk about it.

Content Warning: Suicidal Ideations

That morning I woke up and I knew something was off.

My best friend, whose house I was staying at, and her husband were at work and I was sleepnig in.

I'm not sure what "set me off", but I had a sick, pained feeling all day.  I can't remember if this is the day I turned my phone on to find multiple WhatsApp messages and an email from her asking to check the WiFi router to see if it was working and to text her the serial number for it just to make sure.  It probably was that day, but it wasn't what caused my panic attack.

To this day, I have no idea why, when walking along the Nervión I got hit with a pang in my chest that sent me into tears.  I couldn't stop.

I was, quite simply, overwhelmed with anxiety.

I was convinced my best friend, someone I'd known since I was 13, hated me and saw me as a burden and unwelcome in her house.  I was a drain on her relationship with her husband who also hated having me around, and all I was doing was making everything complicated.

I almost considered just throwing myself in front of a light rail train, but then what would happen?

It probably wouldn't kill me.

I'd just end up making everything even worse.

Even when I met up with my best friend and her husband for lunch at the park I wasn't feeling better.  I didn't feel worse, just... not better.

And then I walked along the old section of the city.

Took that picture.

And sat down while I kept trying to gather my thoughts and make sense of what I was going through.

Sunset in Bilbao

Due to the situation and the time difference, only one friend was available to talk at that moment, and I  spilled my heart out to him.

The tears finally stopped.

I stopped feeling like I was going to fully break down at any minute and started feeling like the weight was falling off my chest.

The worst was over.

Not because of anything he said, but because I finally found someone I felt I could talk to.

I couldn't even talk to my best friend about this.

I still couldn't say why.

I hold nothing against her.  Anxiety has a way of attacking your perspective so much that it's only until after you've calmed down and grounded yourself that you realize that it really is all in your head and it's no one's fault.  This can sometimes mean that you feel even worse about yourself, but at the same time, at least there's no one to really blame.  Except yourself.  And you make of that what you will.

Anyway, it wasn't until I'd finally felt calm enough to walk around without feeling like I'd get weird stares (crying in public is still weird for people) that I began to feel a little better.

And oddly enough, as I walked, as my head cleared, so did the clouds in the sky.

By the time I arrived at the Campa de los Ingleses area in proximity to the Guggenheim museum, I could feel the warm sun on my skin and see a light in the sky.

As I came around the back of the museum to the walkway in front of the fog installation, where Louise Bourgeois's masterpiece Maman loomed overhead in its spindly glory (I'll add "creepy" onto that, as I also happen to have arachnophobia and a general aversion to arachnids), the clouds truly broke, and a wave of light and warmth hit the titanium panels on the architectural masterpiece and the phrase "Golden Hour" was truly defined in that instant.

And I snapped a lot of pictures.

Why am I posting this?

I don't know, really.

Maybe it's because people who may be regular readers and are excited to see me writing again think I have it all together.  Or maybe people have a legitimate curiosity about what anxiety (even if it's undiagnosed, because... reasons?) looks like and here I am to deliver.

Or maybe I just wanted to share pretty pictures of what is, to me, one of the most beautiful cities on Earth, even in its industrial, gritty glory.

Either way, I'm publishing it.  And yes, it makes me nervous.

Here you are anyway.

Reading an article about one of my biggest panic attacks and nervous breakdowns, for seemingly no reason, in a place that I usually escape to to get out of those situations.

So it really can happen to anyone.

But there's a light at the end of the tunnel.  Sometimes it's literal, in my case.

Sometimes it's more abstract.

But it's there.

Look for it.  Find it. Embrace it, welcome it, love it.

There's always something to find joy in.