i share a lot with f2fb friend #297 ann malone.  we both are in our fifties (although damnit, she’s three years older and looks ten years younger than me!) and we’ve both raised two sons.

i felt really depressed on valentine's day because i thought my younger son eastman (f2fb friend #1) had forgotten about me. then the fedex guy showed up with a mushy card from eastman--it featured puppies and little candy hearts and who can't tear up when they see the combination? this is a valentine's card i received from one of my newest facebook friends talib who is from iraq where valentine's day is not generally celebrated. i appreciated the beauty of this card and the effort that went into making it!

ann malone and i have been divorced and i think we both agree that our agoraphobia/panicattacks/anxiety contributed to that unhappy fact.  and we both can remember every detail of our first panic attack.

i was nineteen.  i was grocery shopping at the kroeger’s across the street from the police and fire station in naperville, illinois.  i was with my boyfriend keith.  i was wearing white pants, white shirt, a tie, and a dark blue vest.  i was carrying a backpack of books.  wait?  a tie?

my attire that day did not reflect anything about my gender identification. the 1977 movie "annie hall" starring woody allen and diane keaton influenced my fashion sense. so did the prices at the salvation army thrift shop where i bought my clothes.

i sat the window sill at the end of the cash register waiting for my boyfriend to complete his purchases.  i looked outside.  a furious thunderstorm was coming.  the thunderstorm made me think of anger–an angry mother, an angry universe, an angry God.  this is like death’s arrival, i thought and i turned to look at the paramedic and two firemen waiting in line to pay for their lunches.  “they can’t do anything to save me,”  i thought.

and suddenly, everything pressed in on me:  the imminence of death and destruction, the explosion of my heart, the oxygen being sucked out of lungs, lights and sound slamming against me.  too many things at once.  i stood up.  my legs were tingling with weakness.  this is death, i thought.

within a half hour, i was in edward’s hospital emergency room and a doctor was telling me i couldn’t possibly be having a heart attack.  you don’t know that, you don’t know that, i thought.  ann’s experience was a little different in details but the essence was exactly the same.

and what happened next?

**http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/magazine/how-yoga-can-wreck-your-body.html?pagewanted=all

***http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/04/07/natural-remedies-ineffective-for-anxiety/12656.html