Panic

My vision narrowed and it appeared to have darkened around the edges, as if I was looking through a tunnel. My thoughts became jumbled and I grew frightened that I was losing my mind.

In late December 2010 - just weeks after Carolina’s death - my left testicle grew enlarged and cold. My scrotum developed a weird sensation of wiggling worms. The pain affected everything from my ability to wear my tight jeans to my long commutes on foot to my smoking weed. When I smoked, my testicle grew so heavy that I would often have to sit with my leg crossed over to apply pressure. I had kept the issue a secret for a while because it felt awkward to talk about. I was afraid that I had contracted AIDS and these were the symptoms. I had always been a bit of a hypochondriac. A sore throat meant throat cancer, a headache meant a brain tumor, and pain in my testicles meant AIDS. Eventually, the pain became so overwhelming that I told my mom and she gave me some morphine pills that she had left over from a surgery she had a few years prior. As a sober person, she didn’t like taking pain medication even when it was prescribed, so she switched to Tylenol before her dosage ran out. I’m not sure why she kept the unused pills in her cabinet instead of throwing them away, but it proved useful in my time of need. Her expectation, of course, was that I would take the pills as needed, per guidelines on the bottle. Instead, my brother and I split the bottle with our friend Kevin.

On a Wednesday morning when our parents were at work and our sister was at school, my brother and I shared a bottle of tequila, smoked a few bowls, and then each popped a morphine. When Kevin arrived, we told him we had the morphine and he was envious. So we chopped up three more pills and each snorted one. Kevin wanted more, and I was open to the idea, so we both took another pill orally. Then my brother remembered he had some OxyContin that our neighbor gave him before he overdosed and died. He and I each took a pill. Within seconds, we both needed to vomit. He ran to one toilet, and I to the other. We spent the day twisted out of our minds. I had flash memories of us making sandwiches in the kitchen and hanging out in the backyard, but the day was mostly a blur.

At the end of the day, when our sister came home, she brought some weed. Kevin had gone home by then, so my sister, brother, and I smoked from the Zong - a z-shaped bong. After one hit, my high changed completely. I could feel the pot smoke crawl into my brain and then my brain dry out and shrink away from my skull. I was certain that my brain was dripping down my spinal cord and I’d be dead within hours. I was losing my vision and my voice seemed to be coming from outside of my head. I was going in and out of consciousness. I was standing one moment then crying on my sister’s bedroom floor the next. Through tears, I asked God for forgiveness, confessing that I wasn’t ready to die. For the first time in my life, I felt like I needed to ask my parents for help, but both my brother and sister insisted I not wake them. It was their butts on the line too. So, I hugged them both, certain that it was going to be the last time I hugged them. I went into my room, wrote a goodbye letter to my sister, and set the pill bottle on top of my dresser so that the coroner wouldn’t have to guess what killed me. To my surprise, I woke up seventeen hours later. Unfortunately for me, the pain in my testicle remained.

Over the next week, I had a couple appointments with different doctors to discuss options. I discovered I had a Varicocele. It’s essentially varicose veins inside my testicle. Varicoceles are somewhat common and don’t always hurt, but if they cause distress, there are a few surgical options. Despite being deathly afraid of anesthesia and veins, I could not bear the pain any longer. I opted for surgery.

On a cold and gray morning a few days later, my mom brought me to my pre-surgery appointment. During that visit, the doctor gave me a questionnaire about my habits and lifestyle. Among the questions were ones about unprotected gay sex and drugs. My mom knew Aiden, so there was no secret there, but I answered the drug question mostly honestly. It asked if I had done drugs and, if so, what kind. I didn’t write meth, but I did write cocaine. The doctor asked me about my usage while my mom was still in the room.

She stayed very quiet in the doctor’s room and on the long walk through the hospital to get to the car. Quiet was unlike her, so I knew she was upset. As she remained silent through the first few traffic lights, I grew worried that my honesty was too much for her. She quickly turned into a random shopping center, threw her car in park and got out to pace the sidewalk. I knew she was devastated because I was beginning to take a route that she had warned me not to take since I was seven years old. At that moment, I felt like I was seven again. Afraid to talk or even move, I stayed in the passenger seat as she paced outside. Eventually, I grew worried with how long she was pacing, so I unbuckled my seatbelt and stepped out of the car.

“I can’t believe you would do this to me,” she said, still looking at the ground. She was standing in front of a bright orange “Buy one, get one free,” sign in the shoe store window. The shoe store hadn’t opened yet and there was no one else in the shopping center that morning.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I was more sorry that she found out than I was for doing it.

“How long have you been doing cocaine?” she asked.

“Not long. I’ve just tried it a few times.” I lied.

“Are you addicted?” She asked.

“No,” I said. I wanted to believe that was the truth.

She walked back to the car and I followed. It was a quiet drive home.

In the preliminary appointment where my mom found out about the cocaine, the doctor had told me that it was dire that I stop doing drugs for an entire month leading up to the surgery. No cocaine and no weed. She said drinking was okay until closer to the surgery, but I was nineteen and shouldn’t really be drinking anyway. 

I spent the rest of December and January alone in my bedroom, drinking green apple vodka and writing songs on my bedroom floor. Since I couldn’t smoke weed with my siblings, I stopped going outside for the smoke sessions, but they were welcome to come into my room for a cocktail at any time. There was always an opened bottle of vodka on my dresser with a variety of two-liter mixers. I had the backup stock on my CD and DVD shelf in my closet and the empty bottles under my bed. 

I convinced myself that my friends were happier without me and I was too afraid to call any of them and ask if that were the case. So instead, I became a recluse and created my own world. I spent hours everyday blacked out drawing on my lime green bedroom walls and writing new song ideas in notebooks. I showered, ate, and did whatever else needed to be done outside of my bedroom while my parents were at work, then I locked my door when they got home. As the month progressed, so did the intensity of my blackouts. Amanda told me stories of me going into the living room in my heavy coat and banana hammock underwear, singing operatic versions of Britney Spears songs while the family was watching television. I heard about a time I was locked in the backyard and instead of going around to the front, I kicked the sliding glass door continuously until my step-mom woke up and opened it. Sometimes I would wake up from a blackout and my room would be a complete mess—CDs and bottles all over the floor, my dresser emptied onto my bed. Amanda told me that when I was blacked out I cried about Carolina a lot. I was quickly spiraling downward, but I couldn’t stop myself.

 

After surgery, the doctors gave me Vicodin to help with the pain. For the first few days, I slept at my mom’s place. She went to work, so I had the apartment to myself. I just took Vicodin and watched Sex and the City. As much as I enjoyed the getaway, I knew I had to go back home and face my bedroom without Carolina. So, I asked my mom to bring me back to my dad’s house. When I got home, Kevin asked me if he could come over. I thought that I could really use the company, so I said yes.

“How’s your ball?” he asked as he lit up a joint in the backyard. He took a puff and then passed it to me. I was a little hesitant to smoke because I hadn’t smoked in a month, but I thought maybe it could help me escape my mind.

“It’s okay,” I said. “The incision is ugly but it’s healing.”

The sun was out and there was not a cloud in the sky. It was the first sunny day in weeks and it was fitting that it was the day I finally saw a friend. As we continued to pass the joint back and forth, my heart started to race in a way that was alarming; it reminded me of that night in my sister’s room when I felt like I was dying. My vision narrowed and it appeared to have darkened around the edges, as if I was looking through a tunnel. My thoughts became jumbled and I grew frightened that I was losing my mind. I had an insatiable need to run away, but where to, I didn’t know. It was happening again.

I told Kevin he had to leave and I needed to be alone. He didn’t understand my sense of urgency. I jumped off the picnic bench, ran inside the house and slammed the screen door behind me.

“Go home!” I yelled through the screen before slamming and locking the glass door. I ran to my bedroom and locked the door, even though no one else was home. I yanked my blanket up and climbed underneath. I lay flat, hoping I could trick myself into falling asleep, but thoughts and visions raced through my mind faster than I could process any of them. My heartbeat banged against my chest like a wild animal trying to break out of a cage. I struggled to get a full breath of air and my vision was blurry. I jumped out of bed and opened my door, thinking maybe it would be better if the next person who came home could see me in case I needed to go to the hospital. Then I stripped my clothes off and climbed back under the blanket. I tossed and turned as the midday sun shined through my opened window. I stood up and pulled the curtains closed, then closed the door again and then crawled under the blanket. My mind and body were both moving too fast for me to keep up, but they weren’t working together.

I thought maybe a movie would calm me down, so I grabbed the portable DVD player from under my bed and pulled She’s the Man off my entertainment shelf. As the movie began, the thought crossed my mind that if I did have a fatal heart attack, everyone would know that the last thing I watched was this corny Amanda Bynes movie. That made me laugh. That moment of laughter helped me calm down a bit. I regained feeling in the rest of my body, other than just my overactive heart. I tried to control my breath by counting to three before each inhale and exhale. By the end of the movie, I was exhausted. Whatever my body and mind had gone through wiped me out. I closed the DVD player and fell asleep.

The following morning, I called my doctor and asked to see a mental health professional. A few days later I rode the bus for over an hour to meet with a psychiatrist. She told me that I had depression and what I experienced was a panic attack. She recommended me to a panic disorder support group, which I made the bus ride back for only one time. I bought the workbook and thought that making my own way through the book would be more beneficial than sitting in a room with offensive fluorescent lighting and other anxious strangers. I never showed up for my follow up psychiatry appointment either.

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