To Panic or Not To Panic

A funny thing about me that will give you a perspective on my day......

I have a history of panic attacks.

Mostly when I've been pregnant, did this occur. I guess my hormones literally turned me crazy. And Crazy I truly was. I was SO CERTAIN that there were people lurking about my home waiting to kill me and cut my baby from my womb. So certain, that I got mad at everyone who didn't take me seriously.

And I was quite certain, with subsequent children that there were people lurking at every corner waiting to take my older children too. Playgrounds were my ultimate night mare. I tied bells to doors and hid my children around the house, once they fell asleep. I only slept about 2 hours a night for months because of this burdensome paranoia. This would promptly go away as soon as I had my baby. I would return to normal world.

Unfortunately, because this occured, it seems that I'm still prone to panic attacks. I do whatever I need to do to avoid them and avoid scaring my kids. If Stephen is going to be gone for the evening and I feel a nervous edge coming on, I pack up the kids and go to a bookstore or a relative's house til he comes home...and we just sleep in the next morning. If I wake up slightly nervous at 2am, I watch a hysterical movie. These may seem extreme, but panic attacks are awful and I know that if I allow myself to be sucked into one, it's much more likely that I'll have more soon.

I've gone a LONG time without one. And I praise God for this!

I do things now that I used to never be able to do...like leave the front door open and only lock the storm door. I allow my kids to go in 3 different directions on play grounds. I open the blinds or even (gasp) the windows themselves. Things that other people take for granted.

So imagine what happened to my mind and body when I looked out my kitchen window this morning and saw a man with a gun. Yep. You read that right.

Knowing myself the way I do, I stood there asking myself if I was seeing things. Once I was completely sure that this was NOT my mind playing tricks on me, my legs about fell from beneath me and were shaking.

My children were doing school work and were in pajamas...all except Iris who was, shall we say indecent? I yelled for them to get any clothes on...anything just quickly. While they were doing this I called Stephen and told him what I saw. He called the police. The police called me.

While talking to the police officer I looked back out the window. Gone was the man with the gun, but there was an awfully similar looking teenager lounging on a trampoline in a yard bordering ours. I told the police officer maybe it was a teenager with a bb gun. No, officer, I don't suppose I need you to send an officer out, but I'll call back if I change my mind.

Meanwhile, the kids had overheard what I had seen and were screaming their lungs out and crying. All except Clyde who was not about to let this punk kid make him hurry. He took his sweet time while trying to figure out why all the women folk were in hysterics.

I called Stephen and told him in no uncertain terms that he WAS going to meet me for lunch. The girls screamed that they did not want to go back home.

Stephen ate with us, questioned my reaction to the "emergency", told me why I did it all wrong, only to be met with rivers of tears and screaming. (You see how I'm just as patient with him as he is with me, right? ....poor man)

So, like a knight in shining armor does, he took the rest of the day off, came home and went to the boy's house. He was a BIG boy....bigger than Stephen. Stephen saw the bb gun. Stephen proceeded ask him if he had been in our yard. Yes, he had. What was he doing? Shooting a squirrel. You scared my wife to death and we called the police, but we didn't have them come out. Please don't come in our yard again. Thank you very much.

He came home and said, yes that bb gun did look very much like a 22 rifle. (This made me feel much less like an idiot)

The end.