Panic Mode

I'm in permanent panic attack mode, so terrified that something could go wrong, a deep uneasy sense that has something to do with abandonment and loss again. It devours me every time someone I care about leaves the house, goes on a trip, changes lifestyles. I used to come home from school and if I didn't see my amother immediately, I'd panic and run around the house nearly blind with terror crying until I found her. But as an adult, I push it down and keep it to myself because running around crying and hyperventillating would be "childish." Because I would never dream of hampering anyone's life plans. And anyway, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't understand if I said what I go through. It's a sick feeling that tightenes the whole center of my being, as if I'm about to turn inside out.

When those in my family aren't home and I hear a siren, the same things happen. I fear the worst. And nothing anyone says or does can take it away, not comforting, not reason, nothing. Until I see or hear from the missing person agin. It's like I go into suspended animation, barely able to breathe. It's not a nice way to live, but it's all I know.

I just talked to my older daughter K on the phone. On June 6 she is flying to Guatemala. She will stay there until July 27 working at Ix Chel Farms with medicinal plants and learning traditional Mayan natural healing. She's in the process of getting her master's degree in ethnobotany, or medical anthropology. She wants to study indigenous plant medicine for women's health, particularly menstral dysfunction and pregnancy. She will finish her degree in about two years, where the program will also award her Ph.D. I'm so proud of her because she's done most of the hard work and financing on her own. My guts are twisting and I just think I'm gonna barf.