That Time I Had a Panic Attack at the Airport (10)
“Ma’am your bag will not fit in the overhead bins, you’ll have to check it.” Says an indifferent airline employee as I hand her my ticket to get on my flight from Los Angeles to Toronto.
“Are you sure?” I plead.
“Yes. Please step aside.”
My palms are sweaty. My voice stammers. I feel a lump in my throat. My breathe becomes more and more shallow. This bag has to fit on this flight.
“Wait, let me see what I can do!” I drop down to the ground and rip my bag open in the front of the line for a full flight. As my vision becomes spotty and my breathing more shallow, I grab at high-heels and make-up and try to stuff it all in my already overstuffed carry-on backpack.
My hands begin to shake. I can barely see at this point. I am about to have a panic attack.
“Amanda, we can check the bag.” Evan looks desperate like he too knows that this is about to get out of control.
“We cannot check the bag!” I screech in response.
People stop and stare. Part of me knows that my actions are out of proportion to the situation, but that part of me, the logical part, seems so far away from the tyrant who has taken over my actions.
I can’t breathe. I can’t think. My body shakes as I continue to pile items all over the floor.
As the feeling of panic continues to rise within me, the thought creeps in… I don’t want to go to this wedding.
But, I shoot right back at myself with another thought…I have to go to this wedding. I am in this wedding. I am an adult and I will go to this wedding. I do not have a choice here.
Tears fall from my face. My shaking turns into sobs and I realize I am sobbing in the airport while people stare at me.
Part of me begins to berate me – Don’t be that girl Amanda. You’re just doing this for attention. Don’t be so dramatic. This causes another part of me to sob harder from the cruelty coming from my own mind.
“Ma’am please move over to the side.” The indifferent airline employee speaks as though she sees this type of meltdown every day. This is not an everyday occurrence for me though. Would she believe me if I told her that?
Tears continue to fall down my face and my mascara gets in my eyes. Evan grabs my stuff and an employee escorts us over to a corner of the jet bridge where I can put my stuff back into my bag to be checked. But, my bag has to fit on this flight. It has to.
My hands are shaking and I am hitting my stomach with my left hand in a jerky manner, the way I do when I am overwhelmed. I am now sobbing and I think I’m yelling at Evan, but I am also in the middle of dissociating and am disconnected from my body and my actions. It would be years until I understood what dissociating felt like, so here in this moment I feel myself begin to become hysterical as I disconnect more from reality.
Getting this bag on this flight feels like life or death. I have no logical reasoning other than my nervous system cannot handle another unexpected challenge.
I am on my way to a wedding. I am a bridesmaid. I love this friend, but her wedding couldn’t be at a worse time in my life. A month earlier I sat on a beach and thought about killing myself and now I am pretending everything is fine while I am so clearly not fine. But, this is her wedding, there is no time for me and my feelings.
I knew the wedding would contain endless small talk. Something I could no longer participate in. As most people discussed their jobs, the weather, and judged one another, I was stuck in an endless loop of grappling with childhood sexual assault and rape. If someone talked about what they may wear to an event, my mind would wander to – what was I wearing when an adult man decided to touch my child body? Was he attracted to my nightgown? That’s fucked up. Am I fucked up for even thinking about that? Am I broken? Grief. Disgust. Shame. More images and questions, all while the other person continued to talk about something I could no longer relate to. To say I was struggling socially would be an understatement.
While fearing the wedding and getting this bag onto the flight, I simultaneously worry that Evan is mad at me. I watch as he attempts to help me pack my bag. He’s calm but nervous. I’m scaring him, but this doesn’t stop me from ripping items out of my luggage and putting them on the floor. Every time I take something out, Evan grabs it and neatly folds it and put it back in my bag.
My breathing becomes more and more shallow. My mind and body feel like they don’t belong to me.
An airline employee approaches me, “Miss, do you need some help?” He looks at me like I am a wounded animal that could attack him at any moment.
I do just that, I attack. As his voice snaps me out of my tail spin, I scream at him, “I’m fine!” as tears stream down my face.
“You don’t have to be such a bitch. I was just trying to help.” The man stalks off, no longer compassionate to my apparent meltdown.
I cry harder. How does he not see I’m suffering? How does this man not know that this is about so much more than a bag?
I fully dissociate.
Suddenly, I’m watching myself. I am now a passenger to the chaos happening. I watch as my 27-year old self sobs, struggles to breathe, and hits herself. I am having an out of body experience. In this place, I become curious and feel no emotion. Why is she acting like this? Why are all the people boarding the flight looking at her like she is an animal at the zoo? Why is everyone expecting her to act logically when this moment is so illogical?
Evan grabs my hand. It pulls me back into my body. Slowly. Not all at once, but I can once again feel the overwhelming feelings in my body.
“Amanda, you need to breathe. I don’t know what to do.”
I slowly breathe. I stop pulling items out of my suitcase. I feel defeated. I realize I lost the battle and made a major scene while doing it. Shame floods through every cell of my body.
“Is she going to be okay to board? This flight needs to leave.” The indifferent airline employee has returned and she’s more upset about the flight being delayed than the woman having a mental breakdown in front of her. “You need to board this flight or leave the jet bridge now.”
Evan nods, “We’re coming right now.” He packs my bag as I sit in self-hatred. I don’t know what happened, it feels like something happened to me, but the reality is that I am the chaos that just blew through this jet bridge.
As Evan hands my bag to an airline employee I wonder, why is he with me? I’m so embarrassing, he could do so much better.
Evan grabs my hand and carries my backpack as well as his own. He walks me onto the flight and I feel like I am a small child rather than a full-grown adult woman.
This story is part of my Reflections series where I share stories from my own healing journey. You can read more reflections here.
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“What am I doing with my life?”
My therapist smiles. “You ask this question every week. It’s too big. A life is a long time. It must feel stressful always worrying about this.”
She’s right. It does feel stressful, and also daunting. But then why can’t I let it go?
After that all I could think about was what happened to me when I was a teenager. It was clear I didn’t have a choice anymore. This part of me was not going anywhere. That’s how I found myself talking to a new therapist on a farm. I had chosen equine therapy for two reasons. One, I had heard that working with animals could help me to trust people again. And two, I thought I may be able to skip right over the speaking about the horrible thing that I labeled all my fault, and just ride horses.
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“Ma’am your bag will not fit in the overhead bins, you’ll have to check it.” Says an indifferent airline employee as I hand her my ticket to get on my flight from Los Angeles to Toronto.
“Are you sure?” I plead.
“Yes. Please step aside.” My palms are sweaty. My voice stammers. I feel a lump in my throat. My breathe becomes more and more shallow. This bag has to fit on this flight.
Why can’t I just let it go? This is a question I find myself pondering recently. I look back on the last seven years, and can see clearly how I lived in an endless loop of triggers, flashbacks, and challenging emotions that I had no idea how to process. I had to find a way to make sense of things that most people won’t even talk about. It was a day-by-day struggle to get to where I am. Now that I feel so much better, I look back and struggle to find the words to describe this healing journey I’ve been on.
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“What am I doing with my life?”
My therapist smiles. “You ask this question every week. It’s too big. A life is a long time. It must feel stressful always worrying about this.”
She’s right. It does feel stressful, and also daunting. But then why can’t I let it go?
Let’s be honest, journaling can become a tedious task on the healing journey. Sometimes instead of helping, it becomes one more thing on the to-do list. This can feel stressful or overwhelming, which is the opposite of what we are trying to achieve.
I remember a time not too long ago where every single day I lived with deep anxiety, fear, regret and uncertainty. I often asked myself if I would feel this way forever. I asked people for their perspective, wondering if it was possible to go a full day without ruminating on thoughts or memories that pulled me down.
Choosing myself isn’t always the easy answer. It often feels like the toughest choice to make. I like helping others, and making others happy. Why should I choose myself? Isn’t that being selfish? But recently, someone told me - ‘how can you help others if you won’t help yourself first?’ The truth stung.
Let hard things soften you. Sometimes I think life tries to send us messages. Sometimes they come as gentle nudges, other times they hit like a freight train. If we ignore the subtle hints, they tend to come back louder and impossible to miss. Over the last year or so, one message has kept resurfacing for me: release control. It’s shown up in different ways, over and over again.
Currently, I am outgrowing who I thought I was. And let me tell you, it’s uncomfortable. What does it mean when you outgrow who you thought you were? When you outgrow who you thought you were, it means you’re growing and evolving from a version of yourself that no longer aligns with who you are becoming. It feels like people, goals, and daily routines no longer bring you the satisfaction or joy they once did.
Sometimes I have to remind myself: other people don’t determine my value - I do.
With the nature of my work, I spend a lot of time around people. Big groups, small groups, social settings of all kinds. And sometimes, I catch myself wondering if I fit in. If I’m good enough. If people even notice I'm there.
The other day on TikTok, I saw a video of a girl sitting in her car talking herself through the anxiety she felt about having to go to an event. I thought back to situations where I felt the same way and saw how I also tend to talk myself through these situations. I realized small actions can help us move through situations that trigger anxiety.
After that all I could think about was what happened to me when I was a teenager. It was clear I didn’t have a choice anymore. This part of me was not going anywhere. That’s how I found myself talking to a new therapist on a farm. I had chosen equine therapy for two reasons. One, I had heard that working with animals could help me to trust people again. And two, I thought I may be able to skip right over the speaking about the horrible thing that I labeled all my fault, and just ride horses.
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I was eighteen, and I would have sworn I was in love.
But, was love supposed to be inconsistent, painful, and confusing? And could I truly love someone else if I didn’t yet love myself?
I started dating my first boyfriend—let’s call him Calvin—when I was a senior in high school.
Welcome to this gentle guided meditation designed to help you release what no longer serves you and step into the energy of new beginnings. In this session, I’ll walk you through a calming process of letting go—whether it’s a thought, emotion, habit, or chapter of life—and then guide you in planting the seeds for a fresh start. Together, we’ll create space in your mind and heart for clarity, growth, and transformation.
There’s a cliché that says, “You can’t pour from an empty cup.” Lately, I’ve come to understand this in a new way.
Filling your cup is an art, and it looks different for everyone. For me, it’s a mix of alone time, quality moments with loved ones, play, fun, rest, movement and nourishing meals. It also means living more consciously - recognizing when I’m giving someone a heavy pour with no end in sight.
“Ma’am your bag will not fit in the overhead bins, you’ll have to check it.” Says an indifferent airline employee as I hand her my ticket to get on my flight from Los Angeles to Toronto.
“Are you sure?” I plead.
“Yes. Please step aside.” My palms are sweaty. My voice stammers. I feel a lump in my throat. My breathe becomes more and more shallow. This bag has to fit on this flight.
I’m at a point in my healing journey where I’m much more aware of things... painfully aware of things, sometimes. It’s a good thing to be aware - it shows me what needs to change - but it can also be deeply uncomfortable.
I notice when someone isn’t a good communicator. I see who struggles to hold themselves accountable. I can read between the lines of people’s words, actions, or lack thereof.
Welcome to this guided meditation for Energy Cleansing.
Whether you’re feeling weighed down by stress, negative energy, feeling disconnected, or simply seeking an energetic refresh, this guided meditation is here to support you. Through gentle guidance and intentional breathing, this practice is designed to help you release what no longer serves you and reconnect with a sense of clarity, peace, and inner balance.
Sometimes I think about what I could say if I had my past self in front of me. As I've grown, let go, healed, experienced new things: I think of how much of what I know now that I would love to teach her.
Welcome to this affirmation meditation for the healing journey.
Whether you're just beginning your healing journey or continuing your path toward emotional wellness, this short guided meditation is here to support you. Filled with healing affirmations, this practice is designed to help you affirm how you want to feel and cultivate self-love and inner peace.