Anxiety. Panic Attack. Melt down.
I don't even have a prescription for Xanax; not that I think it would have helped last night.
Soft Swirlz was invited to an Open House last night in McKinney. It's the venue where Jordan works, so instead of Del going, I was assigned to go and Jordan would help out and then stay to do the cleaning afterwards. I'm usually okay with those situations, especially because I have been doing the most recent events on my own anyways. I had no reason to be nervous.
I followed Jordan over to the event. He took a back road; a 'shorter way' that he takes every night when he goes. I didn't pay much attention to the various turns and switchbacks, figuring I would just follow my google maps on the way back home, but it got us to the venue in record time. We had everything set up in record time, with Jordan being in charge of the machine and I was in charge of the table decor and supplies. By 5:45, we were ready for the first guests to arrive at 6:00p.m.
And they did.
We had a steady flow of brides and grooms coming through and we were serving our yummy ice cream and giving our 10 minute 'pitch' to each couple with great reviews. Jordan was mostly dispensing the ice cream, but on the occasion that I needed to dispense, I would. I didn't notice, until about the 3-4th time though, that we were using our oldest machine; one that I hadn't used in probably over a year. It was one of the quieter machines and has our nice logo on it, but it's my least favorite in that it's harder to monitor the temperature on it for the flow of ice cream.
About an hour in to the evening, the machine started freezing up, not allowing the ice cream to dispense evenly. Jordan started trying to adjust the temperature. My heart started racing. The more Jordan tried to fix things, the worse it got to where, finally, it just completely froze up and nothing would come out.
I needed a Xanax; badly. I was trying SOOO desperately to not panic in front of Jordan and allow him to be in control. I could feel my heart just racing. I called Del, trying to get any type of relief I could as to how to fix things. He tried to walk Jordan through things - nothing worked. We had guests that we were not able to serve ice cream to and asking to' return as soon as we had the machine working again'. Jordan was frustrated and embarrassed. I had gone outside several times to hide my panic from Jordan and allow him space to think clearly without seeing his mother have a melt down. I called Del again, only to frustrate him too, knowing he couldn't help us and hung up on him. I was offering up desperate prayers to Heavenly Father to give Jordan some type of clarity as to how to resolve our situation. It was for a solid 20-30 minutes that this situation was our chaos before Jordan finally had things back under control.
But that 20-30 minutes changed me into a completely different person from the confident and supportive companion Jordan had been working with hours before, to an observing owner of Soft Swirlz and I couldn't function. The tasks I did do were robotic. My conversations with guests were confusing and I was missing details and warmth. I was useless.
By the time it was 9:00 p.m., Jordan was still visiting with some other vendors in the room and within 10 minutes, I had everything packed up and ready to get out of there. I was even racing the machine to the car, ready to pack it up myself when Jordan slowed me down to help with it and said, 'Wow, mom, I know you want to leave, but let me get this heavy stuff for you'. He had no idea how badly I wanted to leave. With everything in the car, I said my goodbyes and thank you's to Jordan and was driving out of the parking lot like a crazy lady. I realized I needed to stop and take a moment to get my head on straight, as I had no clue how to get home. Jordan had kindly put the way home on my google maps, so I took the time to pull it up, say a calming prayer, and drove home. There were definitely some sharp turns and unexpected detours that I hadn't remembered, and I'm pretty sure I got some really good 'air' going over the railroad tracks at 75mph. THAT flight did bring me to a realization that I wanted to make it home in one piece, so I slowed things up and tried to breathe deeply to calm my racing heart.
The icing on the anxiety cake came as I pulled into the driveway and the garage was closed. I was needing to back into the garage to unload the machine and MY garage door opener was in Kathryn's car. This meant I was going to have to get out of the car, go in the house, open the garage door and THEN back into the garage. I went to the front door. It was locked. My keys were still in my car. GROWL!!!! I stomped to the back door where I see through the window Del, Kathryn and Ammon playing Boggle. I opened the back door LOUDLY and slammed it closed. Del asks 'what's wrong' and I answer LOUDLY that the garage door is closed, lacing each work with TOTAL aggravation and inconvenience. I open the garage door, back the car in, and begin unloading everything. Del comes out and tries to have a conversation that I refuse to be a part of and I silently put everything away.
Back in my quiet place, I have removed my make up, undressed and sit in this safe haven of my office and TRY to decompress from the monster that has taken over my body. I'm angry over the experience I have had. I'm overcome by the fear I experienced and the anxiety I was living through.
I'm angry that I didn't know how to fix things and that if Jordan hadn't been there, the TOTAL disaster I would have been left to deal with.
The emotions are overwhelming and I spend hours last night, trying to relieve my body and mind of the anxiety attack that took over. Now this morning, I'm calm. Sleepless and tired, but I'm finally calm.
I'm too old for this. Anxiety and panic attacks should only be for the young. You would think that I have been through and experienced enough in my life, that I would fear nothing and be able to cope with all emotions and situations without having an anxiety/panic attack; RIGHT??
WRONG!
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