When My Heart Stopped

The other night I was laying in bed having trouble feeling relaxed enough to sleep.

I concentrated on my breathing as any Buddhist meditationist would tell me.

But instead of allowing the concentration on the ebb and flow of my breathing to lull me to sleep, I skipped straight from my breathing to my heart beat.

This is a natural jump for me.

Is my heart beat normal?

The question is not a new one. Panic attacks have made me very aware of my heart and heart beat and I have this sort of subconscious, no, wait, it’s completely overt, fear that I’m going to have a heart attack (even though the ER doctor…how ever many months ago that was…told me that I would make the Guinness Book of World Records if I did have one…).

I guess that’s Type A for you. If anyone can die from a heart attack at a young age, it would be me. Overachiever til the end, literally.

So I lay there.

Hmm…did my heart just skip a beat?

The panic starts to set in. I think my heart beat is funky. My stress keeps messing with me. I am going to have a heart attack.

*places fingers on pulse*

Hmm….

*places hand on heart”

Aww crap, I don’t think my heart is beating any more.

Did I just die?

*slowly gets out of bed, holding breath, walks toward boyfriend, whose back is facing me, while he stands in front of the fridge, door ajar*

Me, in a whisper: “Can you see me?”

Boyfriend, turns around: “yessss”

Me: “oh, okay, good, I thought I was dead.”

This is my life this week! Have you seen the movie “Sleep Walk with Me“? I hope I can turn my melodrama into a comedy routine ‘cuz once I found out I wasn’t dead, I was dying. With laughter. Ya know?

<3,

The Cranky One

Tags: panic attacks, sleep walk with me