I have been doing really well managing my anxiety enough to not have a panic attack, but this Monday I struggled to not go into a full blown panic. I currently live in an apartment and my next door neighbors are very noisy and have a tendency to yell frequently. On a normal day they yell at least three or four times about something. Now I know that some people are loud talkers and I just usually try to assume most of it is just talking loudly at each other which I normally am able to ignore.
Monday was completely different. I was sitting down working on some of my business stuff and doing my typical introverted thing. They started yelling and arguing, which is normal for them. The reality is people fight so I just continued doing my own thing. Then the yelling got increasingly louder and it sounded like they threw someone at the wall connecting our apartments. It jolted me off of the couch and scared the crap out of me. Their yelling got increasingly louder, then a group of them busted through their front door on to our shared porch area. I heard a child scream which made me call 911. While on the phone with the 911 operator, it sounded like they dragged or pushed a young man down the stairs. I explained what I had been hearing and that I was very worried that someone was being hurt. The young man also began to scream at the top of his lungs “Call the Police! Call the Police!” as they continued to drag him away from the apartment. The 911 operator told me the police were on their way and that phone call ended. I was in a full blown panic attack because I was really worried and scared and just in a shock. People fight and people argue but not only were they physically hurting this person they were doing it in front of a young child.
This led me into a full blown panic attack because I had been that child before. I had witnessed a lot of physical abuse towards my mom from her girlfriend at the time and remembered how scary that is and was.
I texted my boyfriend while he was at work and told him I called the police, was having a complete panic, and didn’t want to be alone. He talked to his boss and got home as quickly as possible. He even beat the police which shocked me. After about an hour and a half of waiting for the police to show up it was clear that they were not coming. That made me even more disappointed and anxious What if that young man was severely hurt, beaten or stabbed or shot? The police did not seem to care. My boyfriend just spent the day with me, and we drove down to my dad’s and spent some time away from the apartment. When we came home that night he reassured me it will be okay. He reminded me to go tell the apartment managers just so that they are aware of what is happening.
My anxiety has still been kind of high just because I am nervous that something bad will happen. The reality of life is people argue and fight, but when it escalates to violence it can only get worse and worse from there.
This image was found in an article about anxiety on Ravishly. I do not know who owns this photo so I am unable to give them proper credit but here is a link to the article that the imagine came from. This article is also an interesting perspective on what it is like to have panic attacks regularly. I used to have panic attacks everyday now I am down to about one every few months sometimes one a year.