writing workshop- Panic

This is a post for writing workshop on a blog that I discovered recently called Sleep is for the weak. Great name and great blog. Really enjoyed reading the other entries and decded to have a go myself. The prompt is about a time you felt panic take you over.


I remember the feelings of panic, my body remembers. When I think on that day my stomach remembers the nausea, my head remembers feeling disorientated unable to focus as I tried to see beyond the bonnet of the car to the road ahead of me. My chest remembers feeling so tight like all the air had gone out of the car. My legs remember trying to control the shaking enough to bring the car to a stop as my white knuckles gripped the steering wheel. I can hear my voice, repeating over and over, I can't do this, I can't do this..I can't.

Looking back at it today, it's like looking at someone else in that car, salty tears in her eyes soaking into the back of her hands still glued to the steering wheel from the panic. Yet there is my husband putting his arm around her and those are my babies sat good as gold in their car seats in the back of the car. I remember my sense of failure that something so ordinary, something anyone can do, something everyone can do, I can't. I can't drive. I can't get past this fear and panic or at least she can't; that young women pulled over in the bus stop less than half a mile from her house. She can't get past it, it engulfs her, she feels so out of control and yet she needs to be in control. She doesn't know yet that she can do this. She chooses to never feel that way again; not if she can help it. She'll get buses to places or just stay home. Tesco delivers and she can walk for miles with the babes in the buggy. But she will never allow herself to feel that fear, that panic in her body again. She doesn't need to drive.

But you can't control everything. Some things are forces so strong they will knock all the breath from your body and steal the life from you, leave you in fear and trembling knowing you have to face your deepest fears and keep on going. Some things you can't run away from and terror will grip you as you keep walking towards the horror in your path. The only path available and you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Even this you can come through and come through with new strength and resolve.

I look at that young woman and I wish I could tell her what a great overcomer she will be. How she will get back in the driving seat. How she won't give up when the panic comes or the failures come. One day she'll do more than drive to Sainsbury's, she'll drive on the crazy UAE roads in amongst speeding taxis and 4x4's. I would love to tell her how she will be relish new challenges and be confident in her own strength. At least most days anyway.