I have spent the day battling panic attacks as academic performance is about to be tested in a few hours. I have pulled out all the stops utilizing a lot of my traditional coping mechanisms. I felt no anxiety leading up to this moment. I speculate that a good portion of motivation is this ability to naturally excite and utilize graduated anxiety. I have heard many other alcoholics talk about this absolute absence of motivation until they are right on the deadline, when it is pretty much too late to do a good job at the task given. Their repeated and desperate attempts to tap the graduated anxiety response, “to get motivated,” eventually taps the primal fear mechanism which is paralyzing.
I have had shortness of breath, nausea, continuous headaches ranging from the base of the skull to the brow, muscles trembling, light sensitivity, inability to concentrate, a profound fear that I am losing my mind, impulsive behavior where I just got up and drove off to no where in particular. I did the clock test, where you concentrate on drawing a clock with the numbers and when I drew the left side of the clock I was far more agitated and had greater difficulty getting it correct. This might indicate problems in the right hemisphere of the brain.
I came close to self-medicating with NyQuil. That is when I took off to get into a meeting. And sanity began to return. I am still battling, still praying and seeking the intuitive guidance of my Higher Power. I will be so glad when this semester is complete. God help me.
Additional observations; feeling of skin stretched across face, sense of being detached, startle reflex when attempting to rest, hands and fingers tingling, spontaneous erections.
Daily Reprieve 
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