I honestly did not know what she would say, my mom and i have a weird relationship. i spent years and many hours in therapy mad at her because she was a corporate ladder climber during my formative years. Regardless we now have a working existence. She is hands off and there when i need her. in her mind i don't ask for help enough but i like my independence. She wants me to acknowledge that if everything goes wrong she will be there to bail me out. i want her to acknowledge i'm ok accepting the fate that comes from my mistakes.
So where was i? Oh yeah so i wanted to hear what she was thinking the day i told her i was moving 532 miles away. And she went on about how she had faith it would turn out ok and how everybody was dead set against it, my grandparents, stepfather, aunts, uncles, oh and my boyfriend TOM. But my mom figured hey lets see if it works, plus she believed she raised a fiercely independent child even if that wasn't her original plan. So here i am saying good my mother actually believed in me and then she goes "well plus you were having panic attacks".
Say what now?
"Umm no i wasn't". She goes "really you were" And then she goes on to describe the time she rushed to my house because i broke out into hives and freaked out. I told her you mean that allergy attack? She goes "is that what you think that was?"
Wait its not????
And so she goes on about how i had a few which i recall and i told her yes remember since i kept going to the allergist! But no she's thinking i'm nuts because the allergist never found the trigger. So i remind her of the 3 i had since i moved here and how we learned it was the spider bite. Nope she's not convinced. My mom with all her medical education is 100% positive my allergic episodes were anxiety attacks. Her proof? I started having them a few months before i decided to move. My allergist never figured out what caused it. According to her i haven't had one since i left.
i'm just dumbfounded. it never ever occurred to me it was a panic attack. i still remember what i was doing when the first one happened. i'd worked a 10 hour day, only managed 30 minutes on the treadmill during my lunch break, i had a huge deadline at work, and i was still adjusting to the fact i had a child who could not speak. i'd taken the subway over to my grandma because she had picked up C1 from preschool so i stopped and got dinner for myself from the sushi place up the street to-go then walked to her house. We chatted for a while then she offered to drive me home. i was going to eat my dinner there but i was tired and figured i could wait till i went home. i was getting out of my grandma's mini-van, walking up the stairs to my house and the itching started. i was fully covered in hives on my arms, legs, belly and hands and i felt like it was a million degrees in my house even though the AC was running. i called my mom freaking out because i had no benadryl in the house. i know the hives make me have a panic attack. i'd never had that type of episode since the day i had allergy testing in the office. And if you've ever had the scratch test on your back, holy hell you know how bad that shit is. i was so convinced it was to my food, which i had touched but not eaten, i called and went in to see my allergist a week later. And like i said earlier she never figured out what caused it but gave me a script for a much higher dose of benadryl because i didn't want an epi-pen.
All these years i'd written them off at allergic reactions where we never figured out the trigger. i even told myself since i did learn of the spider incident that i must have gotten bitten those times as well. i mean it makes sense to me.
Was i really that wrong? All these years?
Apparently so.
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