Panic Room

Aside from the feeling better and all, I can honestly say the thing I like best about acupuncture is the panic button. Since I'm new to this, I'm not sure if it’s standard practice or not, but, once I'm fully loaded with needles, blindfolded with a relaxation mask and ears wrapped in gigantic headphones piping in allegedly relaxing music, before he leaves the room, my acupuncturist hands me this remote and says, "This is the panic button, if you need me at all, push this and I will be back in two seconds."

Excuse me, where has this been all my life? Can I take this home? A button that I can push at any moment for any reason at all and someone will come rushing to my aid? It's like a dream come true.

As an anxious, somewhat neurotic person, I'm constantly looking for the escape hatch, the release valve. I sit on the end of the row at the movies and the theater. On planes, trains, and automobiles, I'm an aisle girl. Whenever I go anywhere, I like to think out in advance how I'm getting home. I like my escape route all planned out in advance and then, and only then, can I enjoy myself.

You see I'm not much for relaxing. My brain is always in motion and I pretty much never get tired. Although I love sleeping and have been overheard muttering as such in my sleep (Seriously, "I love sleeping..."), I don't really do a lot of it. There's too much to do, and I'd rather do it than sleep through it. I mean, I can sleep when I'm dead and I don't want to miss anything. That's no fun. And I have a hard time comprehending people who are tired all the time. They are like alien beings to me, seriously. In truth, I actually have two medical conditions that make me tired - anemia and hypothyroid - but I just push through them most of the time, and I'm lucky to be able to do that.

Strangely enough, I didn't always have this much energy. I used to be really shy. I wasn't always a big talker. As my sisters fondly recall, as a little girl, I was very quiet. I barely said anything at all. I played with our family pets and actually did things like smell flowers in the yard, which I wouldn't have believed but I have photographic evidence. I was this way until I was about, oh, 10, and then I realized, "Hey, those people over there laughing and talking, they are having a much better time. This shyness thing is for chumps. It's boring." And thus the cycle began.

The not sleeping thing is NOT helping this process. The brain needs sleep to recover and I'm just not used to doing that. Like drinking water, I find it boring and I don't want to do it. So I've been literally forcing myself to relax, which feels like torture. And the vicious cycle is, because I'm used to doing so much, my body is like, "Um, sitting on your a$$ all day didn't really wear me out," so many nights, I have insomnia (also helpfully a common symptom both due to lack of activity and brain disturbances). So I've started to try to do more -- some to positive effect, some to negative. Apparently I am supposed to only be in quiet, soothing spaces, which pretty much rules out everything I like to do. Oh I know, maybe I should join a troupe of mimes. Is Mummenschanz still around?

I'm told many people sleep through acupuncture - or at least relax. Not me. All kinds of questions run through my head -- What should I have for dinner? Was I too mean today at work? Could Khloe really not be a Kardashian? What if I swallowed one of these needles by accident? How much of a train wreck is Emily going to be as the Bachelorette? Oh no, do I have to pee?

And on and on.

But yesterday, the unthinkable happened: I actually relaxed. Well, a little. And of course, as soon as the last needle was out, I announced it, "I actually relaxed a little this time." I was so proud of myself, whereas he was probably like, "Dammit, more needles next time..."

I do think I'm making progress -- the first day he gave me that panic button, I gripped it to death, and now, I don't feel the need to hold onto it, but I know it's there, and that's comforting. But when I really think about it, I know that it's not the button that I need, it's that I need to trust him – and really trust other people. Letting someone stick needles in you is a good first step, and trusting that he'll do what he says is the next one.

I've had to do a lot of that along this journey -- trust in others. If I feel sick, will that person help me or leave me to rot on the sidewalk? For a control freak like me, it has not been easy, but it's been kinda nice to have to look at people and try to see the good in them, which honestly, is usually there all along.

So maybe the trick is to make myself a panic button. Even though it will technically lead to nowhere, it many ways, it leads everywhere. And connects me to people in ways that I've never been before. And maybe someday, I won't need it at all.

But for now, you're going to have to pry it out of my cold dead hands.