Progress

Between the summertime weather (hot, humid days, punctuated by thunderstorms) and Kevin being out of town (leaving me responsible for both of Kina's daily walks and Kevin's mom's cat's food and medicine), I've had a hard time getting bike rides in. I went two whole weeks with only one 7-mile ride. So when we finally got a perfect day on Sunday, Kevin and I decided to take advantage of it and go for a nice, long ride.

The problem is that everyone else had the same idea.

I don't do well with crowds. It's the reason I couldn't finish the 5K I attempted to run a few years ago. It's the reason I nearly had a meltdown in a Spanish train station. It's the reason I completely clam up at parties where I don't know many people. It's also, in a related way, the reason I used to fall nearly silent when I'd get high with more than 1 or 2 close friends. There's so much sensory input that my brain more or less shuts down any unnecessary functions (and then the necessary functions, like breathing). The difference is that pot also turned off the part of my brain that cared. I just let everything wash over me instead of stressing out about my inability to interact with the world.

Back to Sunday. We went for a bike ride, and there were a ton of people on the trail. It was difficult to pass anyone, both because people were going both ways and because there were large groups and families all riding together. West of Vienna there's a nice, long, downhill stretch of trail where I can typically maintain a speed of 17 mph for at least 2 or 3 miles. Getting to that speed, that feeling of flying through the world, is one of my favorite parts of riding my bike. But with so many people it was difficult to maintain any speed at all.

Anyway, this all culminated about 6 miles into the ride. There's a bump, and I usually enjoy flying down the back side of it. But there was a big family with a couple of kids who were wobbling all over the trail. And this had been going on the whole ride with no end in sight. And my heart rate was already elevated from going up the hill. And I was quickly losing sight of Kevin and getting dizzy and so I puled over and sat down.

It wasn't really a full blown panic attack. I caught it early enough and I knew what was happening and I was able to calm myself down. It also helped that I knew, in my blood knew, that Kevin would quickly realize what had happened and come back to find me. Which he did. I got my breathing under control and readjusted my mental frame. If we kept going, I'd have to go slower and accept that we'd be going slower, with all the people on the trail. The mismatch between expectations and reality is something else I don't always handle so well, and was another contributing factor to becoming completely overwhelmed.

We kept going and the trail cleared out as we hit less populous areas. We ended up doing a 23 mile loop, which isn't bad, though we maybe could have gone farther if I hadn't been scared of a repeat episode.

As scary as it was, it feels like progress. I recognized what was happening and forestalled it. I never felt like I couldn't breathe. I was able to keep going afterwards. As Kevin pointed out, I will get better at reading the trail, it just takes experience. And I'll become more familiar with that stretch of trail in particular. Both of those will help prevent this from happening again.

I've come a long way in the past four years. Keeping this blog has helped me see just how far, and it's provided the quick reference point I needed to help me see that quickly. Which also went towards making this feel like a more minor episode. So. It was scary, and I probably could have done a better job of recognizing the symptoms a little earlier. I still have some ways to go. But I'm counting this one a win.