just like riding a bike.

Wow, it’s amazing how quickly I revert to absolute, utter-distress, panic-attack mode.

We had a rough night with E-Niner on Thursday and Friday. On Thursday, I managed to have an all-out, body-convulsing, convinced-I-need-the-ER, panic attack.

The thing about panic attacks for me is that there is this very rational person sitting deep in the middle of my brain saying very calmly, “You are having a panic attack. There is nothing really wrong. Settle down. Take a Xanax. You are having a panic attack. There is nothing really wrong. Settle down. Take a Xanax.”

Then there is that maniac person who is absolutely convinced that there’s a perforated ulcer gushing fluid into my body cavity or that I have just busted my appendix. All because I had intense pain on my belly button, and that’s what Google told me could be happening. Turns out it was just gas.

Gas with a side of an all-out panic disaster on the part of E-Niner. Just prior to my own meltdown, which was relieved by Xanax and a helpful husband, E-Niner awoke from a nightmare.

The screaming — the shrieking — was at the same decibel and tone that I heard several times nightly in the late winter. The same shrieking that followed with phrases like, “Get the fish out of my bed!” or “Why is there a whale swimming in my room?” I associated this anxious, terrified cry with hallucinations, and was convinced it was happening again. If Pavlov were around today, I’d make a fine dog specimen for him.

Apparently, he had been screaming for a while, but turned up the volume because we didn’t hear him. Truth be told, my husband and I were watching Slumdog Millionaire, which includes a lot of shrieking children. We couldn’t tell that it was our child doing the screaming at first.

When we raced to E-Niner’s room and threw the door open, he came at us swinging, just as he had done in the spring. He hit Jonathan’s legs and, since I was crouched on the floor ready to talk him through a psychotic episode, he slapped me in the face. It happened so fast. He got an immediate time-out, and settled down quickly. He wasn’t psychotic. He was just really, really scared.

After the adrenaline rush, we talked with him about his dream and why we didn’t come to his room right away. He wanted to sleep in our bed for a little while, which the three of us did.

Wait a second.

I’m telling the wrong story here. E-Niner’s nightmare was on Friday night and my panic attack was on Thursday. I’m being perfectly honest here, but I can’t remember what E-Niner did on Thursday. But there was something, because part of my helpful husband’s talk with me during my freak-out went something like “You’re having a panic attack because this has been the worst night since E-Niner has been home from the hospital.” Whatever it was on Thursday, I must have blocked out.

I guess it doesn’t matter, really. What matters that even though our lives have been relatively stable for a few months now, there is a deep memory of what happened in the past though it may be suppressed. My anxiety from that time can be awakened from a child’s nightmare. I’ve heard that parents of children with special needs can have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and I believe it.