As if living with Locked-In Syndrome wasn’t enough to deal with, the stroke messed up my head in another way. About a year or so after my stroke, a strange thing settled over me that lasted a month or so and made my life miserable. We called it ‘vertigo’ for lack of a better word but I don’t think that’s exactly right. Call it acrophobia, agoraphobia or whatever – all I know is that it made me want to crawl out of my skin. Anyone who’s experienced panic attacks can probably relate.

It was really weird, it felt like I was just gonna fall out of my chair and land on the floor and there was nothing I could do about it. I knew it was totally irrational but even though my mind said one thing, my body was telling me something else. It was really bad when I was in a big open space like church or a movie theater. Even sitting in the middle of the living room was bad. I was just fine if I was in close, confined spaces like lying in bed (with the railings on either side) or riding around in the minivan. As long as my peripheral vision could see that something was close to me on the right and left side, everything was cool.

I specifically remember one time I was sitting and waiting in the living room while Jen and my sister were in the bedroom getting my bed ready. That feeling suddenly came over me and it was very intense. It felt as if someone had doused me in gasoline and was standing in front of me with a lit match – and there was nothing I could do about it. It was a horrible feeling but it went away as soon as Jen wheeled me down the hallway.

It came out of nowhere and then just as quickly went away. Weird. ‘Well, that just happened!’ I thought, ‘Cool, it’s gone.’ It came back again, though, about a year later. The second time lasted longer but it was a lot less severe.

I thought I was going crazy! We went to a doctor (I didn’t have a regular one yet) and she prescribed some Xanax pills for me. We just call them “goofballs” (as in: I couldn’t drive home from the party because someone slipped some goofballs into my drink and I was all hopped up.) They made me feel like I took a horse tranquilizer and made my Give-A-Crap meter run at about a “2” (out of “10”).

Remember that stupid movie Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio a couple years ago? It was something about a heist that was too take place in a dream within a dream – I think. One minute a locomotive was barreling down a city street and the next they were having a shootout in the mountains during a snowstorm. Very confusing. Not only was my goofball-addled brain completely lost trying to figure out what the heck was going on, the special effects and the big (empty) theater pushed me over the edge. We ended up finishing the movie watching it from the little hallway that led to the exit that we should have just used. What is it about him anyway? A-List actor with several terrible movies. At the risk of losing my Man Card, I think Titanic was one of his better movies.

How about that Visa commercial where that girl goes on a rock climbing vacation with her boyfriend and at the end of it she is shown standing atop a very narrow spire out in the desert somewhere. Never in my life have I ever been afraid of heights but I couldn’t even look at that or stuff like it without my stomach doing somersaults.

All of this has been gone for quite some time now and I hope it’s gone for good this time (knock on wood!).

By the way, it just occurred to me recently that I haven’t shared my email address:
bjim140@gmail.com
Feel free to ask me about my experience with Locked-In Syndrome or just my stroke in general, if you’re curious. I’ll do my best to give you a decent answer!