“…and I’m Lydia Magallanes,” the words caught in my throat as the opening graphic to the 5 o’clock news played one August evening in 2018. Panic began to rise from my chest, warming my neck and face. It felt like something was trying to escape from my body. Was I about to puke or cry … maybe both on live television? I held my breath as I strained my way through the script of the A block, a gasp of air threatening to burst from me. As soon as we went to commercial break, I ripped off my Lavalier mic and left the set without saying a word to my seasoned co-anchor, a longtime TV veteran, and to the cheery camera operator who had seen me breeze through hundreds of shows.
I rushed to the bathroom so I could privately fall apart. I caught my breath and looked in the mirror. Checked my pulse. Clutched my chest. Pressed my fingers into my abdomen, searching for pain. Surely, I was having a medical emergency.
There was a knock at the door. “Are you okay?” asked the assistant news director. “I think I had a bad salad at lunch,” I lied. I put the toilet seat down and sat there with my head in my hands, feeling betrayed by my own body. I had never frozen up like that on the job, never walked away, literally, from my responsibilities.
It was a Friday, and I floated through the rest of the evening, replaying the event in my head. I slept all weekend and called in sick that Monday. When I went to an Urgent Care, unsure of what my actual ailment was, I said I was having stomach pain. After recounting what happened to the doctor, she prescribed me something for anxiety.
The medicine did help me relax at night when I would ruminate about the panic attack. Was this going to happen again? Was I going to lose my job? I tried to move on with my life. But something had changed.
Although I never had a panic attack on the air again, I lived in fear of one. I was running from the boogeyman, peering under the bed and around every corner, expecting a monster to jump out at me. I had trouble sleeping, and it was often riddled with nightmares. Leaving the house for work most days became a blur of vomit and tears. It didn’t help that I had an hour-long commute. Everyday tasks like making calls, answering emails, and even interviewing people induced panic.
I made uncharacteristic mistakes like typos and forgetting the memory card for my camera. To my horror, I even used the wrong person’s picture in a crime story once, drawing a lot of warranted criticism for my error. I was ready to resign, convinced I should be kicked off the varsity team.
Obsessed with being the best, I often had emotional outbursts when I felt like my performance was poor. I was trying to go full throttle while running on fumes. In these moments of despair, I lashed out at my co-workers or hid in my edit bay to cry.
I was not okay. I had to get off this ride before I crashed and burned.