I was fifteen when it happened. It was summer break and I was home alone, waiting for my mom to get home from work. While I walking around my apartment I randomly sat down on the edge of the bathtub and started eating a bag of popcorn, and suddenly started choking on it.
I had swallowed it wrong and couldn’t breathe.
Of course, I immediately panicked and had no way to physically call for help and I knew I only had moments to save my own life so I pushed the food I’d eaten earlier that day up from my stomach and forced myself to throw up into the toilet.
The force of throwing up pushed the kernel right out of my windpipe and I was able to breathe again. I was crying and shaken up. I was also deeply traumatized at the realization that I had actually just come very close to what I personally believe is a very horrible death.
I was also disturbed at the fact that my mom wasn’t there and that had I died, I would’ve done it alone. My survival was left up to me and in one second I went from a teenager to my own lifesaver.
Although I was alive, everything about that ordeal left me terrified. So terrified, I didn’t even realize until writing this that I never even told my mom what happened to me that day (and she still doesn’t know).
When I woke up the next day, it was physically impossible to swallow my breakfast. In fact, I couldn’t swallow anything the next day. And the day after that…
for the next three years.
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I Had Panic Attacks Every Time I Swallowed Food
I lost the ability to swallow
The very next morning, when I woke up, I tried eating a piece of salami when I woke up, but I couldn’t. It was like I physically couldn’t swallow and my throat itself would spasm when I tried.
I was genuinely shocked and confused. I was also scared of choking again because I almost did. Later that day the same thing happened. This is when I realized something was wrong.
That day would go on to become many days and as my junior year of high school started I was scared this might now be my new normal since my throat felt like there was something consistently stuck in it that I couldn’t remove.
Only now, it even felt like it was starting to close up.
How was I going to get around eating in front of people?
As that feeling of choking persisted, I eventually became terrified of choking to death on my food, and therefore terrified of eating. This almost happened on numerous occasions because I panicked as I ate.
I could easily get away with not eating in school, school lunch is nasty and I could blame it on being too busy with schoolwork. But I still had to eat or I would actually die.
So, during this time I started brainstorming ways to keep myself alive. I made a list of foods that I felt safe enough to eat. I began surviving solely off of —
- canned soup (chicken noodle, cream of chicken/broccoli, and tomato)
- ice cream (vanilla, chocolate, cookies n cream)
- milk/silk vanilla soy milk
- Hershey bars
- mashed potatoes
- farina
- juice (especially apple)
- v8 juice
- and Nutrament
Yes.
This was my primary diet over the course of the next three years.
This was how I kept myself alive.
…
I Fainted From Starvation
My body started giving out on me
I remember getting up and going to the kitchen for some forgotten reason in the early morning hours of a school morning when suddenly I started seeing a bunch of little lights in my eyes that got brighter and brighter.
More and more of these lights filled up my eyes and I started feeling… off. Somehow I knew I was gonna pass out and managed to stumble as fast as I could from the kitchen stove to the hallway, by my mom’s bedroom door.
I used the last of the strength I had to yell her name loud enough to wake her up. When she responded I managed to scream for help before I went down. She got me up and back in bed. I came to shortly after, with her help.
She forced me to eat some eggs she made. I knew I had to eat but it was hard. However, I did manage to choke down a few pieces — with lots of juice to help me wash it down. It was then that I had to face how serious this issue had become.
My adrenaline kept me going
I didn’t realize it at the time but the adrenaline from the constant state of anxiety I was in over this situation was the energy keeping me going until it couldn’t. Up to that point, I had been able to highly function because of my anxiety.
It gave me supernatural energy that usually kept me going, but now the starvation was starting to catch up to me. At this point, I was 97 lbs, from my original 103 lbs.
I had lost enough weight that people began to notice. I was always small so weight loss would easily look drastic on me. Even my mom began to notice. One evening before I fainted she’d actually said to me,
You’re starting to look like a boy.
She meant well, I promise. She was just scared. She also thought I might’ve been anorexic, especially because it was becoming obvious I wasn’t eating virtually at all. And it definitely looked like I might’ve been.
But it wasn’t.
…
Something Was Stuck In My Throat
I was seen by multiple doctors
I started to believe that I had a recurring throat infection, and only once or twice did I actually have one. Aside from that, nobody had any concrete answers.
Over the next two years, I had throat cultures, antibiotic trials, and eventually x-rays of my throat taken — including a Barium Swallow Test. And still, they could not find anything medically wrong with me.
At this time, my mom worked at the hospital where I had the procedure done so she knew the medical professionals handling it. As they observed me this would be the first time any doctor suggested there was something going on with me emotionally.
And there was.
My father had just died some months prior of multiple myeloma
I was in a very abusive relationship with an older, abusive man who had preyed on me when I was sixteen. And I had just lost my kitten tragically.
Not once did I mention coming close to choking to death in my bathroom alone in the summer of 2009. I didn’t think it was important because my mind couldn’t connect how my emotions would create such a life-threatening physical condition.
Even worse, was the fact that everyone kept insisting that I wouldn’t stop breathing. But it felt like I was choking from the inside out. I couldn’t believe them, I honestly just reasoned that they didn’t know what I was feeling.
I was alone.
…
I Was Given a Diagnosis but Not A Helpful Solution
It happened during one very specific appointment
I walked in and collapsed at the front desk, gasping for air, convinced my throat was closing up on me. After checking my vitals twice, and talking to me, I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and given Xanax.
This didn’t help me too much because my anxiety wasn’t “general”. Nor was my fear “irrational”. It was a very real fear of dying the way I thought I would in the bathroom that day. Alone, terrified, and struggling to breathe — and doing so from choking.
My mind was perceiving food as a real-life threat because at that moment it was. There was food lodged in my throat and I almost died because of it. I never thought to share this information with them because I thought they were completely unrelated. But the trauma being the underlying reason for this issue was more apparent than I initially realized.
At this point, I was eighteen and in my first year of college. Still suffering from PTSD from a choking incident two years prior. Still left without any real information on the symptom that came as a result of it.
There was a real-life experience causing this anxious response. A very specific one, not a general one. And a pill was not going to cure that. I understand that they might be a valid solution for some, but I knew in my gut it wasn’t the answer for me.
So, left with no real answers and pills I wouldn’t take, I was back at square one. Now I was concerned with hiding my new reality from those around me.
…
My Quality of Life Changed Drastically
I opted to “eat” alone whenever possible
because half the time eating involved me chewing up my food and then discreetly finding ways to spit it out and store it somewhere until I could throw it out. Hoping no one around me noticed.
My quality of life changed drastically. No one seemed to understand that I wasn’t “nasty” or “sick”. People didn’t believe that I wasn’t trying to lose weight or that I hated food. Actually, everyone else seemed to have all the wrong answers while I was on my own to find the right one.
I was so ashamed I didn’t want to go on dates or out to eat with friends. Only with my mom because she didn’t judge me, or gave any indicator that she realized what I was doing, even though she was just as confused and as frustrated as I was about whatever was happening to me.
Something was wrong and no one knew what it was
Not even medical professionals. And even though I was just a teenager, I was now also on my own to figure this one out. Once again saving my own life was left solely up to me.
What really got to me was the fact that even though I didn’t struggle with an eating disorder, this one symptom was causing me to behave as if I did. This left me feeling very isolated because this symptom of anxiety has hardly any representation in the mainstream media.
I had no content to relate to and no medical professional to give me a name for it. And yet it existed. And I was the living proof that it did. I felt like my own personal patient zero, with no one to show me that I would “be okay”.
…
Photo by Danie Franco on Unsplash
People Thought I Had An eating Disorder
I was hungry and I wanted to eat
but because of my symptom, I found it almost impossible. Eventually, I lost so much weight, that nothing I wore fit me correctly and I began to develop habits to get rid of food if I was taken out to eat (or given food and couldn’t decline).
To hide my condition I would bring Tupperware and loads of napkins whenever my mom and I went out to eat so that I could chew the food in front of people and spit it out when no one was looking.
I knew it was gross and that whatever was going on was bad but I was ashamed and equally scared something was very seriously wrong with my health. And I didn’t want to die at the table.
I wanted to go back to normal
But every time I tried it felt like I was choking on the food, and I almost did numerous times. So, each time a plate came to the table for me the pressure was on and it was up to me to make it appear like I was eating.
It felt like all eyes were on me and it felt like everyone knew my secret and I’m sure a few did. In a way, I was able to see life through the eyes of someone who does struggle with an eating disorder.
That feeling you get when it’s time to eat is sinister. Especially when there are people around to watch you — a room full of strangers who might see your secret unfold.
It was this experience that actually taught me how intimate the act of eating really is. I couldn’t keep living like this. In fact, I knew I was going to die if I did. So, I got desperate and I turned to an unlikely “solution” to my problem.
Benadryl.
…
I Started Abusing Benadryl To Eat
I could never swallow pills
I either chew them up or let them dissolve in juice or water. I’ve always been that way.
This is how I discovered that if you chew a Benadryl up and swallow it without drinking anything the powder in the capsule creates a burning sensation that turns into a numbing sensation. Similar to Novocaine.
I would go on to pull my own tooth using this method and get my tongue pierced using this method, as well. It works. This would allow me to swallow some of my food. This is how I was able to begin eating soft solids like —
- macaroni n cheese
- soft cinnamon pretzels
- stir-fried vegetables
So, I started taking Benadryl to get my food down. Like I said I really did want to run the risk of eating but I was starting to look alarmingly sick, even to myself. And no doctors had found anything “real” wrong with me.
Plus, Benadryl is comprised of dopamine and antihistamine, making it the perfect “happy” pill for anxiety. So, in a way, I was solving the problem since the problem was labeled ‘anxiety’. At least, that’s how I tried to look at it. But I was creating another one — an addiction.
I was becoming an addict
I accidentally developed not only a compulsive impulse for its calming effects (antihistamine), which is known to alleviate anxiety attacks, but also a craving for the lightheaded joy (dopamine) it made me feel too.
I was getting high and I didn’t even know it because this was over the counter, so I didn’t see it that way. Plus, I wasn’t taking it to get high, I was taking it to eat. It numbed my throat so that it didn’t feel so tight, or like something was stuck in it.
This worked for me.
So, I made sure to keep a couple of Benadryl on me where ever I went. At all times. If I didn’t have one on me, I panicked and did whatever I could to buy a dollar pack at the deli.
Naturally, my tolerance easily began to build because I was using Benadryl every day to eat. Sometimes several times a day. I would chew them up and let the contents lay right in the back of my throat where I swallowed.
Once it began to burn as hot as I could stand it, I’d begin drinking water slowly until my throat felt entirely numb. This was how I was able to eat, sometimes. As I said, I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but it wasn’t an eating disorder. And it wasn’t a “general” fear.
It was actually very specific.
…
A New PTSD Replaced My Old PTSD
I had a new trauma to hyperfocus on
I was now 19 years old and had started to write again, after many years of writer’s block. I was well into college, the stress of adjusting to college life was behind me and a new fear of losing my mom had replaced my old one of dying myself.
My father had been dead for a little while and the PTSD of that began to show itself. When he died I had two months to go to graduate and didn’t actually have the time to mourn or grieve. His death was weird for me. I felt like I was a spectator in my own life during that period of time.
Once I got back to school, I hyperfocused (I have ADHD) on my grades and excelled. As soon as I graduated, I began summer classes at BMCC. I didn’t have time to hurt. My old life was changing, and I was focused on the changes and not the symptoms I had been suffering from for so long.
The issue resolved on its own
I was writing and worrying about losing my mom. I was feeling very vulnerable about having no one left in the world besides myself if I were to lose her too.
When my father died a sense of protection fell away from my life that has never been replaced. That feeling has never gone away because when you lose your father you do lose a sense of protection. Because he isn’t there to protect you.
I began to write about that in my creative classes. I began to pour out all of my pain and without realizing it I began eating again. I actually hadn’t noticed until I realized I had finished some Chinese food in its entirety, after class one day. And I did it in front of people.
I was shocked, I was grateful, I was proud of myself but even more than that I was relieved. The fear resolved more and more each time I ate successfully and as long as I continued writing.
That knot in my throat had gone away, I was gaining my weight back (slowly) and was now able to go back to being a normal teenager. It would take me another nine years to get the missing piece of this puzzle,
the name of the symptom.
…
This Symptom Had A Name
I was diagnosed with anxiety — but not a key symptom of it
Sometime last year I learned that that choking sensation I was feeling actually has a name, Globus Pharyngeus.
According to Medical News Today, Globus Pharyngeus is,
a non-life-threatening condition characterized by a persistent feeling that something is lodged in the throat and can also lead to significant health anxiety, since people with this sensation may worry they are choking or about to choke.
This same article goes on to list anxiety as the first reason for this sensation. The issue is none of the doctors I saw made any mention of it. Considering it is tied to anxiety and I was given an anxiety-related diagnosis, I was surprised. I was diagnosed with anxiety, but not a key symptom of it.
Yet, I had it. I always knew I wasn’t just imagining my symptoms but when doctors ran out of answers one of them labeled me a “hypochondriac” which was a very lonely feeling when I knew something very real was going on.
Had it been given a name, by a medical professional, the symptom would’ve been easier to grasp because then I would’ve known it wasn’t life-threatening. eased up significantly. Although what could have taken my life was my inability to eat, and swallow food.
Had my experience been validated and had I honestly told someone what I went through that day when I almost choked to death in my house, I don’t believe I would have suffered as long as I did. I wouldn’t have spent so many years stumbling towards the right answer.
I just didn’t have the information I needed.
Now that I do I am telling my story because someone is going through the very same thing, and they need to know they’re not dying. They need to know what is happening to them. They need to know the name of what is happening to them.
Globus Pharyngeus.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Olenka Kotyk on Unsplash