My Panic Attack----Alienmojo

My greatest fear has always been nuclear war. You may have noticed from a few of my posts. My fear had gotten so bad when I was younger that it presented itself in the form of a phobia. I was petrified of being in large open spaces. It reminded me of those films where you see a nuke going off in the desert. It also was worst at night. I could no longer go outside and look at the stars like I used to. In my mind's eye I would see the white hot flash of a bomb goings off and start to freak out. So my evening walks stopped.

In the Navy it presented itself to me when I was out on the flight deck at night. I would purposely walk around the maze of corridors within the ship rather than risk going topside to get where ever it was that I was going. However, sometimes I had no choice. Gus, my best friend would always make fun of me for this.

Gus was a signalman and his office was at the top of the ship on the 08 level. Basically 16 stories above the keel. Granted that most of those were below water so it was probably only 10 stories high to the eye. One night Gus called me in my office and told me there was something that he wanted to show me. I was hesitant to go up to the 08 this time of night, but after some persuading I finally agreed.

It was about midnight when I opened the hatch to the flight deck and started making my way towards the hatch that would lead up to the signal shack. Just as I was about 10 feet away from the hatch I saw what Gus had been wanting to show me. Heat lightning. At sea it is something else. It lights up the entire sky.

I collasped into a heap onto the deck. I could not move. I could not breathe. It was like the worst of my nightmares coming true. To me I was seeing a nuclear blast. They had to call the medics to come get me with a stretcher. After about 15 minutes inside I was back to normal. I had suffered a panic attack.

Gus never made fun of me again after that.