Remembering My First Panic Attack
Witch Trials, Fights and Flights: A Ramble About My Unique Plight As A Gifted Child
I’m watching an excellent National Geographic docuseries about witch hunts (from the Puritans in Salem, Massachusetts, back to their origins in Germany), and I am reminded of an incident from my seventh grade English class. We were a few days into reading The Crucible, by Arthur Miller.
For some perspective, I lived in the school library and took almost any opportunity to be there. I’m just now making the connection between my curiosity-driven (but maybe mostly hypomania-driven) compulsions to hyper-fixate and get to the bottom of topics that have piqued my interest, and the way it manifested in a pre-Wikipedia, pre-Google world. At that time in my life, those interests ranged from folklore, space, insects, frogs, aliens and the occult. Full disclosure: at that time, I was a believer in the ufo/alien cultural frenzy. Whitley Strieber’s Communion was probably my favorite book at the time. Honestly, the man may be a total crank, but he’s a compelling writer and I might actually revisit that book now with a better understanding, and healthy skepticism, of ufo and alien abduction phenomena.
I cannot remember where I initially learned the following information about fungus growth on grains, specifically wheat and rye, but there I was, unraveling a chain of new conclusions I’d jumped to which I thought valuable enough to share with my teacher (who probably heard my voice for the first time that day). I made sure to get there early, because I had solved the mystery. Here’s a list of the information that I conveyed to my teacher that fateful afternoon:
(note: I’m fact-checking these bits of info as I go, but it seems like the trauma I experienced on that day sharpened my memory, because it all checks out so far).
I began with a lesson in biochemistry:
The fungus: Claviceps purpurea
Where it grows: wheat and rye
The symptoms: sensations of burning, convulsions, hallucinations and other behaviors seen in people suffering from psychosis
Causes: eating contaminated food—in this case, bread
I then related my findings to the historical events upon which The Crucible is based. Learning about ergotism and the possibility of getting it from contaminated cellar bread led me to the conclusion that maybe these little girls, Abigail and Betty, who were not only physically ill, but also telling fantastical tales about the devil and magic rituals, may have been tripping bawlz.
(A note from Editor Michael: Even though it was the reading of the play, The Crucible, that inspired me to learn about ergotism, I put about zero effort into avoiding conflating the play, which was a fictionalized account of the 17th century witch panic, with the real life events of that era. It doesn’t help that the characters were based on real people. You can untangle those weeds in this excellent breakdown by Margo Burns, a Historian whose specialty focuses on the witch trials of Salem.)
So, let’s imagine an adolescent Michael telling the teacher all of the above in about three neuronally disorganized sentences. Maybe there was a brief back and forth. I don’t remember. I just remember the reception being sentimentally similar to, “Wow, I never heard that before. Very cool. We should probably forget all of your class-cutting and refusal to do any assignments, and instead shuffle you out of the room with a permanent A+ in English, and while we’re at it, in history and chemistry. Skip college and just go play your guitar! Skateboard with your friends! You finished! You win at life and you are no longer required to participate!”
Anyway, let’s get back to the trippin-ass children of 17th century Salem.
In ergotism, the toxic and psychoactive alkaloids in question are chemically similar to the synthetic psychedelic hallucinogen, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD).
Modern farming practices have nearly eliminated ergotism, but there are still occasional outbreaks in developing nations.
Here’s some information I’m learning in real time, that I didn’t know back when my story took place (partially because some of these arguments were made after my middle school days.) While there is still some debate about the potential role ergotism played on these events in Salem, the hypothesis is most likely false due to several factors:
Ergot poisoning has additional symptoms that were not reported by those claiming affliction.
If the poison was in the food supply, symptoms would have occurred on a house-by-house basis rather than in certain individuals. Abigail Williams and Betty Parris were cousins, and lived under the same roof, but no one else in the household shared their experiences. This would include the Minister Samuel Parris, his wife Elizabeth Eldridge, their other two kids (siblings to Betty) Thomas and Susannah, and the minister’s slave Tituba, an indigenous woman from Barbados.
Biological symptoms do not start and stop based on external cues, as described by witnesses, nor do biological symptoms start and stop simultaneously across a group of people, also as described by witnesses.
I said this was about a panic attack, didn’t I?
The teacher genuinely did seem to be interested in this bombshell I unveiled before him, all jokes aside. After all, I just confirmed what he probably suspected all along— the quiet and aloof Sabino kid is pretty fucking smart. In fact, he was so impressed that within minutes of my classmates filing in, he asked me to share what I told him. Thi sis w hereit g etsab itfu zzy. As I began to speak, I realized that there was no air in my lungs with which I could push out my words. My face got cold, and I felt beads of sweat emerge from the back of my neck and forehead. I became aware of my pulse, which quickly started to pound. This was it. I was about to die at my desk, and the best I could do was place my face into my hands that rested on my desk at the elbows— my arms felt like they were gonna give out, somewhere halfway between weak and numb. Right at the peak of whateverthefuck was happening to me, I found the resolve to ask if I could go to the nurse. That I had become suddenly ill was probably very easy to believe at that moment. Based on the chatter that ensued as I collected myself and my belongings, the classmates sounded concerned. Someone remarked that my lips turned white. Somewhere in between the moment Husar said “yes” to me getting out of there and me getting out of there, I was already feeling the relief travel from my legs up to my face. I found my footing and walked out of the classroom and into the nurse’s office. Before long, I was picked up and brought home.
The rest of my school years were defined by the *very real scientific fact* that if I was ever called on, or needed to say more than four or five words aloud in the classroom, I was going to straight up fucking die. Even though my panic disorder and social anxiety are now being pretty well managed, I feel the occasional ripple, sent to me from decades past, reminding me to stop and consider whether my next move, my next WORD, will be the one that drops me dead where I stand.
Special thanks to my favorite SSRI, sertraline. Love you.