Crash Into Me_ A Survivor's Search for Justice - Liz Seccuro [32]
In the next few weeks, still suffering intermittent, milder attacks, I started seeing my therapist more frequently. I stayed home from work. One afternoon I switched on the television. The Oprah Winfrey Show was on, and the focus of the program that day was panic disorders. A woman about my age was tearfully describing her symptoms and medical journey. She had the rapid heartbeat, the fear, the feeling of going crazy, the lack of medical explanation, and the battery of tests, and had morphed into an agoraphobic, someone who never leaves the house. My jaw dropped—it mirrored my story exactly. An expert came on and spoke of these “panic attacks” as part of an anxiety disorder closely related to or coexistent with post-traumatic stress disorder. It was, he said, the body’s way of dealing with distress or trauma that was locked away. It could strike anyone, but mostly it struck people who had been victims of domestic, sexual, or child abuse, those who had witnessed violence, war veterans, victims of crime where bodily harm took place, and so forth. He went on to explain that the first attack usually struck in a patient’s twenties or thirties and that the average sufferer saw sixteen different health professionals before getting the proper diagnosis and treatment. I literally ran to call my therapist. Her secretary told me I could come first thing in the morning. The next morning I felt better than I had in weeks, as I burst into my therapist’s office.
I told her about the Oprah show, and what I had learned about panic disorder, and she said that she had begun to suspect that might be what I had. She didn’t stop me or tell me to slow down. She said that the long-buried trauma of my rape, combined with my abusive marriage and divorce proceedings, probably triggered the attacks. She ordered me off caffeine and all stimulants, told me to practice deep breathing and meditation, and gave me a prescription to treat my anxiety and the acute attacks.
Gradually, my life renewed itself. I still had attacks every so often, but with the medication, I felt in control. Tom and I took a vacation in Mexico, and I returned to work feeling much better.
And then things changed all over again.
A few months later, Tom accepted a career-changing transfer to Philadelphia to be an apprentice to Chef Michel Richard, of Citron and Citronelle fame. I decided it was time for me to move on as well. Serendipitously, a former colleague and dear friend called me about a job opening as a sales manager at the historic Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington, D.C. I jumped at the chance to work with old friends and to change my landscape. I still visited Tom in Philadelphia when I could, but increasingly he felt just like a supportive best friend. I moved in with a friend on Capitol Hill and I settled into a new routine, determined to make a fresh start in a new city. Friends old and new helped bring me out of my fearful shell. I began to go out again—to the store, the gym. I was no longer agoraphobic. I was making progress and was so grateful to have the beginning of a genuine life again.
In June of 1996, after a business trip to New York, I disembarked from the Amtrak train at Union Station in Washington. I called my roommate to ask for a ride home, but he explained he was hosting a dinner party. Could I take a cab home? Not really wanting to go home to a party in full swing after a long business trip, I opted to wait it out and grab a bite to eat at the round restaurant and bar in the center of the station. I ordered a sandwich and a glass of wine, then took out my planner and jotted notes from my sales calls in New York. Looking up from my notes, I noticed a young, strikingly handsome man sitting about six seats away at the bar. He was looking