For Better and For …

What my ordeal taught me about my marriage.

Cindy Baum

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On May 27, 1978, my husband Brad and I said our wedding vows, promising to stay together through sickness and health, for better or worse. As a young college couple we never seriously considered that the "worse" or "sickness" would really happen. But it did.

It was a quiet Labor Day weekend in our small Indiana town. Between interruptions from our four children, we had been painting walls in a new addition to our house and trying to watch a Notre Dame football game. I was sitting in the living room when I suddenly felt light-headed and my heart began to race. My arms tingled and I felt short of breath. A panicked call to my doctor revealed that I was probably reacting to paint fumes and needed to get fresh air.

The Monday after that, while waiting in line at the grocery store, the symptoms returned out of the blue. I managed to complete the transaction and get to my car, but I drove home crying and praying I would be okay while gripping the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles turned white. This time my doctor said to come in. By Wednesday I was in the emergency room with a racing heart, chest pain, and a choking feeling in my throat. Tests determined that it wasn't a heart attack, as I imagined, but a classic panic attack.

I was given tranquilizers to calm the symptoms, and I assumed that it would end, now that I knew it was nothing serious. Instead, it was the beginning of a frightening year of dealing with panic disorder, an anxiety disorder that affects 23 million Americans.

We aren't sure what triggered the panic disorder. Perhaps it was the paint fumes. Or perhaps it was due to a build-up of stress. Over the previous six years, we lost my husband's father and sister and both of my grandparents; we had an unexpected pregnancy and discovered one of our daughters had dyslexia. Just weeks before the symptoms appeared, our youngest child entered school, leaving me home alone for the first time in eighteen years. And, at the same time, our eldest daughter entered her senior year of high school, and plans for college kicked into high gear. The adjustments were probably more than I had anticipated.

In a matter of days, our lives had changed dramatically with no assurance that it would return to what we knew before. My husband and I were both bewildered by the disorder that changed me from an outgoing, happy person to a fearful and depressed one. As days turned into weeks, months, and even a year, the symptoms continued, appearing suddenly while at the movie theater or at dinner with friends. Often when I was at home doing normal, routine things, my heart would start to pound and my chest would feel tight, making it difficult to breathe. And just as I had to make adjustments, so did Brad.

At first, I was too afraid to drive or go to school functions or church, so he became "taxi dad" for the kids and attended their events alone. The kids didn't understand why I wasn't able to go, but Brad never blamed or demeaned me, even when he didn't understand why I was afraid. He felt helplessness more than anger or inconvenience.

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Originally published in: Marriage Partnership, 2001, Fall

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