I don't go to bed till about midnight, and some of my West Coast Diaryland buddies are night owls as well. When they update late at night (like Blue Opal will occasionally do), I want to read it right then. So last night I checked both Blue Opal's and BoXx's pages and attempted to leave a comment for both.

HaloScan didn't like me, not one bit.

This has been happening quite a bit lately, but I've chalked it up to HaloScan crapping out on me. It's a free service, so I can't complain too much. But it's been a bit frustrating.

I just figured I would check again in the morning.

This morning I went back to Blue Opal's page, as well as BoXx's, to leave the comments I hadn't been able to leave last night. I still was having problems, and this time it was so severe that it took forever to load anyone's page that used HaloScan, and once it did load, I wasn't able to see the comments link.

Grrrr.

Finally I got a notice from Norton's saying that my machine was being hacked by a particular IP address, and I figured out that every time I posted a comment, I was getting this error. Norton's wasn't allowing me to post comments! I tried to add that IP address as a Exclusion, but that didn't help. Then I turned off AutoBlock. That didn't help either. The only way I was successful in posting a comment was by shutting off the Intrusion Prevention service in entirety.

Then I had this huge red mad icon in my taskbar telling me that Norton's wasn't fully protecting my computer.

*sigh*

I called my dad, but he doesn't use this version of Norton's, so I finally got on a live chat with a Norton's customer service rep. To call someone live would have cost me $10. What a racket. Anyhow, the rep suggested that I download the newer version of Internet Security.

In the midst of removing Norton's, I checked my page and added a comment for testing purposes, and voila! (Not "walla," Purple Chai! See, I know how to spell it RIGHT!), it worked. I don't know why it all of a sudden started to work, but it did.

So now I have the new version of Norton's Internet Security, probably for no good reason, and life is good again.

The problem?

I had a panic attack in the midst of all this.

Maybe y'all would think I'm goofy for having panic attacks over just a computer snafu, but the computer is my lifeline. It's how I communicate with my husband, my family, and my friends. My phone doesn't ring... but my email notification pings to tell me someone's thinking about me. So I need a working computer in order to stay in contact with folks.

And if HaloScan isn't working, how am I going to stay in contact with my other Diaryland friends??

My panic attacks aren't just mental; they manifest themselves physically as well. I asked my dad what he did when he got them, but he doesn't get panic attacks, per se. He just gets really pissed off and angry.

When I have a panic attack, my muscles get weak. My limbs tremble. My heart pounds and beats faster. I start to twitch. I even get diarrhea (TMI, I know).

I don't get them very often. The last time I had a bad one was when my computer went south on me about a year and a half ago. My IE on the old computer became corrupted and I had to backdoor nearly everything I wanted to do on the internet. Not fun.

But I'll have mini ones where I just obsess over something that's happened in my life. I was worried about one of my friends possibly being angry at me, and instead of being able to sink myself into my novel before bed like I normally do, I kept having to reread paragraph after paragraph to know what was going on. I was so distracted by my problem.

So I've got to figure out what I can do to minimize the effects of a panic attack. I've been told, "Go do something else!" Unfortunately that doesn't work; I still obsess mentally about the problem while I'm trying to distract myself.

I think once Kurt gets home I am going to go see a doctor, and if I need a referral to a mental health physician, then that's where I'm going to go. I need to learn some skills to deal with my panic attacks because I don't like having them.

Besides, a happy momma is a good momma, so I need to keep this momma happy!