managing anxiety and panic attacks through writing

in this week's episode, i chat with poet dominique rossi about managing anxiety and panic attacks, how writing can help your mental health and getting started with it as a beginner, generational trauma & mental health, and much more!

plus, we give you a small step to try out this week!

about dominique:
Dominique Rossi is a lawyer and political advisor. She has previously worked as a journalist and a domestic violence survivor advocate. Her articles have appeared in magazines including Bitch, Adbusters, and Northwest Travel. Rossi’s hobbies include international travel, reading and embroidery. Originally from Chicago, she now lives in the Pacific Northwest with her partner, dogs, and chickens.

Her book, Salt Chorus
Her Instagram

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Transcript

Shelby: Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of Small Steps to Self- love. My name is Shelby Leigh. I am a mental health writer and poet and advocate and I am here today with Dominique and we met through a poetry class. I think it was a poetry class that we both took online virtually, and that's how we first met. Each other and since then I think we've just connected and I believe you're a part of the Poetry Club now, which is really awesome too, and so great getting to know you better and read your amazing poetry. She is super talented so I would love to just have you introduce yourself and talk a little bit about your writing and anything else you want to share.

Dominique: Yeah, thanks and also I want to say how much I'm loving this podcast. I definitely binged all of it and also the poetry group. It's really nice to have sort of a community of support from folks. My background, so in the daytime I work as a political advisor and then I'm definitely like a creative. At night I used to work as a freelance journalist for a few years. Turns out it's not like a great way to keep health insurance and things, so I ended up going to law school, but I always. Writing has just always been sort of my passion and. Yes, I've met Shelby through a writing class in 2020. I just sort of got back into, you know, keeping journals nonstop and then I was like what are we doing with all this? Maybe I should try and publish it and so I took the collection of stuff that I'd worked on for about two years and I'm published my first chapbook, salt chorus in June, and it's been really lovely hearing from folks about you know how it's impacted them or how they felt seen and. Yeah, I'm super honored by the reception that it's received, so I'm glad to be here and sort of diving into poetry and mental health and that Nexus.

Shelby: Yeah, I love that it's so wonderful. Your journey and the fact that we were able to meet in this class 'cause I have taken some like formal writing classes in college, but not so much after. So I just happen to be like I'm going to take this and see what happens so.

So we were able to meet and there were so many other great poets in the group too. So being that you write about mental health and this is a mental health podcast, could you just tell us a little bit about the mental health topics that you cover a little bit about your own mental health journey self-love journey. All of that.

Dominique: Yeah, so I think the journey first is like so well, both of my parents struggle with mental health issues. I think I didn't really. Like no, that I also had mental health issues as a kid because. It was like, we're all a little bit… we all have anxiety and panic attacks, but certainly I think around I want to say 6th grade 7th grade, uh my you know my mental health struggles started to accelerate a little bit, so I struggled with some like obsessive compulsive disorder, so I've always had a thing around like opening and closing doors. And it became clear to me that that wasn't a really common thing, that people aren't always doing that, and I'm. And so I think I wanted to be proactive about it. I realized how it could impact your your life, especially around, I kind of feel like anxiety is like this shadow thing and so is obsession and compulsion. If you look it in the eye, it's a little bit easier. To move forward with, but if you're kind of trying to ignore it, it's just sort of growing. And so you know, I started to be proactive about it. I got into therapy and you know have used medications off and on. But and then certainly writing has always been. The solace that place where I felt like I could sort of cage intrusive thoughts and cope, I think. Basically, as long as I can remember being able to read and write I was writing. For myself, stories to sort of like self soothe and get it all out on the page and so. Uhm, yeah, the book explores a lot of that. It's a lot of exploring not only some sort of inherited mental illness, and like what does that mean and but also like panic attacks and some compulsion stuff. And it was certainly super vulnerable to put it out there.

You know, especially I think we live in this space where I really appreciate people like you like working to tackle the stigma. Uhm, because I think it still definitely exists out there. It's like so many people I know live these successful professional lives. And then you know they'll read my book or something and come to me on the side and be like I struggle too and I'm like yeah but none of us feel like we can like talk about it or be open and I want this to be a space, the book, for people to feel seen and know that it's OK and like. There's another 12-year-old out there who's like what is wrong with me? Turns out you're going to be. OK, so.

Shelby: Yeah, that's a great message. Yeah, I noticed that you said you write to cage intrusive thoughts and I wanted to talk about that because I always say like writing is my way of like letting it free, like letting it out. It's kind of like an opposite, and I'm just curious about that phrase and like kind of how you envision that happening. As you're writing, I'm just curious.

Dominique: I think that for a long time it was like trying to avoid those thoughts and then, if you sort of give in to them they can spiral out, and so the caging for me is like, well, I'm just going to put it all down on the page and it lives here and the scope of it is sort of contained in the parameters of this page and so I guess it's like it's two sides of the same coin, like it's freeing and they're like, OK, I'm not going to push these thoughts out of my head. But also I'm like, alright, now that it's on the page like, maybe it's not as big and hard to overcome as I thought.

Shelby: Yeah no, that makes sense. I like that visual of it. Kind of being like trapped on the page almost, but it's out of your brain. I don't know. It's kind of interesting.

Dominique: Yeah, exactly. It's like an exorcism a little bit more.

Shelby: I love that. Would you like to share a poem of yours from the book, or maybe not from the book. Whatever you want to share.

Dominique: Yeah, so I think like to share one from the book and I can sort of read it and then talk. About it a little bit. So this is from my book salt chorus and it's called. I come from a long line of brains miswired. Sicilians, who charted their course on chimeras, a succession of Straiges, sinking shadow monsters in grappa, imbued with gaudy crosses, racing pulses, brittle tempers. I am the last daughter to spin Maelstrom into song. On bright days, the salt chorus is silent. I dream the wires rectify. The only voice I hear is my own. Then Sila cries out six, snarling, snakeheads, compelling me to cleave. The nail off every toe. Witnessed my edges bleed out into old world shoes.

Shelby: So I remember you reading that one. I love how you used the Sicilian like I don't know, like language. Yeah, it's very like familiar to me and I just love the imagery in that piece, but I'd love to hear your explanation of it or whatever you want to share about.

Dominique: So I think that that one really is tapping into sort of the heritage piece of, you know, when you know that unfortunately, there is a genetic component to mental illness and not. It's just so. Of looking at those pieces that I know that I inherited from other people. So like my grandfather is from Sicily, so that's where a lot of those images came from. I was named after him and just you know my parents and certainly my grandparents came from a generation where you just kind of ignore those things. And this is about sort of, you know, when you say I'm the last daughter to spin maelstrom into song is sort of like, OK well this. Like maybe unhealthy coping mechanisms and like ignoring our mental health is going to like end with me and move forward. And I also pulled the title of the book from that poem Salt Chorus, and that for me was. Referencing a book called Chorus of Stones, which I found to be really powerful which talked about intergenerational trauma and particularly that one was about how like war impacts different generations, even if you're not the one and your generation didn't experience it, and I was thinking about that and sort of so in that context, the chorus of stones is, you know, every piece in the lineages, every person and I was like, well, what is what would mine be? If the family is a chorus, and so that's where the salt chorus came from. Obviously you know Sicily is an island, and so just sort of the ocean elements, but then also salt being tears and yeah. Salt also being like vital to our blood and everything.

Shelby: Interesting, did the title salt chorus come before that poem? Or did you write that poem and then realize you wanted to name the collection?

Dominique: The poem came first. I was not, I had like a couple different working titles that I wasn't in love with and so I really put off naming it until the end and then I was like I'm gonna pour back through the book and 'cause I didn't set out with any themes, I was just sort of letting my brain run wild. Of course, when I got to the end I was like, oh there's definitely themes here like mental health and nature. And so that was like, oh, this little line, that was just sort of like, I thought self-referential to me that I was like oh this actually encapsules the whole thing I'm looking at.

Yeah, that's how it worked with me too for changing with the tides. I wrote the whole book had some titles that I didn't like. And then went back through it and was like this line really kind of summarizes the book well. Or, you know, has the themes that I want to share. So it's always interesting hearing how other people come up with the title. And that it ends up speaking to you as you go through the process.

Shelby: Right, yeah, exactly for my book coming out in January I came up with the title first and then wrote around it, which is something I hadn't done before, but I was. Like I need this title, I need it.

So it worked, but yeah. So whenever you started writing 'cause you said that you've been writing for a while and using that as a creative outlet, was it always something that you felt was like a good coping mechanism for writing about your mental health? Or was it something where you didn't really realize until later on that you were using it as a coping mechanism?

Dominique: I think that's a good question. Uhm, definitely in the beginning I didn't realize that I was using it as a coping mechanism I think. I've always had like a hyper imagination for better or for worse, and uhm, you know when things were harder in my childhood, I would certainly write like these very fanciful stories. That was, like me, sort of living in my own dream world. And that was the first iteration of that coping mechanism. When my own mental health issues started to be more prominent was when I switched to poetry and more direct journaling. And that was something that certainly was encouraged. Yeah, throughout therapy and stuff and it was just sort of always that outlet and then. It was my passion, but I was cognizant. I think at the time I was like, well, people don't really read poetry. But I do think there's a renaissance coming and you're a big part of that.

Shelby: Thank you.

Dominique: This was like the early 2000s, so I'm just like, well, what can I do with writing that is still using it, but maybe isn't poetry and that's when I shifted to journalism. And then in law school, which is, the least creative writing you could possibly do.

So I think I was like no, it's not fun for me unless it's creative and so I switched career paths and then always kept writing and poetry is sort of my own personal little thing. And then during the pandemic when we met in that class, I had just started journaling again, profusely and I had, you know, just multiple journals full. And I started thinking about what if I put this out there and again, what if something like this had existed when I had started struggling? And so that kind of gave me the courage. And now I sort of own it as like. Yeah, you might not like poetry, but some people really do, and I do.

Shelby: Like that's what I say too. But I love that. Uhm, if someone were to want to get started writing either poetry or just journaling as you mentioned, as a way of coping, what would you give them as a recommendation or a tip for getting started?

Dominique: I love that question, I think a couple of things. So first I think you really have to write for yourself in my opinion because if you have it in your head like oh, I want to put this out there at some point then the self editor is there immediately. So I think if you start from a place of no judgment, I'm just going to stream of consciousness, pour everything out, therapeutic stream of consciousness. And then if you want, you can eventually go back and pull things that you think will be. You know, uh, a cohesive narrative.

And that also means in that space, if you write just for yourself, then you're not worried about you know, what it's going to look like or the scope of like intimidation by your own thoughts I guess. So starting there and then, you know there's certainly reading poetry is the other piece of it. God, there's just so much. Obviously everyone knows that creative outlets have always had a Nexus with mental health, but I feel like poetry in particular is just so powerfully interlinked with that. I actually when we were talking about doing this podcast, I went down a research rabbit hole about mental health and poetry, and there's like entire psychiatric journals dedicated to it, and there was like an uptick of it during the pandemic, and 20% of people who did it said that it helped them like grapple with the pandemic and. So I think it'll you know, just not being too harsh with yourself in taking the poetry and then letting whatever comes out of you come out of you is really where I would recommend starting.

Shelby: Yeah, that's great advice and so interesting. I mean, obviously, I agree that writing and mental health are just very connected, but yeah, knowing that there's been studies about that with the pandemic and everything, it's really interesting. It doesn't surprise me that people have found it as a way to help, but it's great. It's wonderful that people are using that as an outlet. Well, I would love to close by reading another poem. I know you have one about I think panic attacks, and I would just love to hear that one. I remember that one from the book and just hear about what you were going through as you wrote that poem.

Dominique: Sure, yeah, pull it up. I have to check my own table of contents to remember where it is.

Yeah, so this one is called moonflowers. It happens in the hush of night in the eerie limbo between sleep and consciousness. My mind plays movies, my body reacts. Clutching the flannel sheets. Clawing at scabs. Suddenly I am completely awake. My breastbone constricts sweat pools in my palms. I remember the lump found in my dog's neck. How I can't stop myself from checking locks seven times? The sisters, I'll never know. What are three things you can touch? Heirloom emerald on my ring finger, satin pillow under my cheek, horse hairs of my partner's chest. Yet the wildfires are riding eastern winds towards us. Oyster spots can no longer calcify their shelves. And the scenes of walruses, goring polar bears ache in my memory. The choice we forced death by tusk or starvation. What are three things you can hear? Steady beat of the box fan, grumbling canine snores, rain beating down my grocery. Still, I screen my calls for that college stalker, three mass shootings in the last week, and every morning I roll down the window on Hawthorne Bridge, just in case the Cascadia Fault line finally liquefies this city. My watch beeps. A notification heart rate rocketing. I get out of bed, run cold water down my throat. What are three things you can see? Ceramic sink reflecting street lights, figs in the braided willow basket, row of potted pothos. It's 3:00 AM. I'm a fretful mammal on a planet, actively burning. And yet here is my good home. It smells of cinnamon, walls painted cornsilk, cabinets filled with tea, dried foods, pistachios. Outside my window the moonflowers open. Spread their pearl limbs along the pane each Midsummer evening without a single concern. I imagine the ghost vines sprouting into each cold crevice of my thoughts, teaching me to persist.

Shelby: Beautiful, beautiful, I love it. I still remember reading that one for the first time and I loved the repetition of like what are three things you can see, hear, touch. So good.

Dominique: Thank you yeah, so that's I think a pretty, I would say at this point, like a familiar grounding exercise and so I think this problem is. Encapsulating how a panic attack starts, maybe like on a small fixated thing, like how you're like, how does my dog have cancer? And then it sort of extrapolates out you spiral. For me. I struggle with a lot of climate grief, which I think was encapsulated in there and then. It's sort of talking you through the process of how you try and like ground yourself. So the three things I think people are familiar with and you can do it with all 5 senses you know for which you can see and touch and hear. And so this is just walking through like what that process looks like and then the anxiety is sort of trying to pull you back out and then ending in a place of for me nature is really the place that I find the greatest solace and inspiration, I mean. You know every animal that exists in nature is kind of, the odds are constantly stacked against them, and yet they're here living in each moment, not concerned about XYZ and so. That's the final place of like you're here in the now and then trying to own that and not where you're at right now is like good and safe and beautiful in some ways. And so that's the final place that I try to take solace in and then trying to extend that to the reader. It's like, yes, all these things are happening. They're awful and intimidating and very overwhelming, but we also have these really beautiful moments in our lives that are often found in nature or even just the comfort of your own home and not, you know, hoping that that helps ground the reader too.

Shelby: Yeah, I love that. I love that that just gave me an idea for like since you've listened to episodes you know I give like a small step to listeners each time so maybe writing down or thinking about like 3 beautiful moments today or this week or something you're seeing or hearing or touching that kind of grounds you and makes you maybe appreciate your day. I think that's a good one.

Dominique: Yeah, yeah and certainly if you know. Even just like I would encourage people to like, take a walk outside. I mean, I know that like touch grass is a meme now but like genuinely, there's like a peace that people can find, even if it's like, even if it's just a houseplant you know. I hope that can bring you a little bit of comfort.

Shelby: Yeah, yeah, I love that wonderful. Well, this has been so lovely. Thank you for being here. Where can our listeners and viewers find you and find your book?

Dominique: Yeah! So salt chorus is available as an ebook and as a paperback on Amazon, and you can find me on Instagram at domrom.com. Thanks, originally it was going dom.com was stolen which has been like my nickname for a long time and I was like OK well, you know, that works. And you know, I'm happy to connect with folks on there and just be a resource wherever I can. I know that you know, it's hard out there and I just. The poetry online community is a really great place for folks to come who are moving through these things to sort of find solace and know that they're not alone. And so I'm happy to be there for folks.

Shelby: I love that that's wonderful and I agree, the online writing community is just amazing. So thank you again for being here. I'll put the links to Dominique’s book and Instagram in the description as well so people can find you easier, but thank you again for being here.

Dominique: Thank you so much.

Shelby: Of course, alright everyone, I hope you have a wonderful week filled with self-love and kindness and compassion and I'll talk to you next week.