Kerry Washington Developed ‘Panic Attacks at Night’ When She Was 7 Due to Her Parents’ Arguing

usmagazine.com:

Kerry Washington is opening up about her life in her new memoir, Thicker Than Water — and she’s leaving no detail untold.In an excerpt shared by Oprah Daily on Wednesday, August 9, the actress, 46, revealed that her parents’ strained relationship led her to develop “panic attacks at night” at the age of 7.“They manifested first as a rhythm of anxiety that encircled my brain, then evolved into a rapid pulsing, a whirling frenzy of metallic thumps, like those nauseating old spinning rides at a county fair,” she wrote of the attacks, describing them as “an internal beat” and “rhythms of my heart.”Washington recalled trying to “turn [her] brain off” whenever she sensed an attack coming. “But it would take hold in my fascia, then work outward through my muscles and tendons.

Sometimes, I would rock my body back and forth, vibrating, rattling, trying to drown out the pulsing noise and regain control of my body,” she wrote. “Sometimes I would put my head under a pillow, trying to ignore the fact that the torture was coming from within me.

But only exhaustion would override the rhythm, lulling me to the dream state beyond my fears.”After another night of laying in her bed while her parents — Earl and Valerie Washington — fought, Kerry decided she’d had enough. “I went out into the living room and yelled, ‘Stop!

Please stop!’” she shared, adding that it was only the second time she had ever seen her mother cry.The moment was significant for Kerry, who said her mom envisioned a different life for herself. “She was supposed to have 2.5 kids, a couple of nice cars, and a schedule filled with service to her community and her family,” Kerry wrote. “She had wanted to create a world that was different from the one she grew up in.