I
t became clear to Horwitz and his family in the days that followed that he had suffered a panic attack and, when he arrived back home in Baltimore, the episodes didn’t stop. He estimates that at one point he faced as many as five or six attacks per day, before the frequency slowly decreased to three to four per day and then two to three. “It was a rough couple weeks,” he says.
Horwitz met with doctors and was prescribed medication to help manage the attacks. He also began attending group therapy sessions, which helped him understand he wasn’t alone and that others were dealing with similar issues.
Different theories exist within the family about what initially sparked Horwitz’s struggles, but everyone agrees he was dealing with a severe issue that could have halted his baseball career altogether.
The gym was always Horwitz’s safe space, but after the attack in Chatham he initially resisted going back for fear of experiencing another episode. He felt the same way about the baseball diamond. August came around and, though Horwitz was feeling better, he still found it hard to be alone because he was constantly scared of spiralling and still unsure what had caused the attacks in the first place — and what might bring them on again.
