Angst, anxiety and fear
It was still dark all around me, but I finally wasn’t scared anymore. I did my breathing techniques for more than 20 minutes before my heart finally slowed down. I hadn’t had a panic attack for some months, but they always come back. I knew they would. No matter how well I think it’s going, I always come back to this place. It’s like a curse.
Yes, I know there could be worse things, much worse. But this is my life and the worst thing are my panic attacks. By far.
They used to be much worse. I used to have them everyday, like clockwork. I couldn’t escape them. Everyday something happened that would trigger one. I always felt them coming. I always knew beforehand how much they would hurt. This pain would form in my chest. Like I was carrying a 100 pound weight in my heart. My breath would shorten. I would see dark spots. I tried as much as I could to get away from people and hold onto something. Sometimes I was at home and I could get to my bed, but other times I was in the middle of a shopping mall. As you can imagine, it wasn’t fun. Yes, I hate them.
Not in the beginning though. I am almost ashamed to admit that in the beginning when I started to experience them I wanted them to come more. Now, please, any fellow people who experience panic attacks like these, don’t be offended. I wouldn’t wish this upon anyone, but I have to be honest here. Otherwise, what’s the point of telling the story? I have always been painfully normal. I have a bland, ordinary life with a standard childhood and no exroardinay high school stories whatsoever. All those American movies about the coming of age of teenagers who undergo the most amazing transformations and get a ton of friends or a partner they stay with for the rest of their lives? I never had any of that and boy, did I want it. I wanted so badly to be special that I fitted even better in the stereotypical description of a teen. But that’s hindsight, you know.
I never liked high school, but until the end I hoped to experience at least something like I’d seen in the movies. I had already given up being anyone important at the prom. The crown was definitely not in my reach. I also did not count on a very special sports performance or a beautiful romantic story. At the very least I hoped to get any sort of metamorphosis. Just to be able to turn into someone completely different. So that people would look up and say something like: “Wow, when did that happen?” Maybe I would have left school with the knowledge that in college at least some people might want to be seen with me. But no such luck. I was exactly the same when I left. But I did leave knowing the difference between their, there en they’re, so there’s that.
Sometimes I just really wish I could be perfect. I would really like strive to flawlessness. At least then I would know that there is a purpose, a goal that I could strive to. I wish there would have been an end to work towards. I would have a carved out path to walk in. But no, of course there is no such luck for us humans. I have to find my own path. And what’s more, not only find it, I have to blaze it myself. If I want to walk a certain way and there are obstacles.. Well, I’m fucked, ain’t I. In a situation like that I have three options, get through the obstacle, find a way around it or abandon the path all together. And even if I choose the difficult path and come out on the other side, I still won’t be anywhere near perfect. I’ll still be human.
You know, human nature really is terrible. Like, I don’t hate it, but I do. Nobody has any idea what they're doing. Like any at all. We are all just born and thrown into an educational system that hasn’t changed in the last hundred years. And we’re just expected to find out exactly what we want to do and who we want to be in a mere 15 years or so. Less even, when you take into account that we only really become aware of ourselves and of the world around us by the age of seven. Not a lot of time to figure shit out. Especially not with the enormous amount of choices we have. Most of us could literally do anything in the twenty-first century. So how will we ever choose?
I say most of us, because I definitely haven’t forgotten the many children (and adults too, but I mostly pity the kids) that are underprivileged. Who live in a strict household, or in a country where the possibilities are considerably less. I have no idea what it’s like to grow up in an environment where I cannot get the most out of my potential and my life. I am very fortunate, I know. And yet, we in the Western hemisphere do not practice as much gratitude as we should, myself included. We mostly just take our entire life for granted. Right up until the point that it goes wrong. And then we ask in despair why it had to be us that were punished. As though we could not see it coming had we paid attention. Most people don’t pay attention anymore, but that’s a whole other story.
Let’s get back to this one. So the moral of this story is that I don’t have a fucking clue what to do. I am just standing in the middle of a jungle and there is not a single way out as far as I can see. I do see snippets of paths through the vines. Perfectly good ways out of here, paved and all. But I don’t take them and you probably know why. This analogy is cute, but very straightforward. I don’t want to take the paths because they do not lead me to where I want to go. There is the path of the safe and steady 9 to 5. One secure way all the way down to your grave. Adventure and uncertainty is a scarcity on that path. The path is so well maintained, the only thing missing are fences so that there is no way you will be able to swerve from the path. There are lights, road signs and the occasional patrol whom you can ask for information. When you set foot on a path like that you can see all the way to the end. It’s a straight line until you arrive at the finish line.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s just not for me. And I’ve been on paths like that a couple times in the past. And everytime I get this constricted feeling in my chest. But it’s harder and harder to get off. ‘Cause it’s just so damn safe. And no matter how much I hate it, a part of me still craves certainty.
There are a lot of people out there who are plenty happy in their 9 to 5 path, and I am happy for them. It’s great to just know what you want and to go for it. That’s all I want for myself. But my path finding is a little bit more difficult, not that I’m saying that it’s harder or anything. The only thing different is the initiative that goes into it. And a little motivational thing. You see, blazing a path of your own takes trust and confidence in yourself. Feeling like that isn’t the hard part, but feeling like that everyday enough to keep on making the path, is. We’re humans, our emotions are fleeting. We never feel the same two days in a row. Our confidence in ourself will change more times than a fashion icon’s outfits. The same feeling simply will not come back around. It changes as we change, it grows as we grow.
In our lifetime we will encounter numerous setbacks and failures. We will hate ourselves, cry ourself to sleep and we will want to stay in pyjamas on the couch forever. In my case, preferably with an enormous tub of chocolate ice cream. It’s not easy being a human, we all know that. There will be a lot of doubt in our lives, and that’s okay. It’s getting though when, even though we’d rather just fade into our houses, we have to get up to work. And not just ‘get your but to the office’-work, but find cliënts, take in (and finish) jobs, find out what your next step is going to be.
My ego is mostly getting in the way of all that. Mainly my fear of failure and my fear of feeling shame. I want to keep up appearances, whatever it takes. I want my family to have a certain image of me, the people with whom I work and predominantly myself. I have a certain picture of myself in my mind and I want to keep it that way. Thing is, I cannot keep it that way. I have to accept that I too make mistakes. Not only that, but I have to accept that I need to make mistakes. That I have to make them in order to grow. I will never achieve what I set out to achieve without getting it wrong a time or two. I need to be okay with that. I tell myself that it’s my surroundings who aren’t okay with it, when really it’s me who is having a hard time.
I was hand copying a sales letter today with which I wasn’t very impressed overall. But there was one element that really spoke to me. It said that not feeling good enough is normal and that you should always put yourself in positions where you are surrounded by people that are already where you aspire to be. Because it motivates you to strive toward something better for yourself. If you only surround yourself with people who are doing less or even the same as you, you will never get any further. And be honest, you don’t want that.
But what do I know?
