You’re not going to survive this. You’ll die in fear and terror now. There is no exit. There is no way you’re gonna see the good ol’ happy days again.
It was twelve years ago when I first heard about you. I had a girlfriend that I was in love with. She kept talking about you, having it in bus, subway, airplane, or basically anywhere crowded. She told me that she was feeling like she was going to die there of heart attack. She always came to meet me by a cab and I mocked her about being selfish and not caring about her parents’ money…
Fast forward to ten years ago and I’m in college, started to make money, successful and popular in his field, have nice friends and a lovely girlfriend. But… something’s not right. Future. It’s always about the future isn’t it? What will happen? What’s going to unfold next? Will I be successful? Will I have a good life? Will the things I already have and appreciate stay with me? Will something unexpected ruin everything? One day I’m home and my mind started to go out of control. I was dying, having a heart attack. Nothing could keep me under control. Terror. Delusion. Confusing what is real and what’s inside my head… Distorting reality. Something that trying to explain to a person who hasn’t experienced yet is like trying to explain red to a person who lived funny in monochrome. Shaking all my paradigm, my whole three-dimensional representation of the universe in one shot. Shaking uncontrollably. That was it. I was gonna die, and nothing matters anymore. All the problems that I ever had have no importance to me. Take literally everything, I just want to survive this. I’d to anything.
Fight or flight. This is where things get interesting. This is where world suddenly turns upside down. This is when you start to feel alive again. With adrenaline rushing over your body to start surfing the inevitable excitement and walk back and forth in the dilemma of canalizing the energy into unleashing your true potential or poisoning every cell in your body until you no longer feel that you’re breathing.
I didn’t die. I didn’t have a heart attack either. It was a panic attack; something that you’d even make fun yourself about feeling that way when it’s over. Something that even the though of it opens a positive feedback loop about itself going to happen, a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It was the first time I met you, and it was definitely my last time. From my heart rating up to 180bpm out of nothing to all the overthinking about everything: future, life and death, relationships, family, career, and many others that I don’t even remember. You are a blessing and a curse. A gift of being able to be so open mentally to receive it all, but of having no way of conceiving it all. I hate you and I love you my friend. Instead of fighting you, maybe I should embrace you now.