Eventually it will get better. Eventually we will find ourselves.
Since my first panic attack about 17 years ago, I was firmly convinced that I was the embodiment of chaos and failure. I felt like a victim. But who was the perpetrator?
It is Saturday morning. I am sitting in a cafe in Uluwatu. I am in Bali. Next to me is a cappuccino with coconut milk, no caffeine. In the afternoon, I will talk to Lana on the phone. I may go for a walk on the beach or play volleyball. I’ll meet up with the person I’m declaring my dating detox over.
I will revise some of the chapters I have written. With a smile on my face, I will do all of these.
It seems like little things, but I can’t wait. I can’t wait to ride my scooter through Balinese traffic. I can’t wait to chat with Lana, and I can’t wait to cut vegetables with an exceptional man. They are small things, but such small things have caused me pain in the past.
Waking up, meeting people. Cooking. Somehow, everything has hurt me since that time I had my first panic attack.
A familiar phrase is “You must be completely out of your mind.”
Often that idiom is used when someone does or says something you disagree with. If someone does something rash, they must have lost their mind.
When I had my first panic attack 17 years ago, I did not lose my mind. On the contrary, the panic stepped in and had me in its grasp ever since. My problem was never that I did not have my senses but that my mind had gained control over me. I analyzed everything I did and thought of countless scenarios in which I could be in danger. When someone paid me a compliment, my mind made me think about it.
- Whether the compliment could be true
- What might indicate that my counterpart is lying
- What their motives for lying might be
- What the best response to the compliment would be and what the consequences of my response would be.
I had similar ways of thinking for all situations. Everything wanted to be calculated, and since I am bad at math, I continually miscalculated these considerations. Having such a dominant mind scared me more than anything and filled me with distrust. During the years that panic accompanied me, I had often wished that I would lose my mind.
But my mind and I held on to each other, and my heart remained the fifth wheel. Some people go to therapy to get their minds back, and I did everything I could to get rid of it. I didn’t want to think that I was feeling anymore. I just wanted to feel without this wall that seemed to separate me from the rest of the world.
The last two years grabbed me by the hair and dragged me on the ground through my life like a wet rag, soaking up all the dirt that was left from the years before. At some point, there was nothing left to do but let go.
- the mistakes I had made
- The mistakes I had not made
- People who hurt me
- Shame and the horrible feeling of not being a good person.
How did I manage to let go? I walked thousands of kilometers through Spain and my life. I have written thousands of words. I have talked for nights on end with people who gave me a piece of their world. I have cried. Laughed. Sometimes screamed.
I cut my hair and moved clothes out of my closet.
I took my mother’s advice. She always says: “Once you start thinking, it always goes wrong. Your life has always been happiest when you follow your intuition. Dear, your first feeling is as accurate as Swiss clockwork. Everything else is a deception.
My mind has imposed rules on me for a long time how my life should be. Laws that no one but me would know or control, and I almost fell for it again. My mind is a rational representative of common sense, and I appreciate it for that.
With common sense, however, it is only possible to live reasonably well.
With common sense, it isn’t easy to love.
I lost my common sense by letting it go.
Common sense told me to keep my distance.
I almost missed a person in the process.
But thank God, I finally lost my mind.
I don’t think that I love.
Instead, I do it.
