It is 3:00 AM.
I am hyperventilating.
Any sleep aids I took have worn off, violently.
This is a panic attack. The fourth night in a row. I try to breathe, but my lungs won’t fill. I try breathing faster to get the air in quicker.
It’s not working. I sit up, cough, feel the sweat on the back of my neck, run my hands through my hair.
I can’t find the trigger. Something is causing this, but it is not making itself known, a mysterious stranger in my body that wants me to suffer.
Money. Work. Time. History.
They could all be conspiring to cause this.
I lay back down and start to tell myself, “I am in the present. I am in the present.”
I try to alleviate it through escapism - I am now in Italy, I am at a baseball game, I am playing music. None of it works.
My attempts at fantasy fail as I gasp for air again. The panic pounds me like a king tide in the black of night. Why?
I’ve made mistakes recently. Big ones. But e everything is fixable, right?
I had panic attacks when I was a kid. It was always over things I could not control - death, nuclear war, politics. This went on from the age of 6 (as far as I could remember) to at least 23 (a major breakthrough year.)
Then, only brief periods of anxiety - school, performing, new jobs. Much of it was run of the mill. I put myself into positions that attracted anxiety, things that I knew were triggering but had to be dealt with if I was to grow.
But now, these attacks are like guerilla warfare, attacking me without reason, assaulting my mind and body for no other reason than because it can. Relentless and meaningless.
OR
My body is telling me something, sending out a warning. “You are not where you should be.” “You need to do things differently.”
I don’t know.
I can’t figure it out.
I just want to be able to breath again.