PANIC MERCHANT

You can get anything on the Internet.

I had my first online panic attack.

I mean, I didn’t know that was what I was having – but I was.

Yesterday. You might have seen it.  (Hope you didn’t get any on you.)  They are slimy bastards.

I used to get panic attacks years ago. Toward the end of my Police career- I had quite a few of them.

Which is why I am now out of the force; you don’t want cops going around feeling things. They carry guns and shit. The system would break down completely if they went around feeling things.

Bad enough the regular humans feel things, without cops crashing the feel a thon.

Robots are always best in law enforcement; can’t have feeling things administering the law.  

So what the fuck?  What gives? 

What is the panic?

And before we go any further, this is not brave or courageous for me to go here.  So let’s cut that new age shit out right now.  

Some of you are out there- you say it…and it is sweet and caring…but this is nothing to be proud of.

Nor ashamed, for that matter.

Like a case of the shits. You get it, learn from it, then move on.

It’s not a Purple Heart kind of deal.  Takes no special courage to have a panic attack.

I had it…& then it was over.

Don’t encourage me…I don’t want to specialise in having these fucking things & working through them for a living. I had one, and I never want another.

There was no bravery; mainly a lot of panic…

Nor is there any bravery in the telling.  

A thing ‘aint brave unless it scares you.  Doesn’t scare me to tell this…it comes naturally.

Scares me to be IN a panic attack…but not the telling about it after the fact.

That’s just me.

Doesn’t take any particular courage to be me.

I would not wish it on my worst enemy…but as I got the task…here I am.

I am no braver than the next pair of pants along…This is just what I do.

If you were me…you would do it.

I experience something…unique to me…then I write about it.

If I took steroids and pumped iron and hurled my baby through the TV in a rage fuelled roid fest…then I would write about that.

I would much rather write about…

well, I guess if I was driven to do something else…I would pretty much be doing it.

Then write about it.

This must be it.

My thing.

I write about shit that happens inside me, shit I don’t get to hear much about because…let’s face it…who would choose to write about mad shit in their head??  Not me I’d rather write about adventures and rings & goblins and world tours and what not.

This is what I am built to do. Most of you already know this.  So I do it.  Because no one else is.

Far as I know. If they did…I would likely do something else.

So…WTF??  Panic attack, you say? 

What happened, bro??

It’s a combination of shit. It’s never just one thing…anyone who had such an attack will tell you it’s a conflagration, a confluence of events.  A bunch of shit all at once.

For starters… well, it didn’t help that I was already recovering from my worst ever illness.

Nothing worse than people chatting about their illnesses…we all know what it’s like getting sick…& more and more of us are going to get sicker and sicker as the world gets increasingly more fucked up.  You know this. To pretend I have some inside dope on this that you don’t have makes me more deranged than even I imagine.

So…I was about as sick as I have ever been with some virus or another…

And I wanted to be better.

We might want a day off work time to time…but deep down…I think most of us yearn to be better than we were before.

It takes a special kind of malingerer to want to be so sick you opt out of shit you love.

I want to be productive again…so I creep back online.

There is work to be done.

However…I already know as of yesterday…I’m still not well.

But what am I going to do?  Lie in bed another week?  How will that get anything done?

Life is tough enough as an artist, without adding ‘doing fuck all’ to the already precarious mix.

It also didn’t help that I am back in research mode.

Research mode…you’re in yr head.  There it is. 

A lot of data…not much interaction with real humans.

That’s the deal.  

A doco film maker doesn’t just wait for jobs to fall into his lap…inspiration doesn’t waltz down the street and knock on your door.

You go out and find the story.

I did take a temporary diversion; I decided to download a stack of films on 9/11, and see where we are with all that folderol…over a decade later.

I watched one.

Then another. Then another.

I realised…we still have no hard fast answers to that nightmare.

Still.

9/11 Commission whitewash REALLY the final word?

I mean, I KNEW this was the case…but I did not want to believe it.

The evidence looks good for an inside job.

A demolition.

Still…as much as I don’t want to believe it…there is nothing solid to the contrary.

I don’t know what I was expecting; maybe I thought the truth fairy was going to come in and fix everything in the meantime if I looked the other way.

I hoped to wake up one morning, & find the loose change of justice under my pillow.

But nope; still no word on what I know from the evidence to be the case.

9/11 was a giant con job.

I have managed to keep a lid on the insanity that is this crazy messed up world post 9/11 pretty well.

Being a depressive personality…I know I have my issues. And I work on them like everyone else.   Keep trying to find my way to contribute like everyone else.

But after all the 9/11 stuff…it began to build up inside me. 

The outrage that had lain dormant all this time.

This morning…Friday…I’m online.

And I am already down on the government, down on the world…for this insanity.

Why doesn’t someone do something about it?

Why didn’t I do something about it?

WTF have I been doing????

Heart rate goes up. 

Panic sets in. 

IT MUST BE MY FAULT!!!

MY FAULT!

MUST BE MY FAULT!

(I’m already conditioned to accept that, right? Since childhood.)

So…

MY FAULT MY FAULT GOTTA’ BE MY FAULT…

So I’m already attacking myself.

Next thing I know…I’m confronting Mum with my failures.

Mum I fucked up.  I did bad. I failed. I’m so sorry.

Dad was right.

I am a no-good piece of shit mongrel dog traitor scum vermin etc…

All the stuff from childhood.

So I got that soup going good and strong.

PLUS…by this time, I have an intruder in the midst…

an imposter with a fake profile, I been tracking for a little while, coming to a head. And I’m trying to keep THAT going, in case there is a film in it.

Who knows; you never can tell.

Fake profiles on FB; multiple personalities.  

Could be juicy. You just never know.

I knew there was one person with 2/3 id’s & another with two. 

(this was not a product of my paranoid mind…happens all the time; & to be fair, I did get a heads up in advance.)

And I’m trying to keep that going…almost forgetting which one I’m talking to, and who I am supposed to be.  But I’m stirring the pot…keeping things going…

But it’s getting harder; I’m forgetting my script. I have lost track of which one I am talking to…& what I am supposed to say.  And it is working out almost identical to one I almost caught last year in NZ.

Why do I do this shit to myself?

Do I hate lies that much…that I will drive myself nuts to confront them?

Maybe.

Does it really matter in the long run I expose another fucking liar?

YES. 

Because we just watched a bunch of shit on 9/11.

Right.

So I’m working that over in my head…trying to keep it going…

But I’m losing my routine.  Losing track of where I am. 

Too many things going on.

It’s not like being an undercover cop…you forget which lie you told…that’s yr ass.

This is different. & I’m not even on full strength…& I’m not even sure I care about it as a project any more.  But I keep going with it…it’s not life or death.

So why do I care?

Why?  What else is there?

Same as I keep posting on FB.

I’m a junkie. For one more truth.

About life, the universe, human beings…

About me.

I’m an obsessive personality, & I have a yen for just one more truth.

One more realisation.

A little closer to understanding.

So I’m on that for a while, that’s going on in the background.      

All part of the same deal…my on-going crusade against the lies and deceit of the world against me, fought on more fronts than I can keep track of.

THEN…I start going through my friends.  Which of them is actually my enemy??

Because…let’s face it…

I CAN’T be my enemy; I’m ME!!!

Why would I attack me????

WTF???

HAH!!

Before you know it, I’m ranting and raving & down on myself for being a worthless piece of shit cunt dog mother handler poodle molester shit fuck piss bugger bum root etc…

As if it is someone else I am talking to.

As if the bastard inside me is some bastard outside me.

Then…while I’m out there…

I’m back in FB world…

Throw in a couple of FB defriendings for good measure…(I had to weed out some MF’s I never been too sure about…)

Then I find out in my travels my best FB mate Ronnit has had TWO aneurysms…

& one brain op…

& I FUCKING LOVE HER…& I think…

OH FUCK??? 

What if I get one of those?

(Made it about me. Right?  The system under attack??  Everything rallies around to defend the home turf?  9/11 style?  The way they got those jets in the air to blow the hijackers out of the sky before they hit the towers? Right?  The way it is supposed to work?? )

Then while I’m still posting and trying to figure out who is my most immediate threat, what to do about it, who to fire on first…

The soup comes to the boil.

In the end…all there is left inside me is to shut down everything else…

& focus on one threat.

The imposter has come to a head; not who I thought she was- or rather…one of two correct people, but NOT using the alias I expected...

& while that is winding down…

I am exhausted.

Pulse rate returns.

A couple of friends tell me to snap out of it…

& I manage to do it without defriending and blocking them.

And I look back over the days work…

& I realise…

This was a panic attack.

And I captured it.

Recorded it.

I promised to do that…right from the start.

All those years ago.

Record it all.

The good the bad and the ugly.

So I was able to see the worst…

& why…

Like I give a shit.

About who I am…& how my existence impacts on others.

Like it matters.

Reel it in. Keep an eye on myself…

Pull it back into line.

Straighten up and fly right.

And know enough about it- when the wheels fall off…

to look out for it in future.

That is called self awareness.

Responsibility.

Accountability.

Because it matters.

Those things matter.

Self awareness is frowned upon- some people get it confused with self indulgent…

But I think it helps you.

I have never had a blow out or a hissy fit here and not learned something.

Never happened.

My worst one was Friday…& I learned six things of value.

Well, medical science is no use.

The mental health profession knows sweet fuck all about what to do about a panic attack.

So we learn from ourselves.

Take notes.

What happened?

How did it unfold?

Why?

What could be done to lessen the impact/effects of the attack?

Can anyone else benefit from this?

You use FB your way…I’ll continue to use it mine.

You have your good things…

And I have mine.