Today I had a panic attack. But it was unlike any panic attack I've ever had, and I've had around ten of those, which typically last around 10 minutes of solid freak-out, which don't involve thought of any kind. This was an hour and 22 minute-long hyper-ventilating panic auto-contemplation and realization of all the wrongs I've done in my life, how fucked up I've let things get, and how I can't pay certain things back. Like time. Like emotions. It was the epiphany of rock bottom and removal of the filter of dishonesty in my head which applies to every thought I ever have and nearly every thing I ever do. I was pacing and shaking uncontrollably, could barely hold a phone. Couldn't use my computer. I'd tried to get consolation via my mother, poor woman, asked her to "please validate me!" It was not a task she could perform. But I was completely out of control and in panic mode. I didn't know what was going to happen and I thought I was losing my mind when it didn't stop. It kept going, processing, computing. My brain had to work out the fact that it knew what I had done in writing that letter, what it had to do and how it had to see the world. I had to come to terms with what I had so elegantly written yesterday, while sobbing and snotting, but not quite fully comprehending, I would later learn.
Last night I had the hard talk with my folks, overt transparency, and that went well, but my intention and mind were working ahead of me. The music I was facing, as they say, only all hit me in totality this morning. The final process took nearly an hour and a half, until it was crystal. It's like that line from Apocalypse Now, "...then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead." And I sat on the middle of my bed and fell into a zen-like calm. I just simply understood. It was boiled down to a singularity. Brutal honestly with no compromise, with loved ones, with my self.
My brain just had to process the decision it had made. All the dishonesty, not just with drinking but every wrong I've ever committed. My mind unparsed a myriad of deceits and falsehoods and concepts I had fabricated over the years, just because lying is an easy artform, or easy for me; I'm very skilled. Not to purposefully wrong anyone but to get what I wanted, or I wasn't willing to let go, or too scared to do. It was the coldest of remorse but ultimately I've had the wool lifted from over my own eyes. It's terrifying and anticipatory, like a photo of someone just as they're being shot, by themselves.
I deceived myself most of all. But it was a right of passage and it was painful but ultimately necessary, like molting a skin. I now understand the true meaning behind the phrase, "re-born": birth is extremely painful, but it's how we all enter the world, new. I am not the fiction of being reborn but I am on board. Like a psychopath talking to himself. And I have zero doubt about the answer.
Once I understood, my panic attack stopped.
Now, I don't feel any better about myself, I still reel at my past and present, I deserve no reprieve. I could die today and there would only be debt and damage, and a couple pretty pictures. My ego has not been influenced in either direction, but I feel confident of this understanding and know that it is the right way to now live. It's something I imagine most people learn and adopt early in life, but it took me 41 years. And I don't expect nor deserve forgiveness for, but I need to acknowledge it, and express that truth. It's ultimately selfish, catharsis, but it's how we try and even the keel while within the choppy waters of our selves.
Nothing changes about "I fucked literally everything up." But it's not under a tarp or lost in a pretty picture. No gloss, only shit. I had said I felt as though I were in a dream, where I was naked, standing in the middle of a busy intersection, and I had a test to take and a plane to catch.
THIS NEEDS EDITING.
And because I have the new ethic, to be honest now, I can say, the fucking "Christmas Story" was an extremely BAD influence on me in this regard. Ralphie taught me how to lie. (And a German boy Victor taught me how to steal candy from a corner store somewhere in Tacoma, but that is another story.) Grow up, Ralphie.
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