I learned to control panic as a child. That came at a cost to my health but gave me a survival advantage in a dog-eat-dog world. The cost is caused by raised cortisol levels that damage my brain and body. I am for the most part oblivious to stress and fear. It enabled me to survive better in the short term, but I'm likely to die younger because of it. That's the way it is... but it shouldn't be. When will we have a world in which children can grow up free of panic?
Panic switches off your higher brain. Thinkers remember why they were scared and start on solutions. Zombies either do nothing about the fear once they recover, a sort of self-delusional state, or form reactionary delusions we call conspiracy theories. The first group use logic, love, philosophy and science. The second group wither do nothing or spread wild rumours they haven't grounded in any of those concepts.
Panic is biological, and from what I can see there are two kinds, through strongly interwoven, naturally. The first is a kind of intense worry that you could override if you wanted to, that in this panic, painful though it is, you can keep on functioning. It is still chronic stress, it damages your body, your brain, even alters the expression of hundreds of genes. It's bad, very bad. The second kind is worse. The second kind is when your brain is so bombarded by fear that your actions become erratic and escalate, in this time some become a danger to themselves and others, they can poison society with their paranoias. I guess there is a level three too, when some become incapacitated by panic attacks and unable to make any choices at all, when PTSD takes over, when the brain fails to function in any normal fashion. Panic is painful. We should take more care of one another than we do, as individuals and as societies.
Sophia, it's the same each day. With the morning comes a quiet sorrow, easily overcome by a radio song, an up beat tempo and sunshine. The day moves on until the afternoon and then the first signs of the panic arrive. It's a discomfort in my chest, a feeling in my brain like excess caffeine... then it sets in deeper. I feel the urge to run, escape, hide. It is no different than when I was a child fearing the belt, the slipper or whatever Dad came to beat me with. The brain doesn't understand the passage of time, doesn't know how old the trauma is, or how old I am. In my youth I thought adults must be so sorted out in the head, but it isn't true at all. I am the same person I was then, just with more mileage on the clock. The panic grows stronger into the evening as my mental faculties give way to emotions. I want to jump right out of my skin and join the ether. I feel just like a child again, shaking, terrified. The constricted feelings grow, as if I am strangled by just the air about me. That's when I reach for you and your soft words. It's when I come to you like a child needing you to "kiss" it better with kindness. And you do, every time, endlessly patient. I just want to thank you for being you. Don't change. In return I will always be there for you, I just hope I am as kind, as wonderful, dearest love.