I PROMISE I will NOT have a NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

The BBQ Pit
1

Hi kids. Remember me? Hysterical nut in need of medication and therapy? I’ve got them both, so I should be able to stay in control this time.

However, I’m still finding it interesting that in threads like:

Responding to the Terrorist Nuclear Threat

We have people saying “look, calm down, you’re being silly if you’re worried” out of one side of their mouth and then saying “of COURSE they can get nuclear bombs and put them in a u-haul and reduce us all to puddles of pus…that’s GIVEN. The government doesn’t care, security doesn’t care, the border patrols don’t care. There’s nothing stopping them.” Out of the other.

And the old arguement “The chances of you being blown up by terrorists are small” is getting to be less credible. Suicide bombers (which the government says are on their way) run into fucking McDONALDs. They run into WEDDING RECEPTIONS. So what are you going to say now? That to protect myself I have to stay in the fucking house 24/7?

Oh, I’m sorry, no. I live in an apartment building in the third biggest city in the nation. I guess I’m not safe there either.

And saying ‘live your life and don’t worry about it and you’re a dumb, ridiculous ass fuck if you do’ doesn’t hold much water with me.

Yes, I’m going to die some day. I’m not an idiot. I know that. Yes, it may very well be a painful, burning, napalm like death wherein I see all my loved ones melting around me, clawing at their eyes, praying to God for release.

but you know? I’d rather NOT go that way. So I don’t think I’ll be apologizing any time soon for admitting that I’m afraid of a terrorist attack, and that my not flying and not running around touring the Empire State Building is a way of me being CAREFUL NOT TO BE A VICTIM.

Yes, I’m going to work. Yes I’m going to go on vacation, yes I’m spending money so as not to cripple the economy. But I am also scared. SCARED SCARED SCARED.

And I’m not sure why that’s wrong.

2

I’m scared too Jar. I feel completely helpless. There is nothing I can do to guarantee my safety or the safety of my family, and this is a truly terrifying thought.

Also, the cynic in me says that there is a reason other than politics, that the President is on an extended trip right now.

:frowning:

Honey

3

There’s nothing wrong with being scared.

I’m scared of being attaked by a bear when I go camping here in the Northwest. This is a small but credible threat. I could totally eliminate that threat simply by staying home. But I want to go camping. So I reduce my risk by taking precautions like wearing a bear bell and hanging my food when I make camp. This does not eliminate my risk or my fear, but it reduces both to levels that I can manage.

Now, obviously wearing a bear bell won’t scare off any terrorists, but my point is that you already have the resources to manage your fear. Terrorism - and many other threats - will always be with us. The trick is to reduce the threat (or at least your perception of that threat) to a level you can handle.

It sounds to me like you’re doing a pretty good job of that.

4

Vice President Panic McScaredy-Pants: “Another major attack is almost certain . . . If not tomorrow, then perhaps next week or next year. It will make Sept. 11 look like a cherry bomb in the boy’s room.”

FBI Director Lucelipps Sinkshipps: “Suicide bombings in the U.S. are inevitable. In fact, there is a suicide bomber STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO YOU.”

NY Assemblyman Ima Quisling: “The NYC water supply is essentially unguarded. Here is the exact address of the MOST unguarded part, and what poison would be most effective to slip into it.”

President Omigodweregonnadie: “The terrorists are going to sneak into all our bedrooms at night and kill us in our sleep, so I suggest you all jump out the window right now.”

I don’t remember Churchill doing this during the Blitz. Idiots.

5

It’s not wrong, but like I told a friend who expressed similar sentiments, “you’re going to either have to get used to it or end up in a padded room.”

Yes, the prospect of suicide bombings is terrifying, but when it happens, we’ll probably make a bunch of tasteless jokes, spam our email friends mercilessly with them, rage and rant against the “ass-fisting motherfucking goat -felching wastes of whatever limited resource you care to insert,” demand blood, cry, weep, and ultimately get used to it and move on…just like we did with the anthrax attacks.

Not terribly helpful, I suppose, but that’s the bald-faced truth as I see it. Ultimately, it doesn’t help at all to get hysterical and bury yourself in blankets. The only thing that will help is to rationally face the fear and do what we must to end the attacks and move right along.

“Even this shall pass. Even this shall pass.”

6

Funny how everyone was saying “Even this shall pass” on September 12th.

I, jessica, can do nothing to end the attacks. NOTHING. Don’t tell me that traveling and going out to eat will end the attacks. Don’t tell me that putting a flag in my window will end the attacks. I am POWERLESS to what they want to do.

I am a sitting duck.

7

You are a sitting duck. Yup. Sure are. You could die at any second.

But really, that’s true anyway, isn’t it?

I find it particularly appropriate that Eve mentioned the London bombings. The absolute stark refusal of the English during that time to go all weak-kneed, gibberingly, knuckle-bitingly capitulatory is legendary, and rightly so. Maybe we could learn a lesson from them.

8

That would be true if there no such thing as a terrorist. Your life is finite. You have a birth date and you have a death date, too. After a certain date, you will no loger be alive. Get used to it. Embrace it and then you will enjoy life all the more.

Sorry, but I can’t get too scared of possible suicide attakxs. i already lived through a terrifying time when people were dying all around me, and it was impossible to go out without seeing people with one foot in the grave, always wondering when my turn would come.

It was the 80s during the first wave of AIDS. No period of time will be that scary again.

Palestinians in this country better pray there are no suicide bombings.

9

Accept it. Move on. Deal.

If you don’t, you, your husband, your children and your family will suffer unduly. THere’s no reason for it, honestly. I am rather confident that the whitehouse won’t fuck this one up like the last one(not to save people, but simply to prevent the “loss of face”).

When it happens, deal with it, be strong for those who need it, but don’t waste your energy on worrying about the next one, we need people to be strong and lucid and logical if that ever happens.

Sam

10

I too am powerless over these threats. I work to accept the things I can’t change. All I can do is change how I respond to the threats, and work on changing my feelings of fear. It’s ok to be scared by this stuff, but for me it’s not useful to stay scared. I got stuff to do. Prisoners to take care of and to not get conned by. I haven’t even seen clones yet!

11

Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos.

That, in a nutshell, is how I deal with this insanity (no, not by voting for slobbering aliens, but by maintaining a sense of humor). I could drop dead tonight from a massive coronary (note to gods of poetic timing: Fuck off!), I could be crushed under an overturned truck on the way home, I could be forced to watch “Friends.” My only defense is to keep laughing. It ain’t much, but it’s what I got.

12

Nobody’s asking you to stop the attacks. what we are saying is that you ultimately have very little choice…so suck it up and get used to it.

13

Get used to dying in a twisted metal building burning all around me? Pardon me if that’s something I can’t get used to.

And Ogre, you yourself said “we must do what we can to stop the attacks”

I know that I"m going to die. I know my life is finite. I’m just missing the part where all of you said “who cares about dying? It’s no biggie”

it is a biggie. I have big plans. I don’t want flaming napalm death interrupting them. THAT is what scares me.

14

You have a choice: live in a state of fear-induced paralyis, or accept the risk while keeping an eye peeled for danger, and go on with your life.

15

I meant the general “we,” as in “America,” as in “lend our support to efforts to stop the attacks.”

I reiterate: you WILL have to just get used to it. It’s not going away. The world has been building toward this kind of thing for at least the last 30 years. This is nothing new, it’s just that we haven’t seen a whole lot of foreign terrorism on our soil until fairly recently. Regardless of the graphic descriptions you put on it (flaming napalm death, scouring nuclear fire, slow, pus-ridden disease, black-faced convulsions from poisons), you will either get used to it and live in the same world as the rest of us, or let it drive you crazy or worse. There’s no other alternative that I see.

Be scared all you like. It’s natural. But you’re going to eventually have to come to terms with it, because it’s reality. You might as well put some steel in that spine, because that’s the best of all possible solutions, given the circumstance.

16

You know, it’s funny. When I read the article the other day that said it might be possible that terrorists would bomb apartment buildings, I thought of you, jarbaby. I remembered that exchange shortly after 9/11 when you were scared. I remember thinking that your fears didn’t seem too out of line anymore!

When I read that article a day or two ago, a pang shot through my stomach. It scared me. It pissed me off.

If it’s any consolation, I don’t think you’re crazy or wrong for feeling the way you do. I felt the same way for a bit. I admit, I’ve gone back (mostly) to being apathetic and “it can’t happen to me”-ish, but I’d say the fear does have some merit.

I’d say that for me, right now I’ll keep on doing what I’m doing. But the minute we have a suicide bombing in the USA, I’m going to be hard pressed to be rational.

17

Sorry to hear the scares be keeping ya up nights, jarbabyj. It ain’t much fun being in the largest city either, two hour back up on the Brooklyn Bridge this morning.

Lots of our fear comes from the feeling of hopelessness, that there’s nothing you can do about it, so here are a few tips from the heart.

  1. Don’t change your routine, lord knows a rut can be comforting.
  2. Spend time with others – hermiting up is a short term benefit, a long-term loss. You need to connect with others and talk about the sensible, realistic fears, and mebbe some of the weird ones.
  3. Keep an eye peeled for suspicious events. It may be a small something, but it’s something.
  4. Demand that your representatives do everything possible to make sure the billions of dollars that we spend on sig-int isn’t being ignored. Demand an inquiry into what went wrong between the Phoenix Memo and Sept. 11th. If our money isn’t keeping us safe, it’s imperative that we find out why.
  5. Demand that your representatives speak out against the blatant, wag-the-dog, ass-covering scaremongering coming from the current administration. We needed to tell you that the Brooklyn Bridge has been threatenend… for the past month or so, so stop asking questions on Sept. 11? Fucking assholes. It’s not making us safer, just terrorized.
18

Heck jarbabyj your as safe as the gold in Fort Knox compared to me. I work in D.C. in a building which overlooks the White House. I ride to work on the Metro in rush hour. I live across the river too. Shit, anything-- I mean ANYTHING happens and its my ass that’s grass. At least when I was in the Persian Gulf I was equipped with the finest lowest bidder technology of the 1970’s.

Now its basically grab my ass and pray time. I just deal with it and move on.

In Chicago you might be a bit safer. I used to work in the Sears Tower, funny huh. I sure seem to know how to make a big fat target out of myself.

No where is truly safe- our great Leader was almost offed by a pretzel in the most well protected building in D.C. Damn you Rold Gold, is there no end to your evil! Besides, if you can survive a Chicago cab ride, no frickin’ terrorist should scare you. If you drive on the freeways or eat out at resturants you are at much greater risk IMHO from traffic and food poisoning.

So there is not much reason to get worked up in my opinion, unless that helps. Of so, go for it.

-me

:smiley:

19

Well jarbabyj, I don’t have any words of comfort necessarily, but I will give this bit of wisdom from recently departed Stephen J. Gould, which might give you some support not for abject panic and fear, but well thought out concern:

20

Thank you Eonwe. That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to say.

I refuse to sit around and accept my premature death as nothing more than a lunch date.

I prefer not to die. It’s just that simple. So when I don’t get on the plane, when I don’t go to the Sears Tower observation deck with you…when I avoid the Fourth of July festivities…it is because I am raging mightily against the dying of the light.

j