Well, it has happened again, for the…fourth night in a row? I have a terrible nightmare, and then wake up, then go into a full blown panic attack with the screaming, crying, shaking, and other physical symptoms too pathetic to catalogue. Why?
Simple. Oblivion.
I have been having these panic attacks, in one form or another, since I was 11. They were not very common, maybe happening on the order of once a year, and not being very bad. They have, sadly, been increasing in frequency and strength with each passing year, as death draws closer.
For that is what they involve. The inevitability of death, which I see in my belief system as being nothing but oblivion. A permanent, final extinguishing of me, forever and ever. I will close my eyes one day, and the Universe will end. And it is going to happen, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. Even if was immortal, the universe will eventually run down, taking me with it. There’s no escape.
I wish I believed in God, any God. But I don’t. My heart is dead to any God. I was never raised religiously, not at all, and I only had a vague feeling that there might be “someone or something” out there, a divine presence. But one night, long ago, when I was being brutally violated, I screamed up to the night sky to “God”, to help me, to stop what was happening. But no one was there, just the cold, silent, mocking Universe. I’ve since tried to believe, tried and tried, but there is nothing inside of me. Christians and others tell me I’m “trying too hard”, or “by asking these questions, God is working to turn your heart”, and so forth. Well…God is going to have work faster, or I might not make it.
These attacks bother me of late for two reasons (besides the subject matter, which of course paralyzes me). First, they are becoming more and more frequent. I’ve never had a run of four days in a row, and I am ragged from them. Second, the physical response to the fear makes my heart pound until I think it will burst, makes me feel profoundly ill. Tonight’s was the worst ever, and my hands are still shaking, my heart still pounding hard, even 20 minutes or so after it has “ended”. I have an odd, very unpleasant tingling feeling all over my body that is definitely new, and has me very worried - as if my entire body was numb and partially asleep, and trying to wake up. I fear that someday the panic attack itself will bring on the end, and if things get much worse I can see that as being very likely.
I’ve sought, and received, professional help for this. The problem is twofold - first, there is no way I can convince myself or lie to myself that “it’s going to be A-OK”, or “there’s nothing you can do about it, so just don’t worry”. I don’t honestly understand how someone can look on total, absolute oblivion and say “Eh. I won’t know about it, so why should I care?” It is an alien thought to me, and no amount of conseling is going to change that. Second - until recently the attacks were still random, and far between. So I could take anti-anxiety medication all the time for the 0.01% of the time that I have the attacks.
You know what’s really sad? About 5 years ago I stopped being able to be interested in cosmology and space exploration, because the subject reminds me of the universe, and death, etc, etc. This is really sad, when I’m such a science maven, that I have to not even think about something like that. History is also being lost to me, as it is very hard for me to read biographies and historical works without thinking “they’re gone…forever. They ceased to exist.” Thermodynamics is going as well, as every mention of entropy…well, you get the picture. I have noticed that I am starting to try to distract myself with mundane and pointless things, to try and keep my mind from wandering back to you-know-what.
Anyhow - why is this in MPSIMS? Simple - because life, my life, all life, is mundane and pointless. It just doesn’t matter. In less than 40, 50 years it will cease to exist for me - forever. It’s safe to say in 100 years no one reading this post will exist anymore. We will all be equally gone, winked out of existance like a firefly that shone once and died.
Well, I thought writing this would help, and it did at first, but it ended up triggering another attack. Since it seems I am done, I may as well post it. Maybe someone will have some divinely-inspired wisdom that will save me, but I fear not. I’m going to stay up the rest of the night watching TV (the opiate of the masses, and myself in this instance) to keep myself from panicing again, until I finally become too tired to go on and fall asleep in my chair. Hopefully, I won’t have another nightmare. They are so terrifying.
