Just what is panic?

#Panic. Not apparently a popular hashtag.

I suppose that's a bit like asking what fear is exactly, for panic might be classified as an aspect of fear, a subtype of fear. The Hellenic gods of #fear, the children of Ares and Aphrodite, were referred (by virtue of their father's status as a fearsome god of the battlefield) to the fears suffered by soldiers in battle.

There's Phobos, often translated "terror" or "panic" (oh hello there) and which I think of as the fear that causes routs. Panicky folks in battle (and other situations) are driven to wild unthinking activity, like (say) hurling down their weapons and running for their lives, and in a rout that spreads to the entire army.

Then there's Deimos, also translated "terror" sometimes but also as "dread", which to me suggests the fear that freezes, the fear that's like an icy and paralyzing grip. If you're confronted by an enemy and you can't seem to move, that's Deimos's work.

The Pnictogen Wing suffers from what we've called "panic attacks" and which other people we know would, I think, also call "panic attacks" if they experienced them. But they line up more with the Deimos aspect of fear than Phobos, the god of panic flight. For the prevailing feeling during our panic attacks is paralysis.

Stop keeping your goals in a glass case where they can stay perfect and untested and safe from the only thing that could make them real — you, actually trying.

#goals #fear #execution

Stop filling the silence with noise because you're afraid of what you'll hear when it's quiet.

#silence #fear #truth

The Irony of Being Single

Me: "I'm feeling sad and lonely that I'm single! No one wants me!"

Also, me:

• Year 2013: Someone liked me, and friends helped her to let me know, but I rejected her.

• Year 2019: Someone who had a crush on me sat beside me, but I left that place. Of course, she was hurt by this, which made her stop trying anymore.

• Year 2020: I and someone were best friends; then she expressed her interest with more effort than past women who had a crush on me. But why did I frequently reject her and break up with her? It took me a lifetime to learn the lessons and feel the heartbreak because of my decisions.

• Year 2020: But with a different partner: Instant online relationships. I felt like she had a crush on me earlier than I realised. But despite her sincere expressions of love towards me, why did I break up then decide to be together and break up again? Maybe I am afraid of closeness.

• Another year 2020:
  • Many online peers; some chose me as an option because their relationships were going to fail, but I didn't recognise the liking. She expressed: "You have me? What do you mean?" then she slowly faded from my sight.
  • Gaming partners: There were three different partners who chose me to have fun together in different times. One of them I broke up with days later; she faded away from me slowly. Even though I saw her real Instagram account, which was very human. The second one I broke up with; she just disappeared and never messaged me again. The third one: a day after I broke up with her, she told her audience that I hurt her. Then, she just left the scene, and I haven't seen her in the video game again.

• Year 2022 (if this is correct): I had an instant attraction to someone, and I messaged her: "💖" — she was surprised. Many other group chat members seemed jealous and even created false stories that she cheated. I asked her: "Kau minat aku ke?" (Are you interested in me?) but received no clear, direct answer from her. She messaged me many times personally, but I didn't reply; I felt blurry or foggy at that time. Then I replied: "Kau sendiri tak cakap kau minat aku, dan agama kita tak sama." (You yourself didn't say you liked me, and our religions are different.) She told me to clarify: "Just because I didn't admit I like or am interested in you, it doesn't literally or truly mean I didn't like or am interested in you." Days later, she then found my mistakes online and used it to justify blocking me.

Pushing people away made me single, but reflecting on these patterns helps me learn and grow.

#Relationships #Reflection #Dating #Single #Growth #Learning #Lessons #Heartbreak #Psychology #Psych #Fear #Irony #MissedConnections #SelfSabotage #LifeLessons #PersonalGrowth #Memories #MentalHealth #Vent #Love #Alone #SocialMedia #Social #Gaming #Connection

A Stranger in the House

In my dreams, I shout.

The words fall from my mouth and wake me in the moment of the last word.

In times of terror, when I sleep, my tongue becomes thick. The words have difficulty forming. They struggle to be released, as if they must pass through mud, or blood, or memory. Then I awake with the last words still on my lips, wondering who I was around the table with the others, and why I was so distressed.

In the morning, my lover tells me she heard my voice shouting.

She says it did not sound like me.

I was another man.

A stranger in the house.

And I am left waking from a dream I can barely remember, wondering at its origin, curious as to why it came, even though I know its meaning may elude me like all troubling dreams: present in the body, lost in the waking.

So often it has been anger that has driven my voice.

Anger against perceived injustice.

Anger sharpened by fear.

Anger standing in for courage.

Anger disguising grief.

Anger becoming the only language loud enough to make me feel as if I am doing something, saying something, resisting something. And perhaps, at times, anger has been a necessary alarm. Perhaps it has awakened me when numbness would have been easier. Perhaps it has named what politeness wanted buried.

But anger is a hard voice to live inside.

It burns the throat that carries it.

It can become another form of captivity, another stranger in the house, pacing the rooms, turning over tables, shouting at shadows long after the danger has passed.

And so I wonder whether the dream is not only about terror.

Maybe it is about voice.

Maybe somewhere beneath the shouting, there is another sound trying to be born.

Not the voice that must win.

Not the voice that must accuse.

Not the voice that must prove itself righteous by the force of its volume.

But a different voice.

A voice formed not by fear but by love.

A voice that can still name injustice without becoming consumed by it.

A voice that can grieve without needing to destroy.

A voice that can speak truth without losing tenderness.

A voice that can say, “This is wrong,” and still remain human.

Maybe the stranger in the house is not only the angry man I fear becoming.

Maybe he is also the hidden self who has never learned another way to speak.

Maybe he shouts because he does not yet know how to weep.

Maybe he rages because he has not yet trusted that sorrow can also be strong.

Maybe he wakes me because he wants to be changed, not silenced.

There is a stranger in me who has not yet been welcomed.

There is a voice in me that only finds release when I am no longer guarding the door.

And when I wake with the last word on my lips, frightened by the sound of myself, perhaps I am not merely waking from the dream.

Perhaps I am waking into it.

Perhaps I am being invited to discover a different voice:

not less truthful,

not less passionate,

not less awake to suffering,

but less afraid.

A voice no longer thickened by terror.

A voice no longer driven only by anger.

A voice that rises from somewhere deeper than outrage.

A voice that has passed through the fire and learned, at last, to bless.