Hi! It’s been ages.
Technically, it’s only been a week, but for someone who used to write everyday, it really does feel like an eternity.
Truth is, I ran out of ideas.
*inserts gasps and shocked expressions*
I have a lot of topics in my drafts, even a controversial one about religion, but most times, I just stare at my screen and go blank. I’m usually stuck on one sentence for hours, and when I feel like it isn’t good enough, I’d delete the entire thing and start over.
But I’m here now.
I have a question. Do you ever have panic attacks?
I do, and I have them everyday. Here’s why.
I hate to use this sentence, but I’m an over thinker.
*gags*
I really don’t like that sentence, and I’ll tell you why. I get the fact that everyone is naturally programmed to over think, but we have normalized it, and inserted it into our daily lives and patterns. Over thinking is now a criterion for a relationship. If you can’t think of 50 ways your love life could go wrong, within a minute, then you probably aren’t even in love. If you aren’t naturally pessimistic, your faith in whatever you believe in could be crushed and you’d become so bitter and angry at the world.
We paint ugly scenarios for the fun of it, compose tweets and tiktok videos of how twisted our minds are and label it “dark humor”. Is it a Gen Z thing? I’m really curious.
Back to my own issues.
When I wake up in the morning, my thoughts are usually all over the place. Some people ‘boot’ for minutes before their brains function properly, but lately, the minute I open my eyes, my mind gets to work.
I have a pattern of thoughts. When I’m awake, I think about all the people I’ve lost, by death or circumstance, and I begin to hyperventilate. My chest would ache and I’d have to warn myself to snap out of it.
Due to these frequent panic attacks, I have a new mantra.
Be anxious for nothing.
Pfft, easy for you to say.
Mid day, and my mind swerves to another lane. I spent this break doing nothing and it was starting to get to me. I wanted to leave my house for a good reason, or to make some clean cash. I wanted to be productive, I wanted something to keep me busy. The only thing that has been keeping me busy though, is sleep. When I realize how much time I’ve wasted and how I might end up a failure, I begin to hyperventilate.
When my mother leaves work and she’s on her way home, I’d suddenly remember that I’m supposed to wash plates. Imagine spending the whole day doing nothing, but washing plates with Savitar speed, when your mother is ten minutes away from your bus stop. It’s funny, but I also hyperventilate when it comes to that.
I hyperventilate when I’m in school, when there are too many people around. I can’t randomly make friends. If a random person tries to start a conversation, I feel the sudden urge to pee. Trust me, my village people aren’t behind this.
If you have ever seen me running down the halls of Fagunwa, na man wan toast me but piss dey hold me.
I hyperventilate when something good happens to me. What do I do next? What is expected of me?
If you saw me at my departmental dinner, you’d think I was on drugs. I was dancing and jumping from one table to the other, barefoot.
Two days later, I cried, right after a panic attack. Granted, I won a very unexpected award but what am I supposed to do? Do these people really expect me to write all the time? Don’t get me wrong, I love writing, but at that point, I thought it was just a phase.
Just today, after a whole month of procrastination, I finished a course on content writing and how to make money online. I remember asking a friend of mine to put me through, but he told me professional writing was a lot more than that. After finishing this course, I realized Segun was right and I began to hyperventilate. Am I really ready to become a professional writer? Should I just stick to writing on Medium?
These, amongst many others, are the things that make the air around me thin. Being positive or optimistic is really hard, no matter the circumstance.
You could be on a bike, on the express. The aboki is a ghost rider, so you might as well be planning your funeral.
Your babe or side piece hasn’t texted you all day, but he’s posting other girls with bigger potentials. You might as well get your sniper ready.
So to answer my question, I think we all have panic attacks. It doesn’t matter how frequent they are, they can be really scary. One minute you’re breathing fine and the next, you’re running out of air.
I talk about suicide a lot but I’ve realized that our actions don’t lead to our deaths. Our minds kill us, way before we kill ourselves.
