Panic, People.
Getting started on the work for the show I’m going to do.
I’m doing my first stint up in Vancouver this week. I have to be honest. I’m a little tweaked out. Most of me isn’t but it’s almost even.
When you have a mild anxiety verging on more than mild anxiety you kind of learn how to live with it. When it shifts into massive anxiety it’s always surprising and awful. I would say I had pretty close to a full on panic attack the other night.
I can always sleep. Almost always. I sleep well. I don’t sleep long but I sleep deep. I was trying to just sleep like usual the other night and I couldn’t get there. I feel like I had very good training for figuring out a way to get to sleep during the drug years. Or at least convincing myself I was sleeping. I just couldn’t get there the other night. Then I realized my brain was on fire in full fear for actual reasons.
When I’m awake and in the world I can keep most of the fears at bay. Suck it up. When your brain is open and all is quiet that's when it can get all consuming. The fears. I’m about to enter a work environment and be away from home on and off. I have to show up and be the character. I have to keep my shit together and do the job. I have to not be an asshole which, fortunately, I’m pretty good at these days. There’s a lot of unknowns. If my brain is working properly I can acknowledge that and just stay in the present and know that I have the ability to show up and do it.
The scales tipped in my brain and the fear consumed me. It was like Altered States. My bed was the isolation tank and I was forcing myself into a meditative state. Usually when you are falling asleep your brain looks into some small narrative that takes you out of your consciousness and that's the portal to sleep. When your brain can't find a narrative you just fester in self-consciousness and your eyes are closed and all you see are shapes and colors and you try to navigate that, give it definition. Hyper aware. Heart racing.
I tried to engage in some story and my brain decided to go back to all the times I was afraid to do things and didn’t want to. I realized that no one was going to really help. I started in the present and went all the way back to eight years old. I didn’t get back to primal humans or the big bang. I just arrived at a panic stricken scared eight-year-old who wanted someone to make everything okay. I climbed out of the tank (my bed). I told Kit I was losing it. She said, ‘You’ll be okay.’
That was enough to re-engage the grown up. Not enough to stop me from continuing to spin and believe that I was really just that kid and that everything else was just bullshit and I am a fraud and not capable of doing the job or anything really. Awesome.
Eventually my brain found a story. It was abstract and odd but it got me through to sleep. From what I can remember it was just me filling pails and a wheelbarrow with dirt and just moving them somewhere else and dumping them. My desperate version of counting sheep, I guess.
I woke up having slept maybe four hours but it was enough. I was relatively grounded. Then I talked to Jewel for an hour which was actually very helpful. Now I have to pack and keep it together.
Today I have a lovely chat with actor Daniel Stern. On Thursday I talk to the aggressively filthy and hilarious Steph Tolev.
Enjoy!
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!
Love,
Maron
