This is a fantastic article. I had my first panic attack in a church when I was 14. I was there praying with my family when I suddenly got this weird, almost unreal feeling of "super-reality". It wasn't that everything felt unreal. It was that everything felt VERY REAL. It was like waking up from the Matrix, realizing that "this is it" - this is your life and it’s definitely going to end someday. It hit me hard that death isn't just for others, my brain really got it, not just on an intellectual level but for real.
After that, I started having frequent panic attacks, along with feelings of depersonalization and derealization. It took me years of therapy, almost a decade, to return to a mindset where I could just live my life without constantly thinking about death.
Realizing you're alive can feel really, really weird. It's like waking up from a dream. You start wondering, "Why isn't everyone else panicking?" You think everyone should be in a constant state of terror about their own mortality.
It seems to me that the author of the article had a similar experience, except during an actual emergency - she suddenly understood that "One day there will be no ME."
"We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one".
After that, I started having frequent panic attacks, along with feelings of depersonalization and derealization. It took me years of therapy, almost a decade, to return to a mindset where I could just live my life without constantly thinking about death.
Realizing you're alive can feel really, really weird. It's like waking up from a dream. You start wondering, "Why isn't everyone else panicking?" You think everyone should be in a constant state of terror about their own mortality.
It seems to me that the author of the article had a similar experience, except during an actual emergency - she suddenly understood that "One day there will be no ME."
"We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one".