Live

Over a year ago (nearly two years, I think) I began engaging in simple meditation. No chanting because I wouldn’t know what to chant, no music because I wouldn’t know what music would help (although I later began to play sounds of rain because nostalgia), no words or rituals. I just sat cross legged, staring at the wall (although, I would bow before and after because it helped to have a beginning and an end to the practice). It’s probably worth mentioning that I appropriated a few things from some other cultures that I had no business appropriating. I didn’t know this was problematic at the time, but I learned to know better and put away all the extra things that I was not a part of, but continued the practice.

At first it seemed difficult and fruitless, but over time it became easier and eventually I began to see things in a different light. I thought I saw things as they really were, and there was this really strong sense of euphoria when I realized I could abandon the things that made me unhappy and I didn’t have to live in the past. I could be myself and actually understand what that meant. I began to feel whole again. Nature brought me contentment—I know it sounds silly, but I could feel the life around me when I went for walks in the trees. I felt like a real living, breathing part of the world; connected to everything in a way that I hadn’t felt since I was a child.

I went days, months, almost a whole year without a panic attack and laughed every day. I was getting better, this was really happening and I could scarcely believe it.

Then something happened. A few things happened, actually, around the same time and any one of them could have been the thing that did it—but it shattered my illusions of peace and contentment. I was wrong. I hadn’t been dealing with pain, I hadn’t been enlightened, and I wasn’t putting mind over matter. It was just another technique to lie to myself and stifle the memories. I went back and read the things I had written at during that timespan and realized how nonsensical it all was. I was just making things up as I went with no rhyme or reason so that I didn’t have to listen to myself. I still consider doing a massive clean-out of most of my old entries, but I think it’s useful to remember where I came from. (I still meditate, but for different reasons.)

The panic set back in again, worse than before and with no warning signs, the connection I felt had been severed and I felt more separated from other people than ever before. Things got so bad that I began feeling suicidal again for the first time since I was a teenager. I could feel my instinct to keep myself alive get slowly drowned out by the desire to disappear. Then something else happened.

I told a friend about my traumatic experiences as a child and teenager. They took me out for a beer. I went home feeling a little better.

Nothing is easy.

Reach out.