When I walk into my therapist's office, I don't feel like I am going to the doctor. When I go to a medical professional I want have concrete answers or tests that will give me answers and will solve a problem. I want the pain or sickness to go away or lessen and they do that, "sometimes". At my therapists office I sit and wait, normally 10-15 mins past my appointment time and am then called back. I do not know why they do this exactly. Maybe people with mental disorders are just not as "reliable" to be on time (in their opinion) or they need to give themselves a window of time if they cannot stay on schedule. I do find it very annoying though to be left sitting there so I can wait to get.... well what am I actually getting? I guess what I am paying someone to do is listen to me because no one else really does. Don't get me wrong, people listen when I speak and I am a commanding presence or at least I used to be... well I still kind of am. But people don't really listen to me when I want to be heard, understood, or just loved in general / even cared for. Each time I try to open up to people they begin to rattle on about themselves or have a competition with me. Example, I am down and am talking about a issue I am having... they respond with a similar situation they had been in, taking over the conversation, and that is supposed to do what? Make me feel connected to them? Then the conversation shifts to them completely, always something about them. Honestly it pisses me off... and you know what else... because I don't just get up and walk out, I am labeled as a great listener or conversationalist. I guess to be someone people want to talk to now a days, all you have to do is shut up and listen to them ramble about themselves. I don't want that, and I don't want to be made to feel like I do not matter.

Why am I posting this in a panic attacks forum? Stay with me and I will get to my point. I feel very alone. I reach out to family and friends with no success. I have to pay a therapist just so I can have someone to talk to that may or may not actually care if I ever get better. Every relationship I have been in I have had two things happen. Either I lost interest because what I thought was there was not or was tossed away like garbage because of illnesses I had no control over. I have been told I was not enough so many damn times by so many people I even started to believe it myself on the inside. I never actually said that out loud before to anyone. I hide away now due to the way panic has tricked me into feeling, but what honestly scares me the most is being alone for the rest of my life. I am scared I will never measure up at a job because I won't be able to function well due to the panic, I feel I will be left again and again by women or cheated on over and over because I am not good enough or am just there to be used. I have a hard time trusting anyone because at every turn in my life I have been let down by people I felt I could trust, doctors, family, and friends. Hell, even my best friend started stealing from me so he could pay bills, I caught him and could not forgive that so I walked away from that friendship forever. Granted at this point in my life I have forgiven that person, but know I will never forget that.

I have been medically tortured, lied to, and conned. I have been threatened, beaten and robbed. I have had a gun pulled on me and watched a man make a decision whether or not if the 7 dollars I had on me was worth shooting me over. (Luckily it wasn't.) I have almost died twice, not felt like I was going to die, but almost actually died. (Got lucky again there). After all of this I still try to be a good person. Don't get me wrong I am no saint, and I have done some pretty crappy things in my life to people for which I am honestly sorry for.

"He still has not gotten to his point yet has he?" asks the reader. I am getting there, I swear.

What I feel is I want to be believed in. I want someone to actually believe in me, care about me, love me, want me, support me when I am down, be there for me when I need them, and just plain old listen to me when I need to talk. I am not sure, but that might be part of where my panic attacks come from. I went from a life filled with strength and opportunity to one of fear and filled with people that only appeared to care and just disappeared. Now I feel that my life is just wrong, I don't want to live like this. I don't want to be scared that I am just going to get sicker and die. I don't want to fear that I will never recover from panic attacks. I don't want to blame myself anymore for who I have become because 90% of everything that has happened to me in life I had no control over.

So, sometimes life sucks and life NEVER turns out the way we expect it. People will fail us, use us, and hurt us. Fear will always be with us in one form or another because that is human nature. It is how we respond to all of this, that is what gives us our control. If something happens and there is a problem, it has happened and it is not my fault. My only choice is to respond to the problem the best I can. Panic attacks are the same thing. I DID NOT CAUSE THE PANIC ATTACK, panic attacks are not our fault, our ONLY choice is how we are going to respond to them. I want to accept that I have a panic attack, breath through my belly, and just ride the wave until I come back to shore. That wave of panic is going to carry me back to the end no matter what I do, it is like a wave in the ocean. If I swim against it, fight it, I am not going to beat it, I am just going to wear myself out. I might as well turn around, jump on my belly breathing surf board and wait till I get back to shore. Sometimes when we go swimming the water is calm, sometimes there are waves, we don't control that, but if we want to go swimming (I am comparing swimming to living life here)... we have to get in the damn water. Yes it is scarey and yes we don't have control over much, but it is better than sitting on the hot sand alone while everyone else has fun and our lives pass us by.

I want to believe in myself again, I used to and I think I can believe in myself again. I know I don't have a lot of people in my life right now that believe in me, but you know what... screw them. Let them doubt me, they don't understand people like us. They have never had to feel the way we do. I am going to get up each day and believe in myself. I am going to put my damn feet in the water, and I am going to go swimming again. Meaning I am going to find a way to live my life and be happy. After everything we have all had to endure and then had panic attacks thrust upon us, how can we not become strong people. If you are reading this it means you are still breathing, still swimming, still alive. Keep going and believe in yourself. You can heal and recover. You can live and become stronger. You can step outside your house. You can drive your car. You can get up and go to that job. You can speak in public, You can go swimming in the ocean and ride that wave. I believe in myself and I believe in you. Keep learning, keeping working at it, don't give up ever. LIVE YOUR LIFE THE WAY YOU WANT TO LIVE IT AND DON"T LET FEAR STOP YOU.

Lastly I want to leave you all with something that really resonated with me this week. It is a paragraph from BBC show Doctor Who, (honestly the only Doctor I will ever believe in LOL):

Clara:

"So please, just listen. I know youre afraid, but being afraid is alright. Because didnt anybody ever tell you? Fear is a superpower. Fear can make you faster and cleverer and stronger. And one day youre gonna come back to this barn and on that day youre going to be very afraid indeed. But thats okay, because if youre very wise and very strong fear doesnt have to make you cruel or cowardly. Fear can make you kind. It doesnt matter if theres nothing under the bed or in the dark so long as you know its okay to be afraid of it. So listen. If you listen to anything else, listen to this. Youre always gonna be afraid even if you learn to hide it. Fear is like a companion, a constant companion, always there. But thats okay because fear can bring us together. Fear can bring you home. Im gonna leave you something just so youll always remember. Fear makes companions of us all."