It's taken me a while and much longer than I remember it but finally I am nearing the end of "1984" by George Orwell. My first book in a long while and hopefully the start of getting back into reading again. My kindle tells me I am 91% complete so not long now. I have just gotten to a bit which really struck a chord with me...
"'Do you remember,' said O'brien, 'the moment of panic that used to occur in your dreams? There was a wall of blackness in front of you, and a roaring in your ears. There was something terrible on the other side of the wall. You knew that you knew what it was, but you dared not drag it into the open.'"
That feels about right sometimes. I do feel there is something at the other side of my wall causing the panic. I think I know what it is but don't at the same time because I have buried it so well I cannot remember. There is something there though. Its not visible. Its there. I think I do fear exposing it. And it has been there for as long as I can remember and that is why it is buried in the past. There are times I glimpse it but its not a thing I can put into words. Its a feeling- intense dread. I remember times when I was younger feeling it but now I don't know why and memories merge into others making the waters murky. But although the sounds, the images and even the smells all fade or become entangled in one another the feeling remains as strong now as it was then like I am living it over again. It is there at the point of panic.
That is why when I read in self help books that its important to know panic is harmless and that helps ease the panic I can't relate. I have never thought at the moment of panic that I am going to die or come to any kind of harm. I know lots of people do. For a lot of people its their heart which must be scary. But for me its not that. Its this intense dark dread that comes over me and everything becomes unreal as people carry on normally but for me I have stepped out of sync into a dark alternative reality where a real fear stalks- a bit like putting on the ring in the Lord of the rings books. Nothing on this planet can make me accept that. But its always been there for whatever reason and I buried it but over time it has kept resurfacing until two decades ago the seal cracked open and all the raw fear came flooding in.
I think Orwell describes it perfectly in his writing. I can relate to it to the point I don't want to linger on it in case my mind goes down that dark alley too far. That led me to another paragraph shortly after.
"'By itself,' he said, 'pain is not always enough. There are occasions when a human being will stand out against pain, even to the point of death. But for everyone there is something unendurable - something that cannot be contemplated. Courage and cowardice are not involved.'"
In the story Winston Smith has been broken by torture and interrogation but still there is a tiny part unbreakable by force alone. This is the final method to completely break the spirit. And that is important here. We all do have something we just cannot contemplate facing. The force of that cannot be put into words. It's just something there inside us. A door we keep closed. And this is the thing most self therapy books I have read don't get. I know opening that door won't kill me. You know that. We do not think this will physically harm us or threaten our mortality. It is just something we feel unable to face. As said by Orwell the ability to face that does not come down to an overabundance of courage versus lack of it. Its something we just cannot handle regardless of how stupid it would appear to others. And this last part is what empowers it further because even if someone says they understand they don't. Even if they show support you know deep down they don't mean it. It's an anomaly that is as hard to pin down as it is to describe but it is very much a personal event.
In recent years my progress has gone backward dramatically but I still plod away knowing I got there before and can do it again. Thankfully the periods of full blown panic have eased off considerably so its trying to now just get confidence and trust in myself to go back to the places I went before slowly. And I will get there however slowly. Small steps have been made in the right direction and that is all I can ask for. Hopefully over the coming months that progress will increase and this shrunken world I am in will get bigger again.
