There was a hijacked plane and Homelander and Maeve were dispatched to stop the hijackers and bring the plane and the 173 passengers home. I was stuck on the plane hijacking part, which in retrospect was a warning. I thought: No one hijacks planes anymore. You see what covid-19 has done to us? Now when I watch a television show about hijacked planes, I think ha, that sort of thing doesn't happen anymore. The security and health risks make it almost impossible, but also it's a different world since 9/11. This was my second clue to back away from this episode, but I ignored the internal signal.
Then the superheroes were on the plane to disarm the Arab terrorists. Really, in 2020 we are still stereotyping Arabs as terrorists? It's such a cliched trope at this point. This couldn't happen anymore but, I digress. Suddenly the rescue mission went sideways, and the plane and the passengers were doomed. The plane was freefalling, and the director and the set designer were doing a phenomenal job of creating tension and drama as the superheroes as well as the passengers realize the plane is falling too fast and the superheroes can't save them. That's when it happened.
Suddenly I was back to 9/11 2001 hearing the whoosh of the plane come in too close and explode into the second tower. Then I was in the plane, not "The Boys" plane. Not the plane that crashed into the tower, but the one that was headed to the Pentagon. The one the passengers fought the terrorists for, and crashed in the field. I could hear the men hatching the plan to stop the hijackers and right before execution of the their plan the fatal last words "let's roll."
The last thing I remember was throwing the remote, and going to the bathroom to try to calm down, and ground myself. Use your tools I heard a dear friend whisper in my head. I failed. I came back to the couch and fell into a catatonic state. I was in the throes of a panic attack I have not experienced in YEARS. It was intense. I was in that plane. I could hear the chaos and feel the cold bite of fear and knowing death was inevitable. I lay on the couch blinking, jerking for a few minutes as I stared out at the paused tv screen.
Terror doesn't describe it. Fear does no justice. I was in that plane. I went on like this for a few minutes. I'm not sure how long it was in actuality but, it felt like an eternity. All I could do was hold on like one does on a roller coaster you know will end if you just hold on. Eventually I came back to my body. I went to the refrigerator and grabbed the buy-one-get-one-free cantaloupe chunks I bought last week. The chunks were cool and sweet as I sunk my teeth into them. The chilled sensation helped bring me back into my body. The sweetness helped soothe my dry mouth. Chew-swallow, chew-swallow, chew-swallow, I went on like this for a few minutes until I could see the bottom of the bowl. I drank some water and went to bed feeling disappointed that I had reverted back to my trauma place. I spent a few minutes as the host of my pity party. Kicking myself for believing I was better and healed. For goodness sakes I wasn't even on that plane. That wasn't even the plane I watched explode into a ball of flaming madness that would haunt my dreams and waking hours years later. The horror of the faces running at me as they ran from the explosion. That wasn't even the plane. I kept saying to myself.
I had work the next morning, and all I could do was concentrate on the day. Concentrate harder than I have in a long time. At first I tried NOT to think about it, but that required thinking about what I was not thinking about. I managed to create some distance between myself and the plane. The one I watched explode, the one that crashed in the field and the one on "The Boys", but now I was teetering on the memory of the panic attack itself. The potency of it scared me. It had an all-consuming mind of its own. As it surfaced in my memory I approached it as one does a hot pan from the oven. Tentatively touching it: are you hot? Or a dead vs. sleeping body: are you alive? You rush in. Stop short. Touch. Pull away. Wait to see if it burns or stirs. Was that panic attack real? It threatened to get me if touched it. I left it alone. I made it through the work day. A placid expression sealed onto my face. Serene, focused, pleasant. The mask under the mask.
At home I couldn't resist the reality. Was that real last night? The panic creeped toward me full of doom, power and foreboding like a CAT 4 hurricane or typhoon or other diluvial natural disasters that we ignored for too long and now threatens the known universe and all in it.
I am working with a teacher/coach. We discussed the panic attack and its perverse intensity. She had insight to share during our regularly scheduled session. The work we have been doing over the past few months has made me more permeable. Meaning I have more access to my emotions. I described it as a tourniquet being removed. I had to stanch a plethora of emotions after 9/11 in order to move forward. The stoppage was supposed to be a temporary solution, but it became a way of life; a bad habit if you will. I closed off increasingly more emotions. Before long, most of who I was lay on the other side of the tourniquet, dammed at the barrier.
The meditation practices, the knowing Paul and the guides are encouraging are loosening the tourniquet. Long held back feelings are rushing through me. I have feelings in my extremities again. I recognize conflict in myself and thoughts. I see things as they are, and as I want them to be. Most of all I have a deep knowing that I am present to my being and know that others are in some version of this knowing too. The path through the wilderness of growth is unknowable, but companionship of others fills me with joy beyond measure.
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