Promises From One Sufferer To Another
PREFACE (abridged)
“Together we will make it”
This book, as is any book, is a promise. It is my promise to help you with panic. Now some promises are made lightly by unfilled in people. And some promises are made by ignorant people. Many promises are not kept—broken promises easily made, and easily broken. But that’s not what I’m gonna do.
This book is different, and it's both fortunate and unfortunate for you. I am not a professional author. I wrote this book myself, directly to you. There have been no editors, no readers, no focus groups. Everything about this book is hand crafted: the words, the spacing, the titles, the cover, the pictures—everything. It is custom built, by a panic person, for a panic person.
People who panic are similar: they are outgoing, caring, hard working, and decent. It takes one to know one; and it takes one to heal one. So, I decided to write this book, as only I was able to write it, the best way that I could, with the hope that those of us who it's meant for will find it, understand it, and use it well. It's not written for spectators, not for critics, not for the invulnerable, but hurting, anxious, panicked, avoiding, lovely courageous people—like you and me.
CHAPTERS 12
The chapter organization of this book follows a path that we would follow if we were working together in the same room. Healing panic (Relationally Based Illness) isn’t about subtracting the panic experience from our lives, it’s about adding comfort. Have you ever looked at panic this way? Healing is about addition, not subtraction. It’s the understanding and recombination of ingredients already within us that changes everything.
Chapter 1: My Story. If we were in the same room we would be getting to know each other. Eventually we might tell some of our stories. We might begin to share some of our history, and thus know more about each other. And in so doing perhaps trust each other more. Chapter 1 will be your getting to know me. Hopefully, when you read it, you'll say to yourself, “Oh my gosh, Charlie knows what I'm going through—he's been there!”
Chapter 2: Introduction. We explore the book in an abbreviated fashion but enough to let you know what to expect and where we’re going. This is not just an intellectual exercise. Our relationship together is to create a person that responds well to panic, a person not bullied by biology. We begin with the big picture.
Chapter 3: Quick Start. After the big picture the quick start. Panic attacks are so painful that we need comfort and we need it now. So chapter 3 will cover some practical—right now—things to do in the moment and some instructions and advice about how to get on the trail to long term pain relief.
Chapter 4: Panic's Toolbox. Symptoms. The experiences that drive us further into fear and avoidance or drive us further into clarity, understanding, and healing. Without proper understanding, relationship, and love, the response to symptoms is at best haphazard. After you read chapter 4 your response to the panic package will be different. Sadly, chapter 4 is the longest in the book. It shouldn't be. But, to be honest we wouldn't be experiencing this book together without symptoms. They demand our attention and our respect.
Chapter 5: Shame: Panic’s Silent Partner illuminates what keeps symptoms so lively and what keeps panic alive. We who suffer as cowards are terribly ashamed. Do I offend you with the word coward? My offense is mild compared to what you say to yourself. We are very ashamed of how panic affects us. It’s why we mostly talk about symptoms. Panic reveals and affects such deep areas of our lives that we are very reluctant to talk about them. And in not being able to talk about them, we are the only ones who know about our shame and thus the experience is highly magnified, intense, and empowered. The shame chapter will begin to unlock our jail cell and produce the response: “Well of course, everyone feels this way, there’s No shame in that.” Note: Panic people are the bravest I’ve ever known...
Chapter 6: Relational Loving. If chapter 4 and 5 illuminate the way into panic, chapter 6 will shine a bright light on the way back from panic, the way to freedom: Relationship! It is the most practiced and least understood part of our lives. We do it every minute of every day whether we know it or not. We do it with ourselves even if we're on a desert island. We do it with others, both in the room with us, and out of the room. We do it with people living, we do it with the dead. Like breathing, we barely notice it, and cannot exist without it. The problem is that relating is just like a fish in water that doesn't know that it's wet. We don't understand the potency of relationship nor do we comprehend that it acts as a path to healing or a path to devastation both in our inner life and our experiential life. Panic is not the problem, relating is. Relationship understanding and practice is the way out of panic.
Chapter 7: History’s Gifts. History is more than the past. For us, it is: The look back: recent and long past. The use of tools to illuminate the way in and the way out of panic. History’s Elements and Relational Timepieces. The heart of history. The kindness of history. The relationally healing power of history.
Chapter 8: Desire. Those of us who panic have but one desire, to not panic. This intense wish keeps us trapped and betrays how hurt and empty we have become. Desire is the fuel of life. We’re going to legitimatize, restore, and encourage want.
Chapter 9: Be Fill Act: Peace Joy Courage. Be at peace, fill with Joy, act with courage. The idea of a self. What it is, what it does, how its created, and why it matters. The true answer to emotional invitations. Our healing self is the true best responder to panic.
Chapter 10: Panic's Spiritual Needs. There is no getting around it that panic is a spiritual experience. We don’t realize how fear effects our spiritual needs. Those in the spiritual helping world often make things better and often make things worse. Some sorting will help.
Chapter 11: How to Help/Make Sure You Want To. The whole premise of this book is that we need each other. Those around us that want to be helpful often don't know how. Chapter 11 addresses how to help, and it asks—make sure you want to and that you can manage the changes that come with helping. Does that seem like an odd thing to say? One of the hidden powers of panic is that it acts as a glue to hold people together. It's probably not a good glue, but it works really well—it's a messy glue.
Chapter 12: Hope. One major ingredient is often missing in panic. Hope! It’s vital. You will find encouragement here. This chapter points to your future.
HOW TO USE THE BOOK
This book is written as part devotional, part personal letter, part textbook, and part map. Not simple, but powerful. I know you will have to struggle with my writing and my ideas. And yet, language is one of the keys to recovery so this had to be written by a translator fluent in the language and experience of panic: me. I envision you using the book with certain passages or headings as guides and comforts. Just as I have used others books and my own. I expect you to read, argue, disagree, laugh, cry, be moved, be angry, depressed, sad, silly, and more. Take me (our discussions) inside, that’s the process. When you've invested in the book and you have heard the stories, you will better understand yourself and how panic came to the place it holds in your life. There are few problems as devastating as panic. And few as rewarding. Your life is at stake.
Promises From One Sufferer To Another
Copyright © 2015 Charlie Albers All rights reserved