I'm Having a Panic Attack Right Now
Come along with me as I’m having a panic attack right now.
This will be something.
Hi -
It’s 9:14am in the morning at a Philz coffee shop.
My brain is wired.
The weather is cloudy and perfect.
I’m reading to get to work.
But something happened right now and, I’m mentally freaking out.
First, I’m writing to you because it always feels safe to write you. I appreciate you and cannot thank you enough for listening. Also, I’m afraid that if I don’t puke out all these thoughts to you, I’ll spiral to a point where I’ll text long blocks of cathartic paragraphs to a friend and overwhelm them with blurbs of sporadic emotional energy.
I’m no longer 20.
I can’t send blurbs of sporadic emotional text energy.
So let’s take a step back.
So what’s happening?
Today I have it planned in my head that I was going to get started and finish on some content for a close friend. He’s going to start pushing out his comedy special this week and he asked for my help with social strategy and creating viral videos throughout this month.
Strategy part done.
Viral videos? I promised him four… but I’ve only accomplished one.
I was going to start working on the second video today, but when I looked into my shared folder, the files have been deleted.
Deleted.
Unshared.
Uh Oh.
Oh shit.
Shit?
Fuck.
FUCK!
Right?
I texted and called him to send access when he had the time, but no response as either he has “blocked” me or his phone is on “do not disturb”. I hope to god he just has me as “do not disturb”.
My inner monologue isn’t the best right now.
“Jonathan you fucked up”
“Jonathan you are overwhelming”
“Jonathan you fucked up the relationship”
“Jonathan you did something wrong”
“Jonathan why are you so late?”
“Jonathan why did you gamble?”
“Jonathan this is what you get for doing things last minute”
“Jonathan YOU ARE GOING TO LOSE HIM AS A FRIEND”
I’m doing my best to shake all of these negative thoughts in my mind.
I’m fucking crazy.
I should take my meds.
I don’t want to - but I should. I fucking should.
I just texted another close friend who is in our inner circle, and he said “bro he just did a reading for you on Sunday. You’re okay. He loves you. I haven’t heard anything on his end if he’s upset with you.”
Let’s Talk Positively
“Jonathan, you NEVER asked him for money, it was given… at a really low price than normal. You’re fine. You’re fine. You’ve been helping him since day one”.
THIS IS WHY I DO NOT LIKE WORKING WITH FRIENDS WHERE THEY PAY ME FROM THEIR OWN POCKETS… BECAUSE I GET ANXIETY!!!
WHY DID HE GIVE ME MONEY?
WHY!!!
OKAY POSITIVE THOUGHTS
“Jonathan, you may fuck up in your personal life, but you never have done anything intentionally offensive to him”
“Jonathan, you are a good person, you don’t talk shit. You don’t get jealous”
“Jonathan, you’re a good person, you put people on all the time… he knows that”
“Jonathan, you’re fucking good man. You’re good.”
“Jonathan, your intentions are always sound”
You’re fucking okay.
WHERE THESE TRIGGERS ARE COMING FROM!
Trigger #1
I’m thinking of the time I lied to my mentor at my first inside sales job. Basically, on the last day of the month, I paid customers to help hit my sales quota. I did this because I didn’t want to disappoint her.
She was my everything at the time.
She spent everyday, for 3 straight months training me, coddling me, being her empathetic self to help me as I struggled with corporate life, inside sales life, and just managing my own emotions in this new world outside of college.
I was troublesome.
I sat on the floor in meetings instead of on a chair.
I walked in with a hickey.
I lost my glasses so instead I wore my prescription sunglasses.
I would send a “smiley face” emoji in emails.
I wrote a viral blogpost about how I was rejected from the job and yet through an email and a phone call I sent to her… was given a second chance and was then hired right on the spot.
She believed in me, fought for me… even though she was told that I was a lost cause.
And here I was, on the last day, about to disappoint her for not hitting quota. Therefore, the only logical thought in my head was “let’s pay customers to hit quota”.
Later that day I saw all the managers forming around her, and I already knew I was found out.
Justifiably.
What I did was wrong.
She brought me into her office with HR, and she asked me, “Jonathan did you pay customers to help you hit quota?” I looked her straight in the face in complete guilt and sadness…
“No.”
I immediately left the building and received a phone call two days later that I was fired. “Jonathan, we don’t run our business practices like this…”
Years I’ve thought about this moment.
In fact I emailed her last year apologizing profusely.
She said -
“This happened so long ago. I hope you can forgive yourself”
I cried.
Trigger #2
When I managed Simple Pickup, a group of YouTubers who taught men how to pickup girls, I was always on edge.
It was one of my first big jobs in the social media space.
I wrote their content.
Put together their social media strategy.
Produced their videos.
Brought them collaborations.
Created and structured their products.
Helped them reach 2.5 million dollars in sales in their first year.
Helped them grow from 30k followers to 1.4 million in a year and a half.
Even through all of this, I was always on the cusp of the ledge because we were were just young kids… a total of seven of us… and they were always talking shit about everyone’s work.
Yes, it was a very toxic environment.
Talking shit.
One undercutting another.
Pushing the closest members to move out and live elsewhere.
A ton of pile ons.
It was the culture.
I found myself participating in all of this -
Toxic work environments lead to a few things -
You become afraid to be vulnerable and open enough to ask for help or be honest when things aren’t working out in your favor. Therefore, you keep all the bad things hidden, so you can show that you are the “perfect” manager.
You’re like Greg from the show Succession.
You become a pushover.
You suck up.
You’re not truly yourself.
You hide things.
You talk shit.
You become toxic.
Also, to add even more shit, I was secretly gambling almost every single day, which made things worse because stressing about money, addiction, plus the toxic environment… didn’t make for a good run at this job.
I still remember how they iced me out… just like how they did with one of their other partners, knowing full well my time was coming to an end.
It was heartbreaking when I got fired.
Why? Because it wasn’t for any of the toxicity that I was a part of - rather it was because of an assumed accusation that I was selling their “viral” ideas to other YouTubers.
They were just looking for a way to fire me -
I was toxic -
We were all toxic -
But they couldn’t say that - so they made up the accusation -
I recorded the firing -
I still have it -
Sigh.
The lead guy didn’t even show because just like my “inside sales job” manager… he was one of the first people to put me on.
He believed in me.
He gave me a chance.
And after close to two years…
It seemed I had failed him.
The day it happened I was then threatened by him via a list of text messages how that if I came out or tried to cause drama with other YouTubers - that they would destroy my career in the YouTube slash social media industry.
I’ve kept those text messages.
I had no intentions of doing such a thing -
We were just all young.
The toxic environment of not being able to be completely honest, vulnerable, talking shit, and practicing healthy communication… leads to everyone… everyone having negative assumptions about everyone.
This is why they threatened me.
It makes sense now.
Oddly, it was always weird to see them throughout the YouTube scene.
Years later we would reconnect at these events and we all apologized to each other. They even congratulated me through texts when they would see a campaign I produced or made would pop off.
However, even in those blissful interactions, because of the fact that “people don’t change” when they’re “surrounded by the same people”… I must say that drama always seemed to occur when we tried to reconnect or again work with each other.
Funny enough, I recently saw the head guy from Simple Pickup in Vegas at a party last Saturday. It was random and unexpected because I wasn’t supposed to be there… but was invited last minute by a creator (to help write a speech and film) and he just so happened to be there.
We hugged.
His girlfriend said, “it’s so good to see you”.
I almost cried.
I told him “I’m sorry for everything”
He said, “I’m sorry too, you’re a good guy”
They both said, “we should catch up”
I got her phone number and texted her that “It would be nice to catch up, but it’s okay because at least my heart is full to see you both”
But during that club scene, I felt myself trying to impress yet again, like the good ole days… I felt that vibe again… that nervousness… that trigger… his head shake…
That feeling of “he is doesn’t like me” or some other negative shit.
Thankfully they didn’t respond to my text message.
Because what the fuck would we even catch up again?
It would triggering on both ends.
What now?
There are too many triggers to talk about…
… but, I’ve learned throughout time that when I try to act perfect by not communicating honestly and promptly, and also try too hard to please… I end up fucking up more.
Therefore, I promised myself that with any and all future clients I’ll be more up front with everything.
More vulnerable.
More open.
More communicative.
Doubling down on good intentions.
It’s a great mantra to have because when things go wrong, and they will, finding a solution is easy because everything is laid out on the table.
Because of this mantra, I can deal with anything:
“Jonathan what the fuck is this? This is fucking garbage”
Boom.
These are actual type of statements I have received from a client who is on my roster and I’m able to handle this effectively… the comments do not affect me emotionally because I know everything I did prior with my intentions were honest and truthful.
I’m then able to empathize to where they’re coming from -
I get their stress -
I’m able to always calm them down -
Then after communicating -
Make changes.
Views crush.
Engagement crush.
Money flows into their wallets -
They’re pleased.
Life is beautiful.
If a girl doesn’t respond to my texts for days or weeks or even months, or if she sends a long text message of emotional energy… I can handle it now because I know on my end I was honest.
“Jonathan I don’t think I can do this -”
“Okay I understand”
“Wait… I. Uh you can hit me up whenever you want! Please don’t go”
“Cool”
Why am I having a panic attack now?
My anxiety increases when I gamble because gambling is a dishonest activity. I’ve lost close to $500k.
I tell people this, and when I do gamble, it usually disrupts the responsibilities and world around me…
It disrupts my mood.
It disrupts just fucking everything.
Well…
I gambled in Vegas last week.
I won.
I lost.
I won.
I lost.
I won.
I lost.
It doesn’t matter.
But believing in the karma gods, I’m believing that it probably affected my aura in a way that transcended to my comedian friend. Right?
RIGHT?
Every time I gamble something goes wrong.
Fuck.
I really do hope my friend isn’t mad at me… I hope to fucking god I didn’t fuck up. I cannot figure out to the life of me what I did -
I’m backtracking.
Everything says that I did everything by the book.
Where does this all come from?
Abuse.
Domestic and emotional violence is a fucked up way to grow up.
You’re afraid to tell your abuser anything for fear of receiving violence. You expect the worst to happen. You expect to fail. Sometimes you intentionally and subconsciously fail so that way you can egg on the abuser to ABUSE YOU…
“You’re going to get abused anyway, so why not get it out of the way?”
This is just something I’ve been working on myself, through therapy, all the time.
I want to be better.
I have to better.
Jonathan fucking breath.
10:35am
I just checked and my friend just texted me…
“I’m flying back today. I’ll have those files to you later tonight or tomorrow”
Jesus.
Fucking.
Christ.
We’re good.
He was just budy.
I wasn’t going to do therapy this week…
But I will…
I have to -
I’m not going to look back at what I wrote.
Fuck grammatical fixes.
LUV You.
(L. U. V. I’m saving the “love” for the person I marry)
Thanks for listening as always.
Location: Philz Coffee Shop - Culver City, California.