From a notebook, 8 April 2006, Kilkenny Ireland — I'm not well inside. I'm suffering from too many panic attacks to leave life enjoyable.

My fear and stress in social situations can be so severe that I don't know what to do. A bail for escape seems sometimes an option. Go out, leave the room.

Sometimes — in a car, for example — I have nowhere to go.

A foggy numbing buzz came over me yesterday coming back from Urlingford.

I want physical affection. My body needs to be loved. I need to touch.

Boy, I'll tell ya, panic is not depression.

Depression has its charms; it can be melancholic, beautiful in its way; poetic, even.

Panic is abject. Panic, angular, sharp, overlording.

The hazy foggy buzz of panic, the disembodied numbness, the irrational fear that propagates itself. A fear, and then its own fear of itself.

I don't know where it comes from. I do recognize a few general triggers. Kim was associated with the first one. Maybe her friendship is that important to me.

Enough crying, and the fear goes away. But I know it will be back.

Stress in the morning is a trigger.

The way I let people treat me creates a trigger.

Walking amongst Irish women is a trigger. Anger, certainly, is a trigger. Self-righteous rage — in other words, self-replicating anger — is definitely a trigger.

Strong feelings. Uncertainty how to apply them live with them express them.

Getting old.