The last few weeks have been strange. Basically, leading to a breakdown.

I woke up in the in the middle of the night Monday and Tuesday having full-on panic attacks about work. Monday night, I actually thought I had forgotten to do something important at work and at 3:45AM, got fully dressed while I scampered around my room crying & moaning "Oh God...Oh God...Oh God..."

I reached the door to exit my apartment, dizzy and short of breath from the anxiety, cell phone in my hand ready to call my team and check in with them to see if they handled certain tasks when I stopped myself. "What am I doing," I asked myself. It's 4AM. Yesterday was a holiday. I haven't missed a deadline. Everything is okay.

Everything is okay, I repeated as I climbed the stairs to my bedroom, changed out of my clothing and sat down on my bed again. I started to feel dizzy again as I thought about everything I needed to take care of this week, and absent-mindedly wrote down notes to myself on my hands and arms with a marker. I laid back down and woke up a few hours later when my alarm went off.

The next night, I woke again, this time at 4:30am, panicking. I started checking my voicemail and my remote e-mail. I called an associate's voicemail and left him messages asking if he took care of my project. I wrote notes to myself of things I needed to do.

Wednesday night, I went out with a childhood friend from my hometown who is a social worker. I basically filled her in on what happened in September, what it was like, how I feel like it's haunting me now.

She told me that she thinks that because I was responsible for the search and paperwork for so many friends with families outside of NYC who weren't able to get into NYC in the days after 9/11, I assumed a great deal of their grief but never grieved myself because I feel responsible to always present a strong front.

As we spoke I felt an excruciating headache come on, the same one I've felt for days. She recommended I see someone to talk to and speak with my doctor about medication, which I declined.

I didn't understand why I was experiencing these delayed PSTD symptoms until today. It was sparked by the recent terror threats. I monitor the news media for my job, reading 5 newspapers daily and watching 8 hours of newscasts. The constant reporting of of unsubstantiated reports of additional NYC attack threats ate at my subconscious, wearing me down and making me anxious.

It's almost funny, that I was re-terrorized by the US news media, the very same organization is supposed to inform and arm America with intelligent news.

But it's not funny. I think the media has been completely irresponsible and maybe it's because so many of them were also affected directly by the attacks that they receive these leads that make *them* panic and so they report it in a PSTD frenzy. I'm not sure, but that's a theory I have right now.

It's also my fault for buying in and paying heed to unsubstantiated warnings. I should never have read the first-hand accounts that the NYT ran on Saturday - transcripts of calls and e-mails of victims in the North and South Towers, as well as first-hand accounts from many who escaped. It was gruesome. I can't imagine why the Times would have printed them, other than their ache for a Pultizer. I think the Pulitzer people should make "social responsibility" a criteria for awards.

Today, I finally felt a sense of peace. I almost laughed at a photo of Mueller on the front page of the Times today, using boards to illustrate the reorganized focus of the FBI. I say I *almost* laughed because I suddenly thought that we are in grave danger, if we are devoting intelligence resources to have them map our visuals and talking points so America can better understand their purpose. I don't want to know their platform, I want them to produce fast and hard results.

I don't want to dwell on missed signs and overlooked memos, I want to be told that all memos are under serious consideration now.

I don't want to hear about the INS being too lazy to send someone to transfer a vanload of terror suspects from NYC jurisdiction over the holiday weekend, forcing the NYPD under law to release the suspects back into society. I want to hear that those INS employees have been fired and replaced and I want an INS representive to show accountability for what happened and dedication to ensuring the same mistake is not made in the future.

I want Alias to circumvent their summer hiatus and bring Sidney and Michael back, so that on Sunday nights, for an hour, I can foster false hope that our intelligence forces have the best and the brightest and they are good guys.

I think I'm shaking this breakdown, but what I am finding for the upteenth time, is that regardless of how I work to resume my old life, I'm just not the same person anymore. For better or for worse, I've changed and I need to find out how to make this new person not just someone I can live with, but someone that I like.

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