Patriot Realm

What does the future hold? How the hell will we cope moving on? Our economies are in meltdown; our freedoms destroyed and the Thought Police are censoring our lives through fear.

They are aiming for castles in the sky but forgetting that, in order to get there, you have to travel a dangerous road and someone has to be the driver.

We are poisoning ourselves with vaccines ( not me or most people I know ) and locking ourselves away from normality because we are too scared to stick our heads above the radar and risk being arrested for negative thoughts.

We don't want to be carted off in handcuffs, wearing our PJ's because we dared to say that life isn't very fair right now.

We are living in a dystopian nightmare and we truly need to wake up and shake off the stupor that has infected us.  

This morning, about 3am, after a night of tossing, turning, I had a panic attack.

The last time I had one was about 10 years ago: driving up to Larnach Castle in Dunedin, New Zealand. 

Here I was, behind the wheel of the hire car with my trusty side kick Redhead in the passenger seat, my now sadly departed father in the backseat, and I chose this particular time to have a panic attack.

Unless you have driven the road that takes you to this rather amazing place ( I am told it is - I never got to see it ) it is a rather challenging drive. Perched on the side of a mountain, the road wends and weaves its way up up and up and, unfortunately, the further up I drove, the more my adrenalin went down, down and down.

It is like a mini Crown Range Road - the path between Lake Wanaka and Queenstown in New Zealand. A great shortcut if you have the guts to drive it. Well, not for this little black duck. I would prefer to attend a Biden Rally than drive that particular road.

crown range road

As our hire car trudged its weary way up the mountain to the castle, my panic attack was setting in at a rate of knots that I had not previously experienced. Redhead was telling me to keep driving, keep breathing and keep going. My late Dad was sitting in the back seat offering encouraging words.

" It almost makes you feel like you are going to fall off the side of the cliff, doesn't it? "

Thanks Dad.

We eventually got to the top of the cliff and I collapsed on the ground, weeping and a shallow shadow of the person I was when I had cheerily set out from Dunedin less than an hour before.

Redhead decided that today was not a good day to visit a castle and that perhaps the best thing was to get us off that horrific precipice and back down to Earth. 

Dad assumed the co pilot's seat, Redhead became the pilot and I huddled on the backseat with a blanket over my head and sought my safe place by deciding that it was not happening and I was not about to die or fall off a cliff into an abyss.

As Redhead valiantly soldiered on, driving at a hearty 20 km per hour, gripping the steering wheel with a feroicity that would have put Winston Churchill to shame, Dad sat merrily gazing out of the car window chiming in with such supportive comments as 

" Gee! We're still a long way up! "

and 

" It's like we're flying! Look how far down everything is! "

Meanwhile, I assumed the fetal position and pulled the blanket over my head to such an extent that I wondered if I would ever venture out again.

Yes, Redhead did pilot us back to the safety of sea level. And yes, I did emerge from my panic attack sufficiently to ferry us back to the airport at Dunedin and get a fast stage out of dodge.

So why am I telling you this story about a panic attack that happened all those years ago on a mountain in New Zealand?

Because last night, I woke up with that same feeling. That horrible, inexplicable feeling of dread that is a panic attack.

Where it seems that you are about to be consumed by forces beyond your control and that there is nothing you can do to prevent the horror that you fear is about to condemn you to death. 

And so I wrote this article. 

Because many of us are in that situation right now. Where we feel that we are about to fall off a cliff and nothing can save us.

We need that steadfast resolve of the Redheads of this world to take over the reins and take us back to sea level. To normality. 

Last night, I was falling off a cliff. I panicked and, to my shame, I wanted to hide under a blanket in the backseat and let someone else do the driving.

I rang Redhead this morning and she too had not had a good night.

If this goes on much longer, there will be cars abandoned on the side of the road, people hiding under blankets and no one will be left to bring us home. And my father would be sitting on top of the mountain and wondering how he can hitch a lift back to normality.

It is all very well to drive to a castle in the sky, as our Governments are trying to do with us, but we need to have a few Redheads on board to skipper our journey home.

Unlike the ones we have today. Our Governments - certainly in Australia, have let us down big time. We need to get control back over our lives and these control freaks are just increasing the anxiety and putting fuel on the fire.

Are you listening? Wake up! Too many are asleep at the wheel.