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A Letter to Myself, 10 Years Ago
If I tell you, it won’t happen. So the night you have your first panic attack, don’t open this.
Dear Charlamagne,
I want to talk to you about what happened to you tonight. You were driving back to Mom’s home in South Carolina. You’ve done it a million times — but this time, out of nowhere, your heart started pounding, and you had to pull over and take some deep breaths.
You think there’s something wrong with your heart. Tomorrow, you’ll go to the doctor, and he’ll tell you that you’re perfectly fine. You’ve got the heart of an athlete. Then he’s going to ask if you’re under any stress.
Tell him the truth: Yeah, you’re stressed. You got fired from a job working with Wendy Williams in the biggest radio market in the world, got your own morning show in Philly but was also fired, and now you’re living back in Moncks Corner, South Carolina, with your girlfriend and young daughter.
He will tell you that last night was a panic attack. And when you give it some thought, you’ll realize it wasn’t the first time.
Hurricane Hugo, 1989. Remember how afraid you were? Even the adults were panicking. When the heart palpitations began, the only thing you could do was hide and try to catch your breath. That was the…
