It's OK. I can breathe now. Everybody can quit asking where it hurts and hollering for medics and trying to force my head down between my knees.

Well, I could use a glass of ice water. But really, I'm fine.

This is embarrassing, but I think I had a panic attack, or maybe it was just a vivid and terrible nightmare. How long have I been asleep? It seemed like it lasted a year.

This was a terrible dream, all about the presidential election. On one side, you had a woman candidate - historic, right? A seasoned political player with years of experience.

Unfortunately, she came with an awful lot of baggage - some carelessness here, some dubious dealing there. Plenty of people in her own party weren't crazy about her, and on the other side - holy cow! - her critics loathed her with passion that bordered on derangement. No dark fable, no sinister tale, was too far-fetched for them to believe.

She wasn't a perfect candidate, but the alternative simply beggared belief. Her opponent was - I'm not making this up, I swear - a billionaire reality TV star, a spoiled real estate developer who knew nothing about policy, history, world affairs, the United States Constitution, or how government is supposed to work.

He was famous for building grandiose developments and naming them after himself. Unlike many other American business titans, he had zero track record for philanthropy or charitable endeavors. He was unable to stay focused for five minutes on any conversation in which he was not the chief subject.

It was crazy. It was nuts! The guy was the least qualified person who has ever received a major party nomination in this country. Yet suddenly, he was the standard-bearer for a party establishment that wanted no part of him, that couldn't control him, that didn't have the first notion how to handle him.

The sad, disturbing part is this: This candidate was sadly, maybe tragically damaged. He was a bully and a blowhard, a bloated man-child who couldn't bear disagreement or dissent, a rage magnet with an uncanny penchant for bringing out the worst in the people around him. He treated women like objects, like inflatable sex dolls. He mocked and insulted people based on their ethnicity, their appearance. And - here's the really scary part - his fans adored him for it.

Some of them just loved the chaos, loved the unfettered license to say anything that came into their heads. He was their high priest of no-holds-barred, the living embodiment of disruption theory.

Sad to say, many of us in the media were slow to catch on. We were amused, them irritated, then dismissive. There was a lot we just didn't see.

The main thing we were slow to understand was that people who were angry, people who were scared, people who were worried about where their lives were headed - they flocked to him like pigeons on a potato chip. They wanted answers and promises, no matter how far-fetched. They wanted somebody, anybody, who might help them maintain their hold on something that seemed to be slipping away like a vapor.

None of it made sense.

It got uglier by the week, by the day. The campaign was so unhinged, so crazy-mean, that people didn't even talk about issues, not really. Americans genuinely behaved as if they hated each other. They were purple with rage.

As election day neared, time seemed to slow down, to drag out, to suspend itself while anxiety festered and flourished. It was like being eaten alive by termites.

As the votes were counted, the news eked out like a water torture drip. Everyone was so invested, so much on edge.

I guess it was one of those dreams where you wake up before there's any real resolution. That must be what happened - isn't it?

I'm awake, right?