People going frantic in centre of rural southeast, surrounded by idiots (8)

'people going frantic' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't judge whether this works.

'centre of rural southeast surrounded by idiots' is the wordplay.
'centre of' indicates the central letters.
'southeast' becomes 'SE' (synonyms).
'surrounded by' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'idiots' becomes 'berks' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
The centre of 'rural' is 'r'.
'r'+'se'='rse'
'rse' inserted inside 'berks' is 'BERSERKS'.

'in' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?