The account you are about to read is deeply personal and not easy to write. But one thing I have learned about panic (and most other challenges we face) is that there is power in commonality and in recognizing that others can understand what you are facing. So, if you are struggling with panic and panic attacks, I share my story with you in mind and I hope it will help you to feel less alone.
When I was around 32, I began to experience debilitating panic attacks. They would strike seemingly without warning and throw me into a state of total chaos, disorientation, and dysregulation. My body would be overcome with frightening symptoms, including a heart that seemed to beat out of my chest, a feeling of unsteadiness and lightheadedness, blurred vision, and all manner of strange yet uncomfortable and alarming physical sensations. Mentally, I felt a sense of unreality, as though in these panicked moments, nothing was real. Emotionally, fear took hold, as my physical symptoms seemed to indicate something horribly, irreversibly wrong. When I panicked, nothing felt safe.
As these episodes began to occur with greater frequency, I began to panic about being panicked. I would hope and pray that today would be a day without an attack. I began to avoid situations that might elicit panic and I started to see multiple doctors, visit urgent care centers and emergency rooms, and seek specialists in order to explain why my body was doing the things it was doing. To my dismay, none of them—cardiologists, neurologists, allergists and the like—could explain it. I did not know at the time that there was no medical problem; rather, my stress response was dysregulated: I was overwhelmed, out of touch with my life circumstances, and needed help outside of a medical setting.
This brings me to my recovery. I see it as a recovery because, much like a chronic illness or a debilitating injury, panic interrupted my life, obstructed my ability to be present, and forced me to narrow my experience. Recovery allowed for a re-broadening of my world and an ability to step back into my life. I never thought a sentiment as seemingly simplistic as “you are not in danger” would open the door to life without panic. But it did. The wonderful and skilled therapist who told me this recognized that underlying everything I was experiencing symptomatically was a belief that I was in danger and that doom awaited. It was not batteries of medical tests or specialists or hospital visits that finally helped my panic subside—it was a cognitive leap of faith, an allowance that maybe, just maybe there was no disaster waiting to befall me.
Of course, my recovery was not as simple as just hearing a few words. I would estimate that my therapist repeated this mantra at least 50 times during our time together. It was a message I needed to hear and keep hearing. If the automatic narrative I carried with me was “I am in danger,” then I needed to continue challenging it with an opposing message. My therapist stayed on message and his support never wavered. He also educated me, explaining the mammalian brain, the primitive fear responses, and the concept of fight, flight, or freeze. He showed that recovery begins with understanding what you are facing. As panic began to become demystified for me, I slowly began to feel more control over it.
Once the cognitive groundwork had been laid, I was free to begin my behavioral recovery. No longer believing that I was in imminent danger, I started to do once again the activities I had shelved in the name of safety—little things like walking my dog without an overwhelming dread that something awful would happen began to accumulate and instill a further sense of safety. I started going out again, attending events, and, essentially, broadening my life. I was recovering by letting go of the avoidant and safety-seeking behaviors that I thought were protecting me. In reality, they were limiting my life and my experiences.
Though I was beginning to do better and panic less, it was a zigzag path. One particularly anxious week, I tearfully told my therapist, “I just want to never be anxious again.” In his usual gentle and compassionate manner, he replied, “You have to be reasonable with yourself. And never being anxious is unreasonable.” He was, in essence, saying that the answer was not to never be panicky; it was to accept that I might feel that way at times, but to ultimately know and believe that it did not mean a catastrophe loomed. I felt lighter. The pressure was finally off: I did not need to never be anxious. I simply needed to know that when I was, I could still be safe and OK. Funny how sometimes the biggest realizations come in the smallest moments.
My therapist also encouraged me to be more aware of my life circumstances, and ask myself questions like, “Am I tired? Am I overworked? Do I have a lot on my plate?” These types of self-checks started to help me recognize that panic often occurred when I was fatigued, stretched too thin, or stressed about work and other life situations. It’s another concept that seems simple enough but that we rarely follow in actual practice. How often we simply push through our lives barely paying attention to what our bodies and minds really need. It began to all make sense: Of course, my body would freak out if I was overwhelmed and exhausted. It was trying to tell me something, namely that I was doing too much. It wasn’t trying to tell me I was in danger; it was trying to tell me to take my foot off the pedal. As I began to pay more attention to the larger life circumstances, my body did not need to alert me to them as dramatically as it had in the past. I should add that there were other important elements to my recovery beyond my experience in therapy. I began taking a low dose of an SSRI medication to help me manage anxiety and panic and I worked hard to implement the strategies I learned in therapy into my daily life. These were the things that helped me; your own recovery may not take the same path.
Two years later, I enrolled in a graduate program to become a clinical social worker and, ultimately, to become a psychotherapist. If you would have told me when I was at the mercy of panic that I would be able to earn a master’s degree, hold down two years of an internship, pass two licensing exams and do 3,000 hours of clinical supervision then go on to own and operate my own practice, I would never have believed you. But here I am. In my practice, I enjoy working with people who are struggling with anxiety and panic. Why? Because I get it. And I get it beyond a textbook, a graduate-level course, or a seminar. I get it on a human level. It was, above all, humanness that helped me recover from panic.
Make no mistake: I still get anxious sometimes. I even still experience panic feelings once in a while. But they do not overwhelm me as they once did. They do not pull me out of my life. I can break down how I recovered from panic this way:
- I let go of the shame and stigma I had previously attached to therapy. I sought help at a time when I needed it.
- I became a student of panic and learned everything I could about it, which allowed to gain some control over it.
- I learned to challenge my longstanding beliefs, particularly the one that told me “you are in danger.”
- I began to pay more attention to my extenuating circumstances, such as my workload, my level of fatigue, and my stressors. This helped to keep myself from reaching a panic point.
- I became more reasonable with my expectations of myself. I became OK with being anxious sometimes, and no longer expected myself to never feel panicky.
If you are reading this because you are struggling to manage panic, please know the following: Panic is scary but you are safe. Panic can be managed. Panic does not have to rule your life. There is hope and healing. My story is only one of countless stories of coming through the discomfort of panic and stepping once again fully and safely into your life.
To find a therapist, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.