Hi – I wanted to share with you a couple of things that I found helped me on the road to curing my panic attacks.
I know they’re both common problems for people who have anxiety and who suffer panic attacks, so I hope you find this useful.
The first was realizing that I wasn’t alone – that in fact many people suffer similar problems.
The second was realizing that having panic attacks did not mean that I was going crazy (even though there were times when that’s just what it felt like).
One of the things I used to hate about my panic attack was the feeling of being out of control. I often felt so dizzy that I might faint. My breathing got so tight and my heart raced so much I’d be terrified of having a heart attack – which of course made things worse.
Because I couldn’t control the attacks I’d end up worrying so much about when the next one might come that it almost became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I really did feel like there must be something wrong with me. Why couldn’t I get on with my life like everyone else? Maybe I really was going a bit crazy.
1 in 20 suffer panic attacks
It actually turns out that at around 1 person in 20 suffers from panic attacks, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. And that may be an underestimate, because it’s thought that a lot of people either don’t get properly diagnosed or don’t even seek treatment.
Just knowing that I wasn’t alone helped, but it wasn’t enough to break the cycle of attacks.
Not going crazy!
The next step was understanding that panic attacks are actually a “natural” response and that I wasn’t actually going crazy.
Panic attacks happen when the body’s “fight or flight” mechanism is triggered. Often the first panic attack is caused by something particularly stressful – in my case my first attack came during a particularly difficult period in my personal life.
The problem is when the sub-conscious mind starts to overreact. With people who suffer repeated panic attacks what often happens is that their sub-conscious reacts to “triggers” that remind them of the circumstances linked to the original attack.
Even though the situation may be different, their mind over reacts to this trigger, leading to a panic attack.
Since the tiniest things can trigger this over reaction, panic attacks can come without any warning – which of course makes the thought of them even more scary. This leads to a heightened state of anxiety that increases the chance of a new attack.
My first big breakthrough
Knowing all of this certainly helped, but my first real breakthrough came when I finally found a treatment that went beyond just explaining this and actually found a way to break the cycle.
What’s so amazing about the treatment is that it’s so simple. When I first tried it and it worked I actually cried, because I realized that I’d finally found something that could really help me.
It still seems wrong to me that I could go through so many years of anxiety with none of my doctors or therapists ever suggesting this solution. But overall I’m just grateful that I finally found it, because my quality of life was starting to suffer so much from the frequency of the attacks.
I’ve got to head out now, but in my next post I’ll write some more about how this whole “breaking the cycle” thing actually works. Love – Mary x
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