Living with Panic Attacks

I've been contemplating writing this post for a while now - the subject being something rather personal to me which I don't tend to share with a lot of people - not because I feel uncomfortable in doing so but because of its tendency to be misunderstood. So, i’ll just jump straight in and tell you my big secret… I suffer with panic attacks. At some stage in my life, i would have probably found it incredibly embarrassing to share this fact about myself with anyone, let alone posting it on my blog for the world to see. However, as i’ve grown older, I’ve come to realise that there’s absolutely nothing to be ashamed of and that there are actually lots of people in this world who feel the exact same way. It’s one part of ‘me’ that can often make life a little bit difficult from time to time - but after 20+ years of battling with them, I have to say I've learnt one hell of a lot about dealing with panic and how to overcome it.  I thought it would be a fabulous idea to share some of my experiences in the hope that it might be beneficial to somebody out there. This is going to be a long post, i apologise in advance - but if you suffer with panic attacks yourself or know somebody else who does it may be of interest to you.

What a panic attack feels like

If you don't suffer with them yourself, the only way i can describe them is absolutely terrifying. To put it rather simply - it feels as if you're going to die. Your heart races, your vision goes blurry, you feel incredibly sick and above all, it becomes increasingly difficult to breathe. Your mind and body convinces you that something really bad is happening or is going to happen and you feel as if you simply have to get out of the situation you’re in - a response called ‘fight or flight’. A panic attack isn't just a feeling of being nervous (as is often thought) - it’s much more than that. In fact, you don't even have to be feeling 'nervous' to get one. They begin from nowhere and often with little warning. Sometimes you can feel it building up for a matter of hours, but other times it washes over you like a wave that i can't even begin to explain; and it can happen anytime, anywhere.  

A typical panic attack lasts for about 20 minutes. It may not sound a long time, but once it has you gripped i can tell you that it feels like forever. Sometimes it is possible to have a series of attacks one after the other and other times it is possible to feel the effects of an attack for the majority of a day - coming in waves of intense panic and settling to an underlying feeling of unease. They also leave you feeling incredibly drained and weak afterwards due to all of the adrenaline that has been running through your body. Not nice. Not nice at all.

My Experience with Panic Attacks

For as far back as i can remember I have suffered with panic attacks. In fact, I don't actually recall a time when I haven’t had them and they are just something i've had to learn to live with. I have no idea what it might feel like to not have this little cloud of un-easyness come and visit me from time to time. Most people develop panic attacks in their early 20s, but I've had to deal with it from an extremely young age. I can actually recall the feeling of panic as far back as some of my earliest memories. 

If i try and think back to when I first began to realise something was wrong, it would be when I was in my first year of junior school. I was standing in a line with all of my friends outside the school hall ready to go into an assembly. All of a sudden i felt an intense wave of panic - i couldn't breathe, i felt extremely sick and began to shake uncontrollably. It’s such a vivid memory for me and I remember crying uncontrollably and telling my poor teacher i was going to die. I eventually calmed down slightly but i still felt absolutely terrible and was sent home for the day but as soon as i got through the front door, i was fine. This began to happen every time i had an assembly and each time the same thing would happen and i would get sent home. In the end, the teacher had completely lost interest in anything i had to say and probably thought i was putting it on. The thing was, i was a child who genuinely loved school - i enjoyed going and it upset me to have to go home every week, only to feel fine once i was back home. It was very odd. I even ended up in A&E and nobody could find anything wrong with me. It was all very frustrating and in the end, i decided to keep it a secret because of the way people were towards me… even my parents had started to think I was just being a dramatic so and so, and it was from then that I kept it all in and hid it away. It would be years until i confided in another soul again! You can imagine how difficult this was for a child of 8 years old to keep something like this to themselves - of course, at this age, I had no idea what they were and just assumed everybody else felt like this and I was just completely rubbish at dealing with it.

Funnily enough, this hatred of assembly's/silent places full of people stayed with me - when you have a panic attack in a certain situation or place, this memory gets 'stored' somewhere in a little filing cabinet in your brain - and the next time you are placed in the same situation, in the same place or within the same or similar surroundings, the feelings of panic often return because your brain has saved that little memory as being a 'dangerous situation'.  The panic attacks followed me all the way through school and into my teenage years. My GCSE's were a nightmare and i have no idea how on earth i managed to pass any of them at all - I still feel quite proud of myself now when I think back to the amount of stress I went through during this time and yet still managed to pass with pretty good results. Our exams were sat in our school hall, (crowded silent place = my dreaded situation) and i was always placed somewhere in the middle of all of the tables and chairs, a long way away from any of the doors or 'escape routes'. I used to line up outside and feel so unbelievably sick - up until the point where i contemplated skipping my exams. I used to take one look at the mass of tables and chairs and think about how many people would be crammed into that room with me and I'd lose sleep going over potential 'panic' situations in my head. I felt so jealous of my friends; i longed to be 'normal' like them and just feel normal nerves like a normal person and not have to worry about having a panic attack. I used to wonder why they were so calm and collected before an exam compared to me - they would stand around chatting away, and i'd be sat there chewing my nails and shaking like a leaf and generally feeling as if something awful was about to happen - I didn't sleep properly for weeks. I remember sitting in one of my exams and shaking so much that the examiner had to come and ask me if I was ok. I wasn't. I felt like i was going to throw up all over my exam paper and the question in front of me was a jumble of words and sentences i couldn't possibly understand until the feeling had gone away. It used to take me a good 20 minutes before i could even begin my exam properly. I would bite my nails in an attempt to calm my nerves, and sometimes i'd bite them so much that they would bleed and it hurt so much to put pen to paper. But it was anything to take my mind off the panic. Sometimes my hands would completely freeze and I wasn't able to move them at all. The worst attacks take complete control of your body due to the imbalance of oxygen.  Once, I remember calling my dad for help and having to use my elbow to try and press the numbers on the phone because it was the only part of me I could physically move at all.

In general, typical 'nervous' situations for 'normal' people are made 10 times worse for me; job interviews, my driving test (was an absolute nightmare), exams, graduation ceremonies… I don't think i really know what 'just being nervous' feels like. I wish so much that i didn't have to think about having a panic attack in these situations.

How I Cope Now

I will most probably always suffer with panic attacks. I still get feelings of dread when i have to sit in quiet places full of people or if i'm on a crowded bus. I will still sit on it sometimes at rush hour, and feel the need to get off. Whereas before i probably would have done, i force myself to stay on it now. The more you put yourself in your dreaded situations the easier it will become (easier said than done is an understatement here though…) 

I don't have them regularly now - sometimes I go through months where i will have none at all. Sometimes i will go through a stressful period of my life and i'll have more than usual, but i try not to let it stop me from doing things i want to do.  Now, they are just a little annoyance that crops up from time to time.  When they do, I force myself to try not to think about it and try my very best to get on with things.  I've accepted that I have them now and I just try and do the best that I can…I can’t do any more than that. You just have to try and live life as if you didn't have them and try and roll with the punches as much as you can. Sometimes, they do get the better of me and there have been a handful of times where I’ve had to ‘back out’ of situations because I simply couldn’t face going through with them - it’s important not to beat yourself up when you have a wobble like this… Luckily, I do think as you get older and gain more confidence in discussing your concerns with people, they do tend to subside slightly. 

You dont have to let panic attacks ruin your life, and although they have hindered certain areas of mine, i think in a way they have also helped me to be a stronger, more confident person (every cloud…) With mine, they got worse before they got better (i'll discuss this in a minute) and this isn't necessarily a bad thing - the 'bad stage' i had with my panic attacks actually helped me to learn so much about how to deal with them positively and I control with them very well now. If i feel a bit panicky now I just go with it and let it happen - sometimes i even try and make a joke out of it.  If I'm with certain friends or family that are aware of my panic attacks, I'll just say tell them i’m having one of my wobbles and they will know to give me a few minutes or so.

Things I've Learnt

Tell somebody - I was 17/18 before i did anything about my panic attacks (when I remind you that the earliest one I ever remember was at the age of 8 - that's an incredibly long time!) They began to take over my life and i went through a particularly bad stage in my mid-teens - this is when i decided to face the music and do something about it. I sadly skipped the majority of my A Levels because of them (yet again, exams! arghh!) despite a whole year of hard work, and that's when i realised something needed to be done. I didn't want them to get to the stage where they were effecting my future. It even got to where i would almost dread going out in case i would have one and I was awake all through the night having one after the other - I was completely and utterly exhausted. My only advice if you feel as if this is whats happening to you is to just go and see your doctor - or atleast tell somebody. My parents had no idea what i was going through because i'd kept it a secret since i was a child - and the relief i felt just telling them was a huge step in the right direction. You aren't alone in this no matter what you think and theres always someone willing to talk to you about things. 

You are also in no way, shape of form 'going crazy' - you are just like everyone else, it's just that your nervous system is a little more sensitive than other people’s. Unfortunately - I am one of those people. Nobody in my family gets them, and neither do my friends. So I'm pretty much alone when it comes to people close to me understanding what I sometimes have to go through - which is actually one of the hardest things about suffering with them.  People think you can just 'snap out of it' or 'calm down' - if it was that simple, then I'd be free of them forever by now! 

I won't go into this too much as i feel it would be a topic for another post, but I actually had CBT for my panic attacks - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. They helped me to understand what happened to my body when a panic attack struck and how to counteract the symptoms and my thought processes as best i could. They didn't cure the panic attacks - I'm not entirely sure anything ever will - but the things i learnt during the course of my sessions definitely helped me and I managed to get my life back on track with a lot of hard work and determination.

Accept them -

The more you dwell on them and the more you try to fight them, the worse they will be. I know if i'm going on holiday, for example, i WILL feel a little dodgy on the plane - there is no getting out of it - just let the anxiety do it's thing. Remind yourself you've had these feelings before, and that in a short while you will begin to feel better. I have just accepted now that i'll never be great when someone asks me to go on a long journey with them, or if i have to sit through a talk or go to a meeting in a crowded room - i'm going to feel like crap for a good half an hour or so. Take some water, tell someone you aren't feeling particularly well and you'll find it becomes much easier once you have voiced your concerns.

Ignore the Ignorant Sods -

Some people you tell, infact most people you tell won't understand. It's one of those things that you need to go through in order to 'get it’. Some people look at me like i'm absoloutely bonkers when I tell them about my ‘little secret’. Of course, this makes me feel a little embarrassed but you learn to accept that some people just haven't got a clue and their reaction is probably due to the fact they aren't sure what to say or aren’t informed enough to properly understand what the condition is.  People simply do not get that this is completely real - just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean its not there - it’s a genuine condition and people who have to battle with it need a little bit of TLC at times. I've even had people sit with me in the middle of having a panic attack who have turned to me and said 'stop it now, you're making it so much worse acting like this' ... In situations like this, i'd just rather be on my own. You shouldn't have to feel ashamed of being a sufferer of anxiety and the person getting frustrated telling you to 'snap out of it’ is one of the lucky one's never to have suffered with a panic attack.  Good on them. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean somebody feels fine - they don't need their arm in a sling and a bandage round their noggin to be feeling a bit 'iffy' on a certain day.

See the Positives

Yes, they do get you down and yes they aren't exactly something to be jolly about, but having panic attacks has made me who I am today and I believe in myself a lot more because of it.  I sometimes feel proud of myself for doing the most normal things people don't bat an eyelid over - for example, travelling somewhere far from home completely on my own or managing to get through a usual 'panic' situation without panicking - the feeling of accomplishment is a fabulous thing to feel - it's sometimes nice to give yourself a big pat on the back and it's great to see your confidence with certain situations grow. 

I've found that I'm quite ambitious and I can honestly say that some of my attitude is down to the fact I've always had to try and maintain a strong, positive mind set. It's almost like I want to prove the anxiety wrong in some way - to prove to myself and other sufferers that you don’t have to give up on your dreams because of the hurdles you might face. I feel positive that i’ll achieve what I want to achieve in life, even if it does mean I have to go about it in a slightly different way or it takes me a little longer to get there.  Of course, I wish I didn't have to deal with them and it would be a damn sight easier if i didn’t, but they have taught me a great deal about myself - about how strong I really can be.

Finally…

There is unfortunately such a stigma attached to mental health and it really really gets my goat, let me tell you! I seriously hope this continues to change. If there was as many people talking about this back when i was at school doing my exams and if I knew i wasn't so alone i believe things wouldn't have been so difficult for me to deal with. My 22 year old self is a little more open and honest about things now - I think I just grew some balls (haha) and decided to be completely honest with people - I try not to care what people think.

Panic attacks are actually a pretty common thing. Its important to remember that they do not define who you are and with a little knowledge and practice, you really can kick them to the kurb!

Please feel free to drop me an email or leave a comment telling me about your experiences with this if you're a fellow sufferer.. This is such a personal post for me to publish but i hope that it has been of some interest/help to atleast one of you lovely bunch!