Anxiety Disorders And Panic Attacks

An anxiety disorder is a label that describes many conditions.  Some are more extreme than others and many appear to overlap with their symptoms and causes.  A medical condition may be the reason for some while others may be caused as a result of a traumatic or even several traumatic incidents during your life.  I’m not a psychologist so I won’t pretend to fully understand the nuances of each type.  What I am is a sufferer of more than one so I have first-hand knowledge of the kind of emotions and sensations that can be experienced.

I’ve personally suffered from bouts of depression for many years.  I’ve also experienced GAD (generalised anxiety disorder) or perhaps Dysthymia, and CPTSD.  I’ve had various diagnoses but it always feels there’s a degree of guesswork from whichever consultant I’ve seen.

In this piece, I’m going to focus on panic attacks.  In my experience, this is the most frightening and debilitating anxiety disorder I have.  I’m writing this now as I’m recovering from the worst episode of panic attacks I’ve ever had.  It’s just over a week since it happened and my body still feels in a state of shock and all my senses are raised.

I had my first panic attack about 10 years ago.  I was watching TV in the evening with my family.  I wasn’t feeling stressed and there was no trigger I was aware of.  Suddenly, I felt faint and remote to everything around me.  My heart started racing and I had chest pain.  At that moment I thought I was dying.

My partner called 999 and two paramedics promptly arrived.  They ran tests on my heart and confirmed everything was ok and slowly I calmed down and the feelings passed.  Despite the reassurance, the memory stayed with me.

I regularly felt uneasy in the following weeks and at times thought it was beginning to happen again.  Fortunately, I now had the knowledge that it was probably nothing more than my emotions playing tricks on me and nothing more serious.  These reassuring thoughts prevented any anxious feelings from developing further.

However, I soon discovered that my system wasn’t as resilient as I had hoped.  I was leaving a football match with my daughter and the strange sensations hit me again.  Maybe it was the circumstances of having her with me and being in a busy environment but I couldn’t control it and I went into panic mode.  I crouched down outside the ground for a while to get my breath back and regain composure.  We walked back to the car and I gradually became calmer and eventually felt well enough to drive us home.

A couple of minutes later as we waited at the traffic lights I suddenly had doubts that I could drive us home.  I felt a wave of adrenalin and cortisol run through me and my heart was pounding again.  I knew I had to stop the car and get help.