When It's Not Just Worrying

About 18% of the population in the United States has severe anxiety.

Let me be clear.. severe anxiety is not getting nervous before a test or worrying how you will pay your bills this month.

It is all encompassing. What may start as a thought can trigger a tsunami of mental and physical symptoms that can affect every part of your life.

The first time I had a panic attack I thought I was dying. It started as a rapid heartbeat that I could feel and I immediately started fearing that I was having a heart attack and that death was imminent. I got dizzy, couldn't breathe, couldn't talk, and couldn't stop the overwhelming flood of fear that came on as quick as you could snap your fingers. This first event landed me in the hospital hooked up to a bunch of monitors and wading through vials of blood...only to be told I was healthy.

I continued to have panic attacks several times a day for over a year... I couldn't leave home most of the time.

Like most people who experience anxiety and panic attacks, you fear having another episode. This fear then triggers yet another panic attack. It is a vicious cycle that easily takes your feet out from under you and keeps you spinning on the cycle..until you find a way to stop it.

The cycle of anxiety looks like this:

You can clearly see that it is a circle..and in the same way that a circle in infinite, anxiety can feel the same. 

I remember saying, "I can't do this forever...". At one point in my life I truly felt like I would go insane with anxiety. The problem is that anxiety creates all sorts of irrational thinking that will only increase the level of anxiety you are feeling.

So many people suffer in silence because they fear how others will react. They worry that they look like fools and become embarrassed. They get stuck in the negative cycle and begin to live their lives anticipating the next panic attack. 

Which is truly not living at all. 

We live in a society that is used to covering up feelings with medication. And while there are situations where medication can be helpful to some, it does not address the root cause of a person's anxiety. It becomes a band-aid. Once the band-aid is removed, the sore that is anxiety..resurfaces. The cycle then repeats itself. 

If you have or are suffering from panic, you may find yourself feeling that there is no hope for you. I have had many people tell me that there is no form of therapy that has worked for them or that they've tried it and didn't get anywhere. 

Not only do I firmly believe that dealing with the cause of anxiety can work, I believe it is essential to begin healing. 

I have been in therapy for more than 4 years to help me learn to manage anxiety. It has not been an easy process and there have been many hills and valleys on the journey. I still have days where I can feel panic start to creep in and I will find myself starting to have the same feelings that used to lead to full blown panic attacks. The difference is that I have learned how to make friends with it. I no longer feel afraid of it. It is a part of me that will, on some level, always be there. I just needed to learn that I was in control of it..and not the other way around. 

People who are anxious tend to doubt themselves and have a habit of continuous negative thinking. "I can't" used to be one of the most common phrases I would use. I had to realize this about myself and learn to break the lifelong habit of poor thinking. Anxious people are also very hard on themselves and have skewed self expectations. We feel like failures if we don't know something, can't do something, give up on something....

In short, we think we are super humans.

But we are just human...like everyone else. 

My intention in this post is not to pat myself on the back. It's to remind me and you that even though we may feel we are at war at times, it's a war that we can win. 

Today I have to face one of my (many) irrational fears..and I've learned long ago that I will always need to carry these reminders with me..and sometimes say them out loud.