Childhood & Adult Anxiety Disorder: Panic Disorder/Panic Attacks Part 1 – Account of an Actual Panic Attack

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Usually when you are in danger, your body will react with a fight or flight response. This is a brain response when it senses danger and it activates all the areas that are designed to protect you from harm by preparing you to either ”fight” the danger or to escape from it with ”flight.” While this is going on, your brain will also trigger the release of adrenaline and other hormones throughout the body so that you can respond to the threat. This whole process can be described as panic to the given threatening situation. This is a normal “primitive” reaction to survive.

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But there are other times when panic can happen when you least expect it, when you are not is any real threat or danger. These “out of the blue” and very unexpected reactions are called Panic Attacks. These attacks get triggered without real cause and this can eventually be a problem since you are not in any real danger. If panic attacks become more and more frequent, eventually you will start worrying about having another one, thereby lowering your threshold, to trigger more. The more anxiety, the more anticipation for another attack, the more fearful you become. Your life starts to spin downward and your daily activities get more and more limiting.

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This is really a very serious problem and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I should know because I had suffered with this condition for some time after a series of one unfortunate event after another (i.e. divorce, 2 surgeries -back to back, being a single mother of a one year old child, facing a house mortgage all on my own). My first panic attack hit me out of nowhere while I was stuck in traffic while driving to work. It started when all of a sudden I had a moment of terrible dread and felt pending doom of unknown cause. My heart rate accelerated, I had heart palpitations, I felt short of breath and my breathing became fast and shallow. I had broken out into a cold sweat and all I knew at the time was sheer terror. It felt like my whole body was shutting down and here I was in the middle of a traffic jam. I really thought I was going to die right there.

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I became more panicked because I was in the fast lane on the freeway and I needed to move over six lanes to get to the shoulder where I could shut off the car. Traffic was literally at a standstill and I desperately needed to move over one lane at a time. Of course, no one wanted to let you in because everyone was in a rush to get to work. I felt trapped as my unmitigated panic got more and more overwhelming. It was an unimaginable feeling that I was going to pass out or really, really die. This lasted at least 10-15 minutes although it felt like hours. I had managed to only move over two lanes when very gradually the dread subsided and the breathing got a little easier. I was shaken up but I pushed myself to drive all the way into town. I literally was a wreck by the time I got to work. Until today, I still don’t know how I made it to work that day.

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Since that first attack, I had a multitude of subsequent panic attacks, especially when driving. I got to the point where I avoided freeway driving because I would get periodic attacks while driving on it. Gradually the attacks became more frequent and hitting me when I least expected it, thus limiting my ability to drive at all. At the time this all happened, there wasn’t much known about panic attack so I ended up having brain scans, blood work done, electrocardiograms, ear, nose and throat exams, balance tests, hearing tests, eye test, you name it, I had it. I ended up in the emergency room at least two times with an escalated heart rate but my ECG came out normal. It got to the point where I literally wished I had had a brain tumor just to be able to attribute my attacks to something tangible.

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With increased stress of the panic attacks, my world got smaller and more limited. I began to feel the stress of what if I had an attack while I was in public? This fear not only contributed to having repeated attacks but made me less willing to go out in public. Meantime I was still having tests done but everything came back negative. At the time I was having all these attacks which was such a long time ago, there wasn’t much knowledge about panic attacks so my doctor & I were very much in the dark.

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I basically hit rock bottom until one day I happened to come across an article in a magazine that did an article about how a man literally was unable to drive or leave his house without anxiety and a sense of dread. It went on to describe how he was tested and finally was diagnosed as having panic attacks. It described everything I had gone through and from that day, I finally got a name for what was wrong with me. I researched everything and did what I could to get back on the road to recovery. It took years for me to drive again but because I was determined not to be dependent on anyone, I kept pushing myself. They say if you dig deep you will eventually find what you are looking for. Fortunately I got back my independence.

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On a very rare occasion I may have a slight anxiety attack when under too much stress but I quickly learned to tap it down and reduce my stresses. I’ve learned to meditate, eat right, exercise and do things that make me happy, one of which is writing. Writing has given me a channel to release stress and inner turmoil. I highly suggest this to anyone.

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The reason I have shared this horrible experience with you is two-fold. One is to give you something tangible as to what an actual experience is like. Secondly I wanted to stress to everyone that education and knowledge is the key to preventative measures and a tangible way to help yourself or your children. At the time I really was in the dark and it was a terrible road to travel. Since then, so much has come to light and now there are effective ways to deal with anxiety, including panic attacks.

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Knowledge is powerful and I highly recommend that if your child, your family member, a friend or yourself have symptoms that concern you, research it or talk to your doctor right away, because the earlier you identify what the symptoms might be, the faster your either prevent it from happening or reduce the symptom that may lead to something that has a very negative impact on you or your family. A child especially needs the support of his/her parents to help him/her adjust to life’s daily challenges and have as happy a life as possible. The children are our future so we need to invest in them.

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In part two of this series on panic attack/panic disorder, I will go into this condition in more detail. I hope you will join me in this next article to learn all about this horrible condition. Thank-you for reading my article on Childhood Anxiety: Panic Disorder/Panic Attack. Thank-you for joining me in this journey about Childhood Anxiety. If you would like to follow me, please check HERE.

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These are my previous articles on Childhood Anxiety if you are interested in reading it:

Childhood Anxiety: The Anxious Child
https://steemit.com/steemiteducation/@cabbagepatch/childhood-anxiety-the-anxious-child

Childhood Anxiety: What Types of Disorders Do Children Have to Deal With https://steemit.com/steemiteducation/@cabbagepatch/childhood-anxiety-what-types-of-disorders-do-children-have-to-deal-with

Childhood Anxiety: Selective Mutism Disorder
https://steemit.com/steemiteducation/@cabbagepatch/childhood-anxiety-selective-mutism-disorder

Childhood Anxiety: Separation Disorder:
https://steemit.com/steemiteducation/@cabbagepatch/childhood-anxiety-separation-disorder

Childhood Anxiety: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in Children:
https://steemit.com/steemiteducation/@cabbagepatch/childhood-anxiety-obsessive-compulsive-disorder-in-children

Childhood Anxiety: Phobias:
https://steemit.com/steemiteducation/@cabbagepatch/childhood-anxiety-phobias

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