Personal Narrative: Living With Panic Disorder

Living with Panic Disorder

“Just calm down!” My friends tell me as I lose control of my body. My face soaked from the tears leaving my eyes. The pain in my chest that comes from suffocating. It feels as if I’m drowning in isolation. No one understands, but they hopelessly repeat the usual generic phrases “you’ll be okay.’’ As if I have any sense of reasoning. Death seems to be the only thing on your mind. Repetitive pangs of guilt, emptiness, and solidarity. This feeling could only be one thing. This is what its like to have a panic attack.
No, its not just stressing over one little thing, but rather brought on by anything and nothing at all. An anxiety attack is usually caused by a persistent worry or fear that brings anxiousness leading
One night I was showering and I got another attack. I just sat there in panic. I tried desperately time after time to convince myself that it would pass. The thoughts invading my mind were not me but the devil on my shoulder who now stood a full 6 feet tall directly in front of me. The battle between me and my temporary demons lasted close to an hour. It got progressively worse. At the time I still hadn’t told many people about my attacks, but as they started getting longer and more common I told my friends. The fact that I was going through this so often started affecting my mood and behavior. I started eating different, distancing my self, and I became so afraid of having another attack I would start causing them. Even in my sleep my nightmares became an out of body experience of me looking down on myself. I started to shut people off and lost a couple friends in the process. Luckily my best friend to this day stuck by my side. She has had a very stressful life so as a result she also has anxiety attacks. She taught me the warning signs and walked me through what to do. The waning signs are small but with experience they become alarming. Usually your chest begins to tighten and m leg starts to lose feeling. This is where it is crucial I focus on my breathing and keep my mind at a blank canvas. Any thought could be turned into a persistent negative message. Typically, I would get the usual sayings you tell someone when they freak out but my best friend would just bear hug me which seemed to calm me down. With further research I found out that when in a panic attack pressure against the spine helps calm the