Fear/Anxiety/Panic Attacks

 

The Problem

Whether this is a new feeling or something that has continued for 20 years, you can live without the threat of anxiety. Panic and anxiety are actually two sides of the same coin. One feeling can feed into the other. Being anxious can range from a mild nervous state to a constant state of fear. Panic or a panic attack is the apocalyptic state of extreme fear. The heart pounds, the body perspires and there is that feeling of doom and gloom.

The first thing you need to do is understand what you are going through. It is fear, nothing else, just fear. After your first "attack", you are repeating the fear you felt on your first attack, and later you become afraid of the fear. Essentially, you become afraid of fear over time, usually without ever knowing what the first fear really was. It's important to understand that fear is just a normal reaction to a perceived threat, nothing else. Once you learn the threat really isn’t dangerous, the fear naturally goes away. Fear itself is not harmful, it is there to protect us.

Supposing you stayed scared, even though you KNEW there was nothing to be afraid of? Welcome to panic, and its cousin, anxiety, a prolonged version of panic. If you stay in this condition long enough, it is no longer an attack, it becomes a "state". If it repeats, we call it a "condition" or a "disorder". Just remember, a panic attack will not make you have a heart attack, faint or lose control. You are not programmed that way.

Many sufferers of this anxiety or panic disorder are puzzled by fact that in either case, they are not really in danger of anything. So, why are they so afraid? The occurrence of this condition seems to be more and more frequent. At times it seems to be reaching epidemic proportions. Where therapists would only see 3 or 4 clients per year, they are now reporting seeing 3 or 4 clients per week. So, if you suffer from this condition, you are not alone in your suffering..