by Jennifer Lee
Stop Anxiety and Panic Attacks
The Perfect Self-Help Toolkit to Overcome Anxiety Disorder, end Panic and Find Relief and Peace for your Mind
Jennifer Lee
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: Anxious? You Are Not Alone
The Thing to Fear is Fear Itself
What to keep in mind – a “cheat sheet” for moments of severe anxiety or panic:
How Can I Escape Fear by Embracing it?
The Author’s Experience: Part 1
The Samuel Butler Principle
Chapter 2: Understanding Anxiety
“What’s wrong with me? I never used to be this way.”
What is anxiety?
What Causes Anxiety?
There are also Physical, Neuro-chemical Causes of Anxiety Disorders.
Chapter 3: What is a Panic Attack?
Why Do I Get Panic Attacks?
How Can I Tell if I am Having a Panic Attack?
Chapter 4: Why Panic Attacks Tend to Become Chronic
Case History: Sarah
Chapter 5: How to Overcome Anxiety and Panic?
How Does it Work?
What Can I Do to Help Myself Without Seeing a Therapist?
Chapter 6: Remedies and Solutions During a Panic Attack Crisis
Steinbeck’s commanding officer
When “Riding the Wave” is not Enough…
The Author’s Experience, Part II
Conclusion
Copyright 2019 by Jennifer Lee - All rights reserved.
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Introduction
Congratulations on purchasing your copy of Stop Anxiety and Panic Attacks: The Perfect Self-Help Toolkit to Overcome Anxiety Disorder, end Panic and Find Relief and Peace for your Mind. If you have come this far, chances are you have experienced anxiety, panic disorder, and their related symptoms. Maybe you find yourself overwhelmed by fears that seem out of control. You may find that your thoughts “get away from you” and take you to dark places, and you are trying to figure out how you can get them under your control.
These symptoms are often highly distressing and uncomfortable. Moreover, they are not helped by the fact that it is often difficult to talk to other people about the panic symptoms if they have not experienced these symptoms themselves. This can lead to a feeling of isolation. Many people believe they are alone in their fears. Some may incorrectly think their condition is unusual, or that there is something wrong with them if they are experiencing anxiety and panic symptoms. Others may convince themselves that panic is a chronic state and that they will suffer from it for the rest of their lives.
This book is designed to counteract these myths. In reality, panic and anxiety symptoms are extremely common and becoming more so. More importantly, these conditions are far from incurable. Millions of people – including the author of this book -- have found ways to treat and to overcome their anxiety and panic symptoms, often in ways that are surprisingly simple. In many instances, something as straightforward as a basic change in behavior and thought patterns could substantially diminish – even eliminate – feelings of anxiety and panic, freeing you to live your full life. This book is designed to give you the tools and information you need to begin the journey toward this result.
Chapter 1: Anxious? You Are Not Alone
The Thing to Fear is Fear Itself
Anxiety and panic attacks are a frightening thing! If you are reading this book, the chances are that you already know this – probably from direct experience. You know that the physical symptoms of anxiety are often uncomfortable and distressing in themselves – shortness of breath, sweaty palms, and a racing heart.
Moreover, in many people’s cases, anxiety and panic symptoms become associated with specific events or situations that we find frightening in them. For people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, for example – a specific kind of anxiety-related mental health disorder – anxiety and panic symptoms are often triggered by reminders of an earlier traumatic event. A traumatic event might be best defined as one that deprives a person of their sense of agency and power over their own lives, thereby undermining their sense of self and their basic feeling of security and stability in the world. No wonder people would experience panic in situations that reminded them of such a triggering event!
In other cases, panic symptoms can become associated with different, originally distinct fears and anxiety disorders. For example, people may be afraid of enclosed spaces (claustrophobia), open or public spaces (agoraphobia), public speaking, or feelings of public embarrassment or of humiliating oneself in front of others, which is often referred to as Social Anxiety.
In many cases, however, what people with anxiety or panic disorders come to fear most is simply the panic attack itself. The reason why is easy to understand, and we have already noted it above: A panic attack is scary!
For those who have experienced a full-on panic attack, it is something they do not wish ever to repeat. In many cases, it may seem like the most painful or frightening moment of their lives. Clichéd phrases like “white-hot terror” often take on a new and vivid meaning for people who have been through a panic event.
This is why the specific triggering causes of anxiety or panic episodes tend to change over time. In many cases, a person may first experience anxiety symptoms or a panic attack in a situation they associate with a specific fear – shortly before going on stage to deliver a public speech, for example; shortly before flying or riding in an elevator; before a party or having to ride a bus with strangers.
After experiencing the discomfort and distress of a panic event, people will seek to avoid the situation that first triggered the episode. Again, this is a fully understandable and rational response. Any of us would wish to avoid having to even go through such an experience again.
The problem is, however, that as rational as this response may seem, it actually makes on
e’s anxiety symptoms even stronger. For reasons, we will discuss more fully in Chapter 4 of this book, seeking to avoid feelings of anxiety. In fact, it increases the potency of those anxiety symptoms and the likelihood of future panic attacks.
By working with a therapist or other helpers – or simply coaching oneself – one can cut against the grain of one’s fear. By training oneself not to try to resist or avoid one’s feeling of panic, one can rediscover and reclaim one’s sense of freedom, agency, and personal control over one’s emotions. Methods by which to do so will be discussed in depth in Chapters 5 and 6 of this book.
In the meantime, however, living with the fear of panic attacks is no easy task. No one should ever dismiss or downplay how frightening it can be to experience anxiety – let alone the acute panic episodes that we describe as “panic attacks.”
To suffer from a “fear of panic” can also be an isolating experience, however, as mentioned above. The idea that someone might be afraid of having a panic attack – in other words, that they might be afraid of being afraid – can often strike those who do not suffer from anxiety or panic disorders as a strange, even “irrational” idea. This can lead to a feeling in the patient that there must be something wrong with them.
Indeed, when told that it is unreasonable to be afraid of panic, many people with anxiety respond that they “know” this to be the case, at an intellectual level, but that they do not experience a feeling of control over these emotions. This can lead to a sense that one’s emotions are getting away from one, and maybe even that one’s life is spinning out of control.
This can lead to a still further related fear. Many people with panic symptoms are afraid that they may “lose their minds.” This fear that one might “go insane” can further fuel anxiety, and leads to the sort of avoidant behavioral patterns that – as we saw above – actually strengthen anxiety symptoms in the very effort to evade them.
It certainly lends new meaning to the famous words of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who said – in his first inaugural address to the nation in 1933: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
What to keep in mind – a “cheat sheet” for moments of severe anxiety or panic:
When you are feeling overwhelmed by anxiety or panic – or are feeling isolated and convinced that others do not understand the reality or appreciate the severity of your symptoms – here are some simple facts to keep in mind:
You are not alone. As we mentioned in the Introduction, anxiety, and panic disorders are not rare or unusual, even though some of the people around you may not have heard of them before, or do not understand their symptoms. In reality, millions of people suffer from anxiety or panic symptoms around the world. According to most recent data, roughly one in five adults in the United States – including the author of this book -- has experienced an anxiety-related disorder at some point in their lives. Later on this book, we will see that other surveys have placed the incidence rate of anxiety disorders even higher. By some estimates, one in three people in the United States will experience an anxiety disorder in the course of their lives. Moreover, as we will be discussing in this book, many people who have lived successful lives and achieved great things have suffered from anxiety and panic-related disorders. These disorders do not control your destiny, and they do not last forever.
Anxiety and panic are not dangerous. Panic attacks do not physically harm your body, even though they can be very distressing and frightening when they are occurring. As uncomfortable as these experiences may be, they will not hurt you or cause you to hurt yourself.
Anxiety and panic will not make you do anything you do not want to do. Because panic is often associated with a sense of “losing control” over one’s emotions, many people with anxiety fear that they will lose control as well over their actions and behavior – causing them to hurt themselves, for instance, or do the very things of which they are most afraid of. People who are afraid of heights, for example, often report – while being on a high precipice, for instance – that they are afraid their panic will induce them to throw themselves off the ledge. Similarly, people who are afraid of flying often fear that their panic will get so intense that it will force them to do something that would damage the aircraft, thus bringing on the very midflight accident they were afraid of in the first place. In reality, as we will discuss more fully in Chapter 6, even when we are in the midst of a panic episode, we have more control over our emotions than we may think. More important to note here, emotions cannot force you to act a certain way, and fear specifically is especially unlikely to force you to do the things you are afraid of. While excessive fear is a distressing thing, we have fear emotions as a species for a reason. Fear is a valuable emotion, one that serves an important evolutionary function of alerting us to danger. Your feelings of fear or panic can never force you to do things you are afraid of – that is the opposite of the role fear plays in our minds. It will not lead us into the things we consider dangerous.
Anxiety and panic will never “drive you insane.” There is no causal link between anxiety and other mental illnesses. Excessive anxiety or panic will not cause you to start hearing voices, seeing things, or experiencing other symptoms associated with schizophrenia and similar illnesses. Nor are anxiety or panic linked to feelings of paranoia or similar mental disorders that have an element of delusion. Paranoia often involves a false sense that larger forces, government entities, or a global conspiracy are engaged in an effort to hunt you down and undermine you personally. Anxiety and panic, by contrast, are not grounded in delusions. People with anxiety or panic do not have an inflated sense of their own importance, nor do they worry that someone is “out to get them.” More often than not, they are worried about nothing more than the reality of their own symptoms – the fear of panic and anxiety.
Anxiety and panic can be overcome. Later on in this book, in Chapter 5, we will discuss some of the treatment options that are available today to treat anxiety and panic – including fast-acting medication. The important thing to remember, however, is that there are methods and strategies you can use in the midst of a panic attack to de-escalate and overcome the panic episode – including simple somatic, or bodily, exercises that you can do at the moment – none of which require immediate access to medication. Many times, people with anxiety or panic come to rely on having ready access to fast-acting medications, such a Xanax or similar tranquilizers, in order to feel safe. While medication can be a helpful part of anyone’s treatment plan, relying on the idea of having access to medications can also become one of the avoidant behaviors that strengthen anxiety over time. This can lead to people experiencing panic attacks, or the fear of panic attacks (which is often much the same thing) when they are temporarily deprived of access, for any reason, to their usual medications. The truth is that you can de-escalate your anxiety even in situations in which you do not have fast-acting medications in an accessible form. We will discuss some of the methods for doing so more fully in Chapter 6 of this book.
How Can I Escape Fear by Embracing it?
Many of the important truths about overcoming anxiety have a ring of paradox to them, the first time one hears them. Some may find it hard to believe that they can be true. After all, just as it seems strange to many people that one might be afraid of a panic attack, it also seems strange to many people with anxiety or panic disorders that they might be able to overcome their fears not by avoiding them, but by accepting them. If we have experienced panic episodes, isn’t the way not to do so again to avoid the situations that bring them on?
Strange as it may sound, the answer is No. Avoiding situations that have been associated with panic episodes in the past generally increases anxiety symptoms in the future and increases the likelihood of future panic attacks.
In order to understand why this is so, throughout this book we will not only be sharing the insights that reflect the consensus view of therapists and mental health practitioners in this field; we will also be discussing the
author’s personal experiences with suffering from – and eventually overcoming – anxiety and panic. We will share both the story of the particular way in which the author first began to develop and experience anxiety symptoms and – in Chapter 6 of this book – the story of the methods the author used to manage anxiety and panic attacks.
The Author’s Experience: Part 1
In my case, I have dealt with anxiety and panic for the past four years, and the nature and targets of that anxiety have changed over time.
The first incident in which I can remember experiencing what I would now recognize as anxiety came when I was in a theater, watching a musical performance. I was with my family in the center of a long aisle, and all of the attendees were seated very closely together.
At some point, during the middle of the performance, I began to feel very thirsty. It occurred to me that I had not much to drink during the day and that I might be somewhat dehydrated. This led me to think back to a time when I was a child and had gotten so dehydrated that I threw up.
This memory, in turn, led me to start wondering what would happen if I threw up in the middle of the concert. It would be terribly embarrassing, I thought. I started to look around and to realize that everyone in the theater was packed so closely together that it would also be very difficult and embarrassing to leave the aisle if I had to. It would also be time-consuming, and I might not make it to the bathroom in time before I had to vomit. Oh no, I thought, that means I would throw up on the lap of some perfect stranger!