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All of the sudden, your heart is slamming against your breast bone with every beat and feels like it's going to jump out of your chest. You're breaking out in a sweat. An excruciating sensation grips your chest. You must be having a heart attack!
Cardiac Infarction or Panic Attack?
Getting to the E.R. on the double is the first thought, and you probably have done so only to be told by the physicians that your cardiac situation is fine. Panic disorder, they say, casually recommending anti-anxiety meds and a good therapist.
You want to protest that you're fine. Nothing was going on, you were eating a sandwich or driving to an appointment or doing the usual everyday things. Nothing scary, nothing out of the ordinary. In the prime of your life, you've got most things handled. You've may have a demanding job which you love when it's not too hectic. Your life is good, probably, most of the time. Except you don't feel fine right now.
And the worst thing is you can't quit waiting for that sickening feeling to spring back up again. Like waiting for the other shoe to drop, you go into every day wondering if you're going to have another episode. This kind of thing has never happened to you before. You're usually the strong one helping everyone else to cope, but now you're starting to fear in a way you never have before.
If you're on medication for the episodes, you're probably feeling a little better--for now. The data tells us, however, that meds have higher efficiency if combined with talk therapy. And some people report that after a while their medication doesn't help as much as they'd like.
Panic Disorder generally stems from individuals feeling out of control--either of themselves or of their lives. Like a car hurtling down a mountain with no brakes, you can't stop the feelings, even when you know you're alright. Panic Disorder is almost always related to how we handle emotion.
It's about balance. If you've always been comfortable connecting to your emotional self, panic attacks can signal the need to learn to act more out of your rational capacity than out of pure emotion. For the very logical, however, panic attacks can mean you're going to have to deal differently with your feelings in order to get your life back.
Panic Disorder. Think of it as Spring Break and your emotions are college students who've either been squelched too long or who are accustomed to running amok. Bad things can happen!
The way you handle your emotions may be the problem.
Many sufferers of panic attacks are those people who seem least likely--the rational, always-in-control sort. If this is you, I'm sure you'd like to argue that you don't have a problem with emotion. You're just like everyone else, you've cried at a movie before probably. And you get mad at the guy driving slow in the left hand lane. Your emotions are fine, you may want to claim. And you're right, they are fine. But you've not been listening to your emotional self much. Maybe you learned early that emotions were unreliable. You'd rather use your head than listen to your heart.
You've probably had good reason for this stance. Maybe you've witnessed people making really poor decisions out of their feelings. Maybe as a child, you dealt with a hyper-emotional parent who seemed to throw more tantrums that you did. For whatever reason, you've probably decided that paying much attention to your emotions isn't all that important.
The panic attacks, however, are a clue that you're out of balance. Think of them as warning signs. Panic Disorder can signal the need to tune into your feelings. This isn't to say that you need to go with your heart in all decisions. It just means that you need to know how your heart feels about things. It is a surprise to some people to realize that sometimes information comes packaged with emotion. Important information.
Maybe you feel uneasy around someone at work. You might tend to dismiss this--might not even be aware of it--but that could be a mistake. That uneasy feeling is trying to tell you something. Pay attention. There are all sorts of possibilities. Maybe the guy isn't trying to knife you in the back with your boss, but you may have a feeling of inferiority that is signaling you to raise your own bar professionally. Take a few classes. Either way, you need to get to know what you need to know.
Of course, your co-worker could be trying to bring you down…or be smitten and plan to bring you flowers or he could remind you of your brother whom you've always distrusted. You need to know. You'll be surprised and caught off guard if you don't tune into your feelings.
Panic Disorder. It may feel like a weekend of Emotions Gone Wild, but it's probably just a signal that you need to pay attention.