As your heart starts to race, your mind races for an explanation so it can make
sense of what’s happening to your body and decide how to protect you. Maybe I’m
having a heart attack. Maybe I don’t want to get married next month, after all. Maybe I’m getting
fired...maybe I’m dying.
If your mind can’t find a suitable explanation, your brain will make the anxiety
worse so that you will want to physically run away from the situation and leave the
room. If you’ve ever seen someone have a panic attack, they freak out, dart around,
have scattered thoughts, a “deer in the headlights” look, and suddenly “have to
leave the room.” It’s a vicious cycle and one I was trapped in for years.
For a long time, I understood neither the difference between normal panic and
panic attacks, nor the role that my mind was playing in escalating my anxiety. I went
to therapists and tried all kinds of cognitive techniques to try to stop myself from
panicking. It got so bad that I became afraid of the panic attacks themselves, and
that fear, of course, just made me have more panic attacks.
Finally, I just medicated myself with Zoloft (a miracle drug). Zoloft worked
wonders for me—for almost two decades. And if you are in a hole you can’t climb