Living with Panic Attacks

I've been contemplating writing this post for a while now. The subject being something rather personal to me which I don't tend to share with a lot of people - not because I feel uncomfortable in doing so but because it's not something that I often think to discuss.  It's something that i feel needs to be addressed more openly - I've struggled no end getting advice in the past. I know the majority of you will probably skip this post (which is fine by me, i'll be back to my beauty bloggery ways shortly), but some of you may suffer with anxiety and panic attacks yourselves. You might be somebody who is aware of someone close to you who is struggling. Either way, I really hope this post provides some sort of insight into the subject of anxiety and hopefully might help to break some of the ridiculous stereotyping that seems to have been conjured up over the years resulting in mental heath being viewed as a 'taboo' subject.  This is going to be a long post, i apologise in advance - but if you suffer with panic attacks yourself it may be of interest to you - it may even help you in some way.  I know that personally, panic attacks are something that effect my life from time to time, no matter how hard i try not to let them, and sometimes having a natter with like-minded people can help to reassure you that you aren't the only one who has to battle with them.

What a panic attack feels like

For as far back as i can remember I have suffered with panic attacks. In fact, I don't remember ever not having them and they are just something i've had to learn to live with. I have no idea what it might feel like to not have this little cloud of un-easyness come and visit me from time to time because I've had it since I was a child. Most people develop panic attacks in their early 20s, but I've had to deal with it from an extremely young age (I always say that if I had one wish to spend on myself I'd take away the fact I suffer with panic attacks over anything). I can actually recall the feeling of panic as far back as some of my earliest memories.  If you don't suffer with them yourself, the only way i can describe them is absolutely terrifying. It isn't just a simple feeling of being nervous - it's much more than that.  They begin from nowhere and often with little warning. Sometimes you can feel it building up for a matter of hours, but other times it washes over you like a wave that i can't even begin to explain; and it can happen anytime, anywhere. To put it rather simply - it feels as if you're going to die.  Your heart races, your vision goes blurry and your body convinces you that something really bad is happening. I've often genuinely believed that I'm moments away from death - panic attack symptoms can mimick those of a heart attack or a stroke extrememly closely and each time, they feel more and more real.  Each attack is different - and even though they've happened before, it almost feels as if this is the one that's going to kill you. Below is a list of a few of the main symptoms...

Increased heart rate/severe difficulty breathing

Shaking/sweating/trembling

Severe 'pins and needles'/numbness in the hands and feet

Feeling tense

Feeling dizzy or faint, or as if you 'aren't really there'

Chest pains

Feeling very suddenly hot or cold

Loud ringing sounds in your ears

Feeling sick

Feeling 'terrified'

Blurry vision

Dry mouth

The difficulty breathing/choking sensation and the chest pains are some of the worst symptoms I personally experience.  I've often sat there and questioned whether or not I'm actually having a heart attack and there has been many times where I've lost all feeling in my arms and legs because it's been that bad. A typical panic attack lasts for about 20 minutes. It may not sound a long time, but once it has you gripped i can tell you that it feels like forever. Sometimes it is possible to have a series of attacks one after the other and other times it is possible to feel the effects of an attack for the majority of a day - coming in waves of intense panic and settling to an underlying feeling of unease. I've spent an entire night having one after the other before. They also leave you feeling incredibly drained and weak afterwards due to all of the adrenaline that has been running through your body.

My Experience with Panic Attacks

If i try and think back to when I first began to realise something was wrong, it would be when I was at junior school in my first year (I believe this would have made me around 8 years of age?). I was standing in a line with all of my friends outside the school hall, ready to go into an assembly. All of a sudden i burst into tears and began to shake uncontrollably. I was screaming for help because i thought was 'going to be sick' and I remember telling my poor teacher i was going to die. Of course, she called my mum to come and collect me from school, fetched the school nurse and sat with me until i'd calmed down - I dread to think what she must have thought. As soon as i got home, i was fine. This began to happen every time i had an assembly and each time the same thing would happen and i would get sent home. In the end, the teacher had completely lost interest in anything i had to say and she probably thought i was putting it on. The thing was, i loved school - i enjoyed going and it upset me to have to go home every week, only to feel fine once i was back home. I even ended up in A&E and nobody could find anything wrong with me. It was all very frustrating and in the end, i decided to keep it a secret and I tried to deal with it on my own because of the way people were towards me. You can imagine how difficult this was for a child of 8 years old to keep something like this to themselves - of course, at this age, I had no idea what they were and just assumed everybody else felt like this and I was just completely rubbish at dealing with it. Even my parents started to get frustrated with me and I genuinely thought I was just being over dramatic. I'd also developed a rather terrible phobia of being sick (or in fact anybody being sick around me) - I have put this down to associating feeling sick with panic as this is one of the major symptoms I used to get as a child. I'm still not fantastic with it now (i even ran out of the room when watching 'The Inbetweeners' - yep...).

Funnily enough, this hatred of assembly's/silent places full of people stayed with me - when you have a panic attack in a certain situation or place, this memory gets 'stored' somewhere in a little filing cabinet in your brain - and the next time you are placed in the same situation, in the same place or with the same surroundings, the feelings of panic often return because your brain has saved that little memory as being a 'dangerous situation'.  The panic attacks followed me all the way through school and into my teenage years. My GCSE's were a nightmare and i have no idea how on earth i managed to pass any of them at all - I still feel quite proud of myself now when I think back to the amount of stress I went through during this time and yet still managed to pass with pretty good results. Our exams were sat in our school hall, (crowded silent place = my dreaded situation) and i was always placed somewhere in the middle of all of the tables and chairs, a long way away from any of the doors or 'escape routes'. I used to line up outside and feel so unbelievably sick - up until the point where i contemplated skipping my exams.  I used to take one look at the mass of tables and chairs and think about how many people would be crammed into that room with me and I'd lose sleep going over potential 'panic' situations in my head. I felt so jealous of my friends; i longed to be 'normal' like them and just feel normal nerves like a normal person and not have to worry about having a panic attack. I used to wonder why they were so calm and collected before an exam compared to me - they would stand around chatting away, and i'd be sat there chewing my nails and shaking like a leaf and generally feeling as if something awful was about to happen - I didn't sleep properly for weeks. I remember sitting in one of my exams and shaking so much that the people next to me gave me strange looks, and one even asked me if i was alright. I wasn't. I felt like i was going to throw up all over my exam paper and the question in front of me was a jumble of words and sentences i couldn't possibly understand until the feeling had gone away. It used to take me a good 20 minutes before i could even begin my exam properly - it took so much energy and concentration just to write my name and exam number (the poor examiner must have struggled to read my cruddy shaky writing!). I used to bite my nails in an attempt to calm my nerves, and sometimes i'd bite them so much that they would bleed and it hurt so much to put pen to paper. But it was anything to take my mind off the panic. Sometimes my hands would completely freeze and I wasn't able to move them at all. The worst attacks take complete control of your body - Once, I remember calling my dad for help and having to use my elbow to try and press the numbers on the phone because it was the only part of me I could physically move at all.

How I Cope Now

I will most probably always suffer with panic attacks. I still get nervous when i have to sit in halls full of people or if i'm on a crowded bus and don't even mention the London underground! I will still sit on the bus sometimes at rush hour, and feel the need to get off. Whereas before i probably would have done, i force myself to stay on it now. The more you put yourself in your dreaded situations the easier it will become (harder said than done but trust me, it works). I don't have them regularly now - maybe a couple of times a month or so, if that. Some months i will have none at all. Sometimes i will go through a stressful period of my life and i'll have more than usual, but i try not to let it stop me from doing things i want to do.  I would say that I now have them under control and I never ever let them stop me from doing what I want to do. They are just a little tiny part of my life that crops up from time to time.  When they do, I just roll my eyes, force myself to try not to think about it and just get on with things.  I've accepted that I have them now and I just try and do the best that I can.  For example, I really hate flying because I know I can't get out if I have a panic attack. Because of this, I will almost always have atleast one panic attack on a flight. But would this stop me from going somewhere I wanted to go? No. You just have to try and live life as if you didn't have them - and try and roll with the punches as much as you can.

I do think as you get older and gain more confidence they do tend to subside slightly (i suppose this is helped by the fact i've always been a fairly outgoing, confident person anyway - you wouldn't know i suffered from panic attacks unless i told you!). This is where the whole 'stereotype' thing comes in.  I have no anxiety when it comes to social situations, or giving presentations, or anything remotely related to this sort of thing.  People tend to assume that anyone who suffers with anxiety must be lacking in social skills or lacking in confidence - NOT TRUE! It's just that typical 'nervous' situations for 'normal' people are made 10 times worse for me; for example - job interviews, my driving test (absolute nightmare), exams... In fact, even nights out are sometimes a bit of an 'iffy' situation for me (drunk people being sick around me..crowded bars...eeeeep) I don't think i really know what 'just being nervous' feels like. I wish so much that i didn't have to think about having a panic attack in these situations - if you don't, im very jealous of you and you are an extremely lucky person.

Things I've Learnt

Tell somebody - I was 17/18 before i did anything about my panic attacks (when I remind you that the earliest one I ever remember was at the age of 8 - that's an incredibly long time!) - they began to take over my life and i went through a particularly bad stage - this is when i decided to face the music and do something about it. I sadly skipped the majority of my A Levels because of them (yet again, exams! arghh!) despite a whole year of hard work, and that's when i realised something needed to be done. I didn't want them to get to the stage where they were effecting my future. It even got to where i would almost dread going out in case i would have one and I was awake all through the night having one after the other - I was completely and utterly exhausted and they had started to take over. My only advice if you feel as if this is whats happening to you, is to just go and see your doctor - or atleast tell somebody. My parents had no idea what i was going through because i'd kept it a secret since i was a child - and the relief i felt just telling them was a huge step in the right direction. You aren't alone in this no matter what you think and theres always someone willing to talk to you about things. You are also in no way, shape of form 'going crazy' - you are just like everyone else, it's just that your nervous system is a little more sensitive than other people's.  I always felt that I didn't fit this certain 'stereotype' of an anxiety sufferer - I'd always been quite sure of myself and really strong minded and there's this image that society seems to portray of an anxiety sufferer that they're weak or different in some way - or that they're all incredibly introverted. Not true, let me tell you! Anyone can suffer with panic attacks - some people are just more pre-disposed to it than others. Unfortunately - I am one of those people. Nobody in my family gets them, and neither do my friends. So I'm pretty much alone when it comes to people close to me understanding what I sometimes have to go through - which is actually one of the hardest things about suffering with them.  People think you can just 'snap out of it' or 'calm down' - if it was that simple, then I'd be free of them forever by now!

You dont have to let panic attacks ruin your life, and although they have hindered certain areas of mine, i think in a way they have also helped me to be a stronger, more confident person. With mine, they got worse before they got better and this isn't necessarily a bad thing - the 'bad stage' i had with my panic attacks actually helped me to learn so much about how to deal with them positively and I control with them very well now - If I hadn't have gone through the 'bad stage' then I would never have learnt how to keep them under control and I would probably still get them regularly. If i feel a bit panicky now I just go with it and let it happen - sometimes i even try and make a joke out of it.  If I'm with certain friends or family that are aware of my panic attacks, I'll just say 'hold on a minute, Beth's having a wobble' and they will know to give me a few minutes or so.

Accept them -

The more you dwell on them, the more they're going to spring up on you. I know if i'm going on holiday, for example, i WILL feel a little dodgy on the plane - there is no getting out of it - just let the anxiety do it's thing! Just remind yourself you've had these feelings before, and that in a short while you will begin to feel better. I have just accepted now that i'll never be great when someone asks me to go on a long journey with them, or if i have to sit through a talk or go to a meeting in a crowded room - i'm going to feel like crap for a good half an hour or so. Take some water, tell someone you aren't feeling particularly well and you'll find it becomes much easier once you have voiced your concerns.

Ignore the Ignorant Sods -

Some people you tell, infact most people you tell won't understand. It's one of those things that you need to go through in order to 'get it'. I've had certain 'friends' call me boring because i sometimes avoid certain things such as going on mahoosive nights out in town - i'd love to go out and get bladdered with the best of you but the idea of a crowded club really doesn't appeal to me.  Sometimes, I'll go out and be absolutely fine - (I went to Ayia Napa with friends a couple of years ago and was completely fine the whole time but I went when my anxiety levels were really low)- but I can just tell if I won't be able to handle it on certain night.  I'd much rather sit in a nice bar and have a few glasses of wine (or a few pints...classy bird). Although, i must advise - if you're going through a bit of a bad patch with your anxiety - it's worth staying off alcohol for a while. It completely fuels it. As does caffiene (sorry to all of you coffee drinkers!)...

Some people look at me like i'm absoloutely bonkers when I tell them. Of course, this makes me feel a little embarrassed but you learn to accept that some people just haven't got a clue and their reaction is probably due to the fact they aren't sure what to say.  I've had people sit with me in the middle of having a panic attack who have turned to me and said 'stop it now, you're making it so much worse acting like this' ... In situations like this, i'd just rather be on my own. You shouldn't have to feel ashamed of being a sufferer of anxiety and someone telling you to 'snap out of it' obviously is one of the lucky one's never to have suffered with a panic attack.  Good on them.

It also annoys me when people use the term 'panic attack' so flippantly. When someone who has never had one makes a joke about it, or tells you to 'just sort it out'. Or when they've bumped into an ex or something and exclaim 'OMG just had an actual panic attack' - I know they probably don't mean it to come across in that way... but sometimes i can't help but feel a little bit annoyed. No. You haven't just had a panic attack.

See the Positives

Yes, they do get you down and yes they aren't exactly something to be jolly about, but having panic attacks has made me who I am today and has helped shape me into a more confident person (as strange as that sounds), and I believe in myself a lot more because of it.  I sometimes feel proud of myself for doing the most normal things people don't bat an eyelid over - for example, travelling somewhere far from home completely on my own or managing to get through a usual 'panic' situation without panicking - the feeling of accomplishment is a fabulous thing to feel - it's sometimes nice to give yourself a big pat on the back and it's great to see your confidence with certain situations grow. I've found that I'm quite determined and 'go-getting' when it comes to my professional life and I can honestly say that some of my attitude is down to the fact I've always had to try and maintain a strong, positive mind set. It's almost like I want to prove the anxiety wrong - I refuse to let it get in the way of things I want to do.  Of course, I wish I didn't have to deal with them but they have taught me a great deal about myself - about how strong I really can be.

Remember - Celebrities get them too...  it isn't just you

I know a lot of people suffer from this and it's actually quite a common thing - even dear old Peter Andre was reduced to tears on Piers Morgan a while back now discussing how his panic attacks made him feel and how they have the potential to destroy a person. And he's performed in front of millions on stage (brave chap!). To name a few more - Louie Spence (if you never watched Pineapple Dance Studios - WHO ARE YOU!?), Johnny Depp, Donny Osmond, Katie Price.. the list is endless. Frankie from The Saturdays also has recently opened up about her struggle with anxiety and depression [article here]  I've previously done a little post on this subject of panic attacks - for more little hints on how to deal with panic attacks as they happen click here :)

There is just such a stigma attached to mental health and it really really gets my goat, let me tell you! People seem to assume people who suffer from depression or anxiety attacks aren't 'normal' in some way - and it just isn't fair. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean somebody feels fine - they don't need their arm in a sling and a bandage round their noggin to be feeling a bit 'iffy' on a certain day. If there was as many people talking about this back when i was at school doing my exams and if I knew i wasn't so alone i believe things wouldn't have been so difficult for me to deal with..Panic attacks are actually a pretty common thing. For example, I wish so much i'd just tackled the GCSE situation head on and explained to a teacher what was happening - although I did well in my exams I've always had this niggling feeling that I had the potential to do better - half of my mind was concentrating on trying not to have a panic attack the whole time! My 22 year old self is a little more open and honest about things now - I just don't care what people think.  I'm quite aware this post has gone on for quite a while so i shan't go on any longer and bore you to tears ;) Please feel free to drop me an email or leave a comment telling me about your experiences with this if you're a fellow sufferer.. This is such a personal post for me to publish but i hope that it has been of some interest/help to atleast one of you lovely bunch!