Sarah bolted out of bed thinking that she was having a heart attack. Yet, she was only 30 and in good health. What was going on? She felt fear coursing through her system, her heart was racing, her skin felt clammy, and she felt shaky all at once. It was like she needed to find help or to escape, but she couldn’t leave her body, and yet, her body was feeling very unsafe to her.
After demanding her husband call 911, she continued to feel like she was falling apart. She had never experienced something like this before. “Am I dying?” She wondered. That thought sent more fear zapping through her system. The paramedics came to her door, and ran the tests to see if she was having a heart attack. They deemed her completely healthy.
“How can that be?” She questioned. “I am sure SOMETHING is wrong with me.”
She followed up with a doctor’s appointment the next day, but the diagnosis was not of physical concern but rather mental in nature. Sarah had just experienced her first panic attack.
Panic Attacks happen when our nervous system misinterprets signals from our environment, body, experiences or thoughts as a threat to our survival. Our God-given survival instinct is constantly on the look out for information that signals threat, so that it can prepare us to fight back or run away from that which might harm us. The problem is that while there are times where this serves us well and is helping us in an actual life or death situation to stay alive, there are times when we are actually safe that our body releases the fight or flight signaling chemicals in error, such as when something “feels” like when there was a “threat” of some sort but there actually is no actual danger.
I like to explain it to clients this way, “It’s like a smoke
alarm with a dying battery. The alarm is
there to alert you that something is wrong so that it can prepare you to take
action and stay safe. However, when the
battery is dying, the signal may beep when there is no smoke or threat, it may
have just responded in the same way as if there were. This is how it is within our nervous system
when there is no actual threat, but we “feel” there is.
If this has happened to you, rest assured that there are
many therapeutic tips and tricks that can help you to navigate troubling
symptoms. A licensed professional
counselor can help you to gain the tools necessary to identify your triggers
and to learn ways to calm yourself and your system.
Panic can be treated, and you don’t have to live your life in fear that the next panic attack is right around the bend. I’d be happy to help you learn how to effectively deal with your symptoms. For a few of these helpful tips, click here.
*Sarah is not an actual client but chosen as a name for this composite type of scenario that is quite common.
