Living With Panic Disorder...

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by each experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do."  ~Eleanor Roosevelt

I feel that this quote really hits the nail on the head of what it is like to live with a panic disorder.  You are in a constant state of fear, even if you are only facing day to day things. You don't know how you're going to feel when you get into bed at night. You never know what you're going to feel like when you wake up in the morning.  You don't know what will happen once you walk out the front door, or on your drive to work.  You over think anything and everything.  It is like your mind is working against you.  You start to panic and you immediately go into flight or fight mode.  That is when you have to decide where the attack is going to take you.  Will you fight it?  Will you let it get the best of you and run?  

Let me first give you a little lesson on what it is like to actually have a panic attack:

Each person living with this disorder is different.  I have come to know many people like me, but at the same time they are nothing like me.  

What happens to me when I have a panic attack, you ask?  Well I basically start feeling dizzy, and it turns into something that I can only describe as brain fog.  Then, I get weird sensations down my legs and into my feet.  That is when the worst part comes.  That is when the nausea happens.  I think I could deal with it so much better if that symptom would just stay away, but it doesn't.  It happens every single time.  There are times I can get it under control and I can send it back to where it came from.  Other times, it hits me like a ton of bricks and I start to dry heave or sometimes I even vomit. Sounds like cupcakes and rainbows, right? 

I know many people are silent about their disorder, and at one point I was too, but what is the point in that?   You shouldn't suffer in silence.  You shouldn't feel as if you are alone in this, because trust me, you aren't.  There are millions of other people who are suffering just as you are, and the only way you can get through it is together.  

xx - Jill