“A panic attack is a sudden episode of intense fear that triggers severe physical reactions when there is no real danger or apparent cause. Panic attacks can be very frightening. When panic attacks occur, you might think you’re losing control, having a heart attack, or even dying.” – The Mayo Clinic.

Panic attacks are frightening, I had one last night, and it lasted until daylight and beyond. I felt like I was losing control, having a heart attack, and even dying.  Most people have one or two panic attacks in their lives. I’ve had way too many to count. That is called Panic Disorder.

My big breakthrough in living with my panic attacks came when I read an essay on Panic Disorder by Anna Freud, Sigmund Freud’s daughter.

Panic attacks occur, she wrote, when people lie to themselves and become frightened of things that are not imminent or real dangers – feelings of being in great danger, being overwhelmed, or being abandoned. The shrinks say more and more people are suffering from them in a society that increasingly dominates us.

The subconscious recognizes these feelings as false, triggering panic and confusion.

Fear is being afraid of genuine dangers.  Panic is something else.

My favorite and most valuable researcher of panic was John Bowlby, the famed British Psychiatrist who said the origins of terror come from infant and pre-verbal children who fail to connect with their mothers and fathers and can’t be calmed or reassured when they become fearful.

Fear – and then panic – become ingrained into the child’s neural system, and they struggle with anxiety and sometimes panic all their lives. Panic Disorder is treatable, as I can testify, but never simple or easy. And it never completely goes away.

A good friend of mine also had a panic attack last night, and she called me this morning to talk about it and ask for help.

We Panic Disorder survivors usually find other PAPs (Panic Attack People), and we call on one another for help in the same way alcoholics or addicts in AA learn to call for help.

It helps.

No one can help a panic sufferer more quickly or effectively than a fell PAP.

We don’t laugh at one another or demean each other as being weak or crazy. My father used to tell me to “suck it up” when I had a panic attack. It didn’t help, and I still don’t know what that means.

When I have a panic attack – I’ve had them all of my life ever since m bed-wetting years I talk to someone who is in reality – I’m not at the time – and I can be talked back to reality.

I am a hider when it comes to these awful attacks. I have always been ashamed of them and worried about how others will react. Many people – including those close to me – were uncomfortable with this illness and shied away, even to the point of avoiding me.

I remember one panic attack which occurred when I was the Executive Producer of the CBS Morning News, a decisive job with many people working under me. More than once, I had to lock my office door and tell my secretary to leave me alone while I shook and cried and sometimes vomited in my office.

I had an attack on the bus on the way to work, one at a baseball game, one at the movies, and one at a mall: shivering, cold sweat, feeling ill and bewildered, and in great terror.

I made sure my daughter never saw one of those attacks; I’m not sure she knows about them even now. I suspect she does; she is too intelligent to fool for long.

To my knowledge,  no one ever noticed. If they did, they never said. I realized I could not have an everyday life in the corporate world, and eventually chose to be a writer, where I could work alone.

The strange thing about panic attacks is that truth stops them and melts them away. Writing has always been my truth, and in all of the hundreds of book readings I have to people in mostly large audiences,  I never once had a panic attack.

As a journalist, I covered all kinds of stories – murder, explosions, suicides, politics,  rapes, and disasters. I never once had a panic attack. I was living in my truth, and truth was the point.

Panic attacks have taught me a lot about myself. When I am doing something I should not be doing or being someplace I ought not to be, they come to frighten and awaken me. That’s how I have come to see them.

Anna Freud was right. They come when I am not facing the truth about myself or lying about something. The lie is mostly about my being too weak and vulnerable to live in the world. That is not my truth. It is not the reality.

When  I write, I live in my truth, not fear.

These attacks led me into talking therapy and psychoanalysis, and I have been in treatment for most of my life. This kind of help helped. Panic attacks are treatable but not curable. I would not have survived without it.

Thanks to my blog and my wife, I no longer hide, and I feel compelled to share what I have learned with others. I am always amazed how many people write to me as I get more honest and tell me they know what I am talking about. Thanks for sharing, they say.

Even panic attacks can be channeled for good.

They have accelerated my search for spiritual life, both authentic and healing, important to people like me who suffer from this particular illness.

I am lucky to live with someone – Maria – who also has a Panic disorder. We recognize the symptoms and know how to talk one another back to consciousness and reality.

What have  I learned about my panic attacks? Truth heals. I have to face it. And the truth hurts.

Sometimes, we have panic attacks simultaneously – that’s pretty wild. Maria’s response used to be to take a long, hot bubble bath in the bathtub. Now she walks in the woods.

Mine is to sit and brood until the clouds lift. Meditation helps.

Not all wounds are visible. I learned never to tell anyone with a panic attack to “just calm down.” It doesn’t work. I listen, talk quietly, and repeat the truth as I know it. That works. It just takes time.

I just want to get through the day. And I try and recall Charlotte Erkisson’s excellent quote about panic attacks: “It will always be spring again. And there will always be a new day.”

The best thing about panic attacks is that they end, and life seems precious and bright when they do.

I’m not sure where Thursday night’s panic attack came from, but I suspect it might have had something to do with the software issues and breakdowns that haunted me all day on Thursday. I remember feeling overwhelmed, which Freud wrote is one of the most frequent panic attack triggers.

Most people have one or two panic attacks in their lifetimes, and the problem goes away. Panic Disorder occurs when panic attacks occur frequently. I have been in treatment for over 50 years.

I panicked over bed wetting, gym, vaccines, school work, grades, bullying, and anything medical or athletic. I hid in the bushes all day rather than read my homework aloud.

In my adult years, my panic centered around money and my belief I couldn’t handle cash and that it would overwhelm me, no matter how much I earned. I turned it over to others and avoided it. I am learning how to take responsibility for my life only recently. I’m doing well.

When I have attack, I am not in reality but in a world of imminent and terrifying dangers. When I speak with someone, in fact, then slowly and over time, I return to the truth; I can undoubtedly handle my work, live my life, and deal with daily challenges and problems.

But my foundation is weak and vulnerable. I used to have to get into bed for two or three days after a panic attack. Now, I begin to recover in two or three hours, especially if I have a person I trust, in reality, to talk to. All I have to do is listen.

As I recover, I  reintroduce myself as a person of strength, competence, skill, and good fortune. My panic attack last night ran on and off all through the night as I write this at 11.08 a.m. I am almost fully recovered. We’re having friends over for dinner; I am looking forward to it.

I still feel weak, even unsafe, and the panic flares up in ever-diminishing pain and frequency. I know I need to be gentle with myself for a day or two, the alarm is mainly gone, but I feel drained and exhausted. Solitude is my medicine.

Panic Disorder has been a central disorder, one I had from my family, friends, and colleagues for most of my life.

Like almost everything else in life, panic attacks can be a gift. They have taught me alone, including that I am strong enough to survive them and grow and move forward, no matter how often they strike me. They have helped me understand who I really am, which is a precious gift.

The excellent news is that they very rarely strike me now.