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Treating My Anxiety and Panic Attacks
If it wasn’t for therapy, I don’t know what I would have done!
About 5 years ago, I began to feel tightness in my chest and I'd feel light-headed and would get feelings of totally losing control during certain times. The episodes began to happen more often and eventually I began to associate them with driving on the freeway or being in places where I didn’t feel I could “escape” or get help if I had a heart attack or an asthma attack (which are just some of the illnesses or diseases I was afraid I had).
I finally went to my primary care physician and explained what was happening, but the doctor said that I was perfectly OK and that the "bouts of fear" I was experiencing would soon go away. This made me worry even more, because I felt like I had this strange problem and that nobody knew what was going on and so I'd have to keep living this way with no help in sight.
About 2 years ago, another doctor finally told me that I should see a therapist because it sounded like I was having panic attacks. Thank God for him! The therapist I saw helped me understand what was going on inside my body and explained how, through no fault of my own, my thought patterns were affecting my state of mind at any given time. Through time, I have learned really effective techniques for keeping my panic and anxiety attacks under control. Although I may still get a panic attack or the feeling of "out-of-the-blue" extreme anxiety from time to time, they come much less frequently and they continue to decrease in intensity.
Most of all, I now know what's happening when I start to get those scary feelings of panic and I don't get so freaked out anymore. I know that I’ll continue to practice the techniques my therapist has taught me because, for the first time in a very long time, I feel like I am in control of my life.
- Thomas D.
Irvine, California
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