Saying Goodbye to My Last Panic Attack?
From the depths of anxiety to a pivotal moment of change. I’m sharing my story to help you find hope from a place of darkness, and to give you permission to say goodbye to the trauma that shaped you.
“Panic Attack” is a really strange phrase.
The first time this had any personal connection to me was in 2019. I was given a fast-track and unwanted introduction to its inner workings.
It was a relief to hear a ‘panic attack’ rather than a suspected ‘heart attack’ diagnosis given to me by a surgeon a few hours earlier, which resulted in me being given an emergency angiogram.
But I wasn’t ’panicked’, and I didn’t feel under ‘attack’.
So why was this relevant to me?
Whoever I asked didn’t give me concrete answers or explanations that would provide me with the emotional and psychological stability I desperately needed.
Not knowing exactly where best to look, I turned to Dr Google and spoke to as many people as possible, regardless of whether they knew better than me, or had experienced something similar.
What nobody told me was the after-effects of having the angiogram would cause my sensitivity to anxiety to become so extreme that I wasn’t able to leave my home for several days. Even simple tasks at home caused a whoosh ‘panic’ that would force me to sit down and curl into a ball.
During my stay in hospital, I saw an advert for CBD on the TV by my bedside. I’d never heard of CBD at the time, but I thought it must be legit as it was advertised on hospital TV, so I ordered.
I received my package a couple of days later, a small bottle of CBD oil, which became the first tool I would use to help manage my anxiety. It felt like a placebo after a few days, but as long as it did something positive I didn’t care. I was a hopeless mess without it.
Panic attacks leave a big, nasty scar.
PTSD leaves a big, nasty scar.
Trauma leaves a big, nasty scar.
Grief leaves a big, nasty scar.
Anxiety is the final missing piece
that connects
all of these wounds together.
A few months after my first panic attack I was invited to deliver a short talk at the University of Central Lancashire. I felt like I was starting to get back to normal and cautiously said ‘yes’.
The talk was for a conference focused on tackling ‘honour’ based abuse. This horrific form of abuse destroys lives… and it took away the life of my darling fiancé Naz.
It’s a subject close to my heart, and I have delivered many talks on it before.
I was particularly looking forward to this event as a choir was due to sign a song in memory of Naz as it was approaching his birthday.
A few minutes before I was due to go on stage, I experienced a terrible tightening around my chest and a desperate need to breathe fresh air. Feeling embarrassed, I quickly left the building, not knowing how to communicate what I was going through all over my body.
Whenever someone walked past me, I tried to disguise what was happening inside. I didn’t know how to articulate this to myself or anyone else.
After ten minutes, the experience dissipated, so I went inside.
As I approached the event organisers to let them know what was happening, they looked at me as I tried to speak. A jumble of words left my mouth, not really in any order. Thankfully, I knew the event organisers quite well, and they graciously made excuses for me so I could miss my talk without raising any conversations about my health.
As I sat at the back of the room, my life started to flash in front of me. All of the things I wanted to do in my life but hadn’t. The three things Naz had asked me to do after he passed away. My dog Lola who was patiently waiting for me at home.
After my mind started to calm down to something I could recognise I started to plan how to prevent this from happening again.
I was desperately torn between what I wanted to do mentally and what my body was telling me I was allowed to do physically.
This was the next step on my long journey towards managing my anxiety.
At that time, I wish I had enough knowledge and wisdom to understand what was happening. I wish I understood that the underlying reason for this was grief.
It would take me another four years before my life was in a place where I could listen to my whole body, perhaps for the first time, and start giving it the love and acceptance it really needed.
But the most important thing I did have back then, and lots of it, was HOPE….
Photo credit: Lisa Bretherick / lisaimages.com