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Imagine yourself suddenly experiencing every classic symptom of a full-blown heart attack -- elephant sitting on your chest, heart rate like a hummingbird's, pain, tingling, and or numbness all the way down your left arm, disorientation, and the absolute, sure knowledge you ARE going to die, right now ("feeling of impending doom," they call it, but that doesn't even come close).
That's panic disorder.
Sometimes there's a trigger, and sometimes it comes out of the blue. Sometimes you think you know what the trigger is, but you're mistaken -- you've only learned to associate panic attacks with a place, or situation, or time of day... For me, I used to believe fluorescent lighting was the culprit, and began to feel very anxious when I would enter a supermarket.
Fortunately, I realized lighting had nothing to do with it, and now I can shop for frozen peas with aplomb.
When this false "association" with certain places gets really severe, it often develops into agorophobia. (See Sigourney Weaver's masterful performance in "Copycat" for an idea of what that's like.)
Sound crazy? Yeah, it sounds crazy to those of us who have it, too -- which is why so few sufferers talk about it. But it needs to be discussed, openly. We're not crazy people, or dangerous, or unstable; panic disorder is nothing more than a chemical imbalance, which can be treated through a combination of drugs and therapy (although I, like many others, refuse to get on the pill bandwagon for fear of never getting off -- my "treatment" is sheer will to "live through" my pseudo-"heart attacks," which works with a lot of practice, but is not something I would recommend for everyone).
Incidentally, panic disorder has a high correlation to OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), although no one seems to know why yet. That's a whole 'nother story -- and a subject discussed with even more reticence because it has its own host of "crazy" feelings.
What else can I tell you... Oh, PD often develops in one's early 20s, but that's not a hard-and-fast rule. I remember my first episode at the tender age of about three, and it developed into a full-blown problem by the time I was in my early teens.
The good news is that PD often begins to dissipate on its own in one's 40s and 50s. (Again, nobody knows why.) There's no guarantee it will ever go away, of course, but I seem to be living proof of that theory; I get panic attacks no more than one or twice a year now (whereas in my teens and 20s, I was lucky not to get them at least once a week).
Sign me,
Lifelong PD sufferer, riding it out
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