Panic and healing

(Nimue)

What can you do in face of overwhelming panic – be that your own or someone else’s? When I sought medical support, I ended with a handbook full of thing to do to manage mild anxiety. I was unable to persuade my doctor that I was experiencing panic to a far worse degree than that. I’ve seen helpful apps that work much the same way and very little that would do anything for the kind of panic that feels like drowning.

Here are some things I have learned…

Get out of the situation and get to somewhere you feel safe. That might mean having the space to have your own feelings while you work them through. If you’ve triggered into something historical, the key thing to keep saying to yourself is ‘I am not there now.’ Say it out loud, let yourself hear it.

My worst experiences of panic comes up around making mistakes or feeling that I’ve got things wrong. I suspect this isn’t unusual – abuse so often includes victim blaming. Being punished for errors and mistakes as though you are being deliberately useless or uncooperative leaves marks. I am allowed to make mistakes. I am allowed to be human. No one is perfect. I cannot magically know everything. These are good thoughts to hold.

What’s helped me most is hearing those affirmations. My partner Keith has been brilliant at supporting me though panic attacks. He sits with me, reminds me that I am safe, and loved. He tends to help reduce my sense of the size of the problem, rather than making me feel like I’ve over-reacted. He tells me that I’m good enough, doing well, and things of that ilk. This comes from a substantial understanding of how and why I panic. When someone else takes the time to understand, that’s really powerful.

Affirmations are good in face of panic. There’s a balance to strike around supporting a person without minimising what’s happening. Reassurance and kindness in face of panic gets a lot done. Even if what’s going on makes no sense to you, affirming that you care, and want to help, and mean to help the panicking person get things under control, is powerful.

Doing and saying nothing is not a good response. It leaves space in which the person suffering from panic can plug in all of their fears unchallenged. Small affirmations of care and support are enough to stop that happening, or to at least help keep it under control.

I used to have panic attacks that went on for hours, often over days at a time. At this point they don’t last anything like as long. Keith’s affirmations come up for me even when he isn’t present, and that helps me cope. A lot of people who struggle with poor mental health have voices in their heads – critical, abusive, destructive voices from the past. Countering that works. It’s something to know regardless of whether you’re dealing with this personally. Any time we approach each other with warmth and affirmation we’re potentially giving someone else the means to fight their demons.