This Too Shall Pass: My Journey with Panic Attacks (and Why They Aren’t Actually Trying to Kill You)

To me, panic attacks felt as though the world was swallowing me whole. My hands would turn clammy, my vision blurry, my heart would race, and my brain… well, let’s just say it was not available for coherent thought. In short, I was convinced I was dying—and sometimes, in the middle of one, I almost wished I was.

My very first panic attack arrived in dramatic fashion: at 2 a.m., because of course. I rushed to the ER, positive I was having a heart attack. In my head, there was no other explanation. I was in my 20s, healthy, and otherwise fine… but I was certain this was it. Goodbye, world.

Eight minutes of doctor chit-chat later, I had my official diagnosis: not a heart attack, but a panic attack. “Don’t worry,” they told me casually, “that’s normal. The world is crazy. Everybody has anxiety. Here’s a three-month supply of Xanax and Prozac.”

I sat there dumbfounded. Should I be relieved that my heart was perfectly fine—or horrified that I had apparently joined the “Zany & Prozac Club” overnight? (Disclaimer: I never did fill that prescription. Something in me knew there had to be another way. Spoiler alert: there was. It’s called compassion for the Self, and, who would have thought, therapy.)

At the time, though, I was two years into an emotionally abusive relationship, far from family, broke, and completely unsupported. Survival mode doesn’t exactly leave room for thriving. Four months and about twenty panic attacks later, my partner broke up with me. After the heartbreak and lovesickness subsided, I felt lighter, freer. I began to make friends, build community, and rethink my career.

Things were looking up. Except for one problem: the panic attacks didn’t get the memo. They clung to me like an over-friendly neighbor who doesn’t know when to leave.

Later, in grad school for Marriage & Family Therapy, I finally learned why. Panic attacks often act as reverberations of past trauma. They show up after periods of prolonged stress, when the body has finally come down from survival mode. It’s as if your nervous system sighs, “Okay, we’re safe enough to feel now,” and promptly unleashes the tidal wave of unprocessed fear and energy.

Now, panic attacks don’t look the same for everyone. Clients and friends have described them to me as surreal, numbing, overwhelming, or downright apocalyptic. But the one theme that almost always pops up? A total lack of control. And that little word—“control”—is where the trouble lies.

The harder we try to control a panic attack, the more power it seems to gain. As Carl Jung famously put it: What you resist, persists.

“So, am I supposed to like my panic attacks?” a client once asked me.
“Well… kind of,” I replied.

I don’t mean you should send them Valentine’s cards or invite them on vacation (trust me, no one wants them around that much). But it is possible to shift from hating them to witnessing them. Think of yourself as a detective or a researcher, observing something fascinating—albeit unpleasant—in the wild.

What does your panic attack look like if you imagined it as a creature or an image? What does it sound like—loud, quiet, shrill, whispery? What thoughts ride along with it? And most importantly, what message might it be trying to send you?

Because here’s the thing: our bodies are never cruel (which doesn’t mean the circumstances can’t feel cruel). They’re usually trying to get our attention. After years of neglect, mine was screaming: “Do something! We are hurt!” Panic was the megaphone my psyche used when I’d ignored every whisper.

So if you, too, are tangled up in panic, please know this: you are not alone. You are not weak. And you are not doomed to live like this forever. Panic attacks are awful—but they are also temporary. They come, they peak, and eventually, they pass.

When in doubt, I return to my favorite mantra: This too shall pass.

And it always does.