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Panic Attacks -
My experience with panic attacks
Love. Lorraine
The panic began...
In 1966, at the age of 21, after a combination of getting married, moving house twice, becoming pregnant, realising that my husband was having an affair and having my first baby, all within thirteen months, I had my first experience with panic attacks. I was shopping at the time in my local market, when suddenly, for seemingly no reason, I felt very dizzy, my heart started to race, a tremendous wave of fear swept through me, the building itself seemed to close in on me and a need to escape from all the people, noise, hustle and bustle overwhelmed me to where I quickly made my way out of the building.
Once outside, the 'funny turn' began to ease but as the whole experience had happened unexpectedly and seemingly without cause, it left me feeling so unnerved that I immediately caught the bus back home. When home, although relieved to be there, I still felt extremely unnerved at not knowing what on earth had happened. Nevertheless, as the hours and days passed without further recurrence, I began to suspect the whole thing had been a lot of fuss about nothing.
About 10 days after the 'funny turn,' whilst sitting in church and again seemingly for no reason, my heart suddenly began to race, my body trembled, I felt faint, claustrophobic, frightened and in need of escape. The very thought of fainting in front of all the congregation added to my concerns, so again I quickly made my escape outside. However this time, as a 'funny turn' had then happened twice, I began to suspect that something real must be wrong with me.
Over the following few weeks, the 'turns' gradually intensified in both frequency and severity to where they were no longer merely waves of fear but waves of actual terror. I only had to be in a crowd of people, on a bus, in a lift or queuing in a shop when suddenly, and seemingly for no reason, my heart would race and pound so much I honestly feared it would burst, my body would shake violently and sweat profusely, my legs would buckle, my stomach gripe, my head swirl, my mind frenzied and as the certainty of imminent death overpowered me, every fibre and sinew in my body and mind literally forced me to run. And even though I developed the habit of always sitting or standing near to a doorway or exit for a quick escape, the waves of terror increased daily to where eventually they were hitting me anywhere and everywhere.
As I continued to deteriorate my rocky marriage broke down and my parents took both my son and myself back home to live with them . Whilst I obviously felt very relieved at having help with my son and for being free from my marital situation, my worrying over what was happening to me was taking over, as every time a panic attack struck all I felt able to do was frenziedly scream out to my Mum, “Oh God, it's here again, I’m going mad, I know I’m going mad. I can’t stand this any more. Please help me!” Which of course only convinced me further that either something dire was physically happening to me or insanity was imminent.
As the weeks passed, driven by their concern for me, my parents would encourage me
to go out with them in the family car. But time and time again, as I prepared to
go out and indeed whilst out, the same fears flooded my mind, “What if a wave of
terror should suddenly strike whilst I was outside? Where could I run? Who could
I run to? Who would come to my aid? What if I had a heart attack? Where would the
nearest hospital be?” Consequently, by the time we had travelled 200 yards away from
home, the fear would have risen-
Exhaustion set in…
Up to that point, rightly or wrongly, every single day I had gritted my teeth, collected
my courage and literally forced myself out the door to walk the 30 yards to the local
corner shop, genuinely believing that by forcing myself through this tortuous ritual
I was somehow hanging on to my sanity. And although, on a few occasions, I managed
to reach the shop and fumble out a few words, ever more frequently fear would rise
within me to such an overwhelming level that I was forced to run back home empty-
Months then passed, and due to my not having an understanding doctor mixed with my own lack of understanding of what was happening to me, fear, exhaustion, pain and terror were becoming entrenched into every aspect of my life, having a dramatic effect on both my physical and mental health…
Physically, I was totally exhausted:-
Mentally, my mind also was driven to exhaustion:-
Eventually, as horrific thoughts of doom, gloom, madness and death consumed my mind,
all rational thought was lost to me:– I couldn’t watch television, listen to the
radio, read a newspaper or talk to friends for fear I might see, hear or read bad
news or perhaps come upon descriptions of horrific illnesses that matched my own
symptoms – whenever I did inadvertently come upon negativity of any kind, my mind
would tightly grip onto it, turn it upside-
I remember one morning as if it were yesterday, standing in my Mum's kitchen, being so very frightened of what might lie ahead, yet feeling totally helpless to do anything about it and thinking, “So this is what it feels like to be insane! This must be insanity because nothing else could ever be so weird and frightening. I wonder if they’ll take me away? Oh God! What’s going to become of me? What’s going to become of my little boy?”
One year turned into two of my suffering ‘fear attacks’ (not knowing they were something called panic attacks) and whilst believing there was nothing else I could do, nowhere else I could go, no one else I could turn to for help, and with all my hopes, dreams and health fading fast, I reached the point of thinking, “I just can’t do this anymore! It would be so easy to simply take an overdose and put an end to all this suffering.” – “But how can I abandon my beautiful son, what would happen to him if I were not around to protect him?” – “Yet what use am I to him like this? After all, if I were dead a relative would surely adopt him and give him a wonderful life.” – “But I’m his mum; he needs me!” – “Maybe, but I just can’t go through this anymore.”
I saw a speck of light
'The darkest hour is just before dawn' so the proverb says, and one evening, due to my Dad being late home from work, I happened to see the local evening newspaper still on the desk, and despite my fear of hearing or seeing bad news, by sheer absentmindedness (or as I believe by the guiding hand of my guardian angel), without realising what I was doing, I glanced through it. And there it was, an article on the book 'Self Help For Your Nerves' by Dr. Clair Weeks. I couldn’t believe it! And as my eyes flashed over the article, I absolutely knew that I had to get the book and, with the help of my Mum, somehow read it.
Now, some people experience love at first sight and some have 'a road to Damascus' experience, but when I read 'Self Help For Your Nerves,' it was as though someone had lit the brightest of lights on that, my darkest of nights. And even though I personally found it impossible to put Dr. Weeks suggestion of ‘floating’ into practice (which made me fear I was much worse than everyone else), even though I was left with many questions unanswered and even though I still needed to work on my recovery for many months afterwards, I nevertheless found Dr. Weeks book to be of the greatest value. Indeed I know, in the deepest part of my being, beyond any shadow of doubt whatsoever, that the book, 'Self Help For Your Nerves' by Dr. Clair Weeks actually saved my life! It did so by acting as the bridge that allowed me to crossover from feeling lost and alone to being found by a friend. It took me from feeling overwhelmed by despair to seeing a ray of hope. It took me from fearing I was insane to realising I was not. And it helped me to see that peace was not beyond my reach but was actually there and, sooner or later, I would find it.
At this point, I will take the opportunity to convey my deepest gratitude to Dr Weeks and openly offer her my most heartfelt “Thank You.”
The birth of this programme
I suffered panic attacks, including their related symptoms, from October 1966 to late 1970. However, a few years after I had fully recovered, I began to feel a niggling sense of needing to try to help others who were suffering as I had. So not really knowing how else to go about it, I simply told my local doctor, family members, friends and anyone who would listen that, if they knew anyone who was suffering as I had, I would gladly help them in whatever way I could. And sure enough, albeit very slowly, sufferers began to contact me and when they did, we would talk, share and compare symptoms and experiences. I would offer relevant information from the other sufferers that I was then meeting and in all cases I would recommend they obtain Self Help For Your Nerves.
After a few years of both helping sufferers and studying the deeper elements of panic attacks my own personal approach to recovery began to take form. More years passed and as I continued to assess and adapt my techniques of help, as I gained more insight, acquired more understanding and applied my increasing knowledge to the growing number of panic attack sufferers who were by then seeking my help, my confidence grew, my ability to help became ever more apparent to me and by my tenth year of helping people I had devised my own ‘five step programme' out of panic attacks. From which, despite the severity of each sufferers panic attacks and their related symptoms of stress, despite the individuality of every sufferer and the length of time they had suffered and despite whatever treatment or therapy they had received or endured, every panic attack sufferer who followed my programme gained benefit, with the majority making a full recovery.
I have now used my ‘five-
And so, after all my experience with panic attacks:-
My many years experience with panic attacks has taught me a great deal, which I consider it both an honour and privilege to now pass onto you.
At this point I will share with you the introduction from my book, Panic Attacks
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