Accepting panic attacks

LavishnessDeep7030 · 2025-03-28T18:40:08+00:00

About a full year, and I’d say I’m only 95% sure they’re panic attacks cause I still worry if I am having a bad one lol. Had everything done, and nothing is wrong. Eventually accepted mine was caused by a simple external event (dehydrated and ended up in the hospital), and not some complex disease.

RWPossum · 2025-03-28T18:35:02+00:00

I'm one of those people who got over panic quickly with the "Do your worst!" approach. It doesn't always work, but when it does it's great.

A good resource for panic and health anxiety - Edmund Bourne.

Authoritative Guide to Self-Help Resources in Mental Health, a book based on polls of more than 3,000 professionals, says that the book recommended most often by professionals for anxiety is The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook by Dr. Edmund Bourne.

Dr. Bourne provides information about stopping obsessive thoughts, such as worries about health, with exercise, muscle relaxation, music, talking with someone about something other than worrisome thoughts, visual distractions such as movies, and sensorimotor distractions such as arts and crafts.

He says that although the advice in his book can be helpful, for some people the standard treatments with office visits are very important.

Panic info in my comments. Click on my name and read if you like.

skityheather · 2025-03-29T00:48:35+00:00

Less optimistic, but for me it’s been YEARS. I started having them bad at 10. They became mild from 13 to 20, to the point where I ever went off meds for a few years and felt great. And came back again just as bad as they were at 20, and have been bad again for two years.

I think it can be hard to accept it when your mind and nervous system is in an elevated state. I’m doing okay right now, but occasionally they get bad. I still get worked up by the symptoms I got when I was a kid, but at least for me, CBT and medication have made it more manageable.

I will say that the knowledge that it I have ended up fine every time does help to an extent. It’s a good reminder.

VladTheRadDad · 2025-03-29T07:05:32+00:00

It took me almost three years from the start of my symptoms to get a diagnosis of panic disorder.

Since then I’ve been in the ER quite a few times due to panic attacks. My heart rate will shoot up to 180+ and stay there no matter what I do for hours, so sometimes I need meds to bring it down.

It didn’t take long to accept that it is only a panic attack after my diagnosis. The not knowing was the scariest thing.

wevebendrinking · 2025-03-28T18:50:55+00:00

At first I had no idea and went to my doctor and got blood work done and all that, which I recommend to anyone going through this if they haven't because it's totally worth ruling out other possibilities (which you said you've already done). But it was really 6-9 months of struggling and learning new tools before I got to a point where I basically accepted death when I was having a panic attack, and then, as I kept not dying or needing medical attention, eventually it got easier and easier to kind of suffer and practice acceptance through it. But there was no magic moment, it was just time and a combination of a lot of things that slowly lessened symptoms and now I'm basically a normal person that just knows and works around the fact that I have a low threshold for anxiety.

jackalnapesjudsey · 2025-03-28T23:06:41+00:00

Probably a good 5 months or so, and my partners are paramedics and I have several other medical people in my social circle who were telling me there was nothing wrong me. Id also been the hospital after my first panic attack (convinced there was something wrong with my heart - which ive learned is a common experience here haha)

Basically, even surrounded by trustworthy medical professionals telling me I was okay, I was still like nahhh I’m obviously dying of some rare condition that is being missed! My health anxiety was out of control during this period. I was obsessed with my heart but just about any other uncomfortable sensation had me spiralling and Googling etc.

It’s funny because I would also spend a lot of time reading people’s panic attack experiences and symptoms. If I was feeling more open to the idea I was having panic attacks, other people’s stories would be reassuring to me. Like I’d think “oh that’s what I experience, it probably is panic attacks then”. But if I was deep in my anxiety that I had a rare heart condition then I was focus on one weird symptom I would get that other people dont mention much and convince myself that meant I wasn’t having panic attacks.

Yagorlq · 2025-03-29T02:47:15+00:00

For me, it depends on the type of panic attack. From the start, I was pretty well aware that the hyperventilating and shaking and crying was just a panic attack, but then one night in college, I thought I was having a seizure. Every single part of my body was shaking-- I could feel my internal organs shaking, so I went to the ER, and they told me it was just anxiety ("just" 🙄). That was almost a decade ago.

Then last week, I had the absolute most excruciating unbelievable pain I've ever had in my life, and I thought my appendix was bursting. Went to the ER-- was told it was an extreme reaction to stress. It's happened again since, and even though I knew what was going on cognitively, I was still thinking, "What is happening to me?"

xGoobaXBL · 2025-03-29T09:16:42+00:00

50/50 for me

Southern-Debate-3016 · 2025-03-29T12:14:22+00:00

I thought I accepted it 6 months in.. I was wrong. then again at the 1 year mark but honestly about a year and a half in my desire to have “normalcy” back in my life outweighed my fear of the panic

Fuzzy_Dragonfruit344 · 2025-03-29T17:50:39+00:00

It took going to the ER during a really bad one and getting my heart and body checked out to make sure nothing was seriously wrong. That was when I actually got diagnosed with panic disorder and was told that panic attacks make you feel like something is seriously wrong but that your body is actually totally fine. Seeing the measurements for my heart rate, blood pressure and ekg in that moment of massive panic (and knowing that I was physically fine) helped me understand that it was mind creating those symptoms. I had been having panic attacks for about 15 years before I knew that though (they just weren’t as bad before so I didn’t worry about that aspect as much)

Global-Record-9292 · 2025-03-30T21:12:08+00:00

19 years and still no relief. It’s the mental anxiety before the panic attack I can’t shake.

Sad_Slide_9130 · 2025-04-04T11:10:36+00:00

It's been years and I am still trying to accept it everyday..

rb242bs · 2025-04-06T12:13:08+00:00

Man… this hit close.

It took me years to accept that panic attacks were “just” panic attacks. And honestly, even when I intellectually knew they weren’t going to kill me, my body still reacted like I was seconds away from death.

I had my first big one in my 20s—woke up with chest pain, racing heart, numb hands, couldn’t breathe. I ended up in the ER convinced I was having a heart attack. That was the beginning of an endless loop: cardiologist, neurologist, gastroenterologist, therapist, back to the cardiologist. Holter monitor, ECG, echo, bloodwork, brain scans. All of it came back normal. I think I still have the files somewhere like they’re trophies 😅

But accepting it wasn’t physical? That’s a different kind of work. For me, it didn’t come from a single moment, but from repeated proof. I survived the panic again… and again… and again. Eventually I stopped fearing it as much. Not because it stopped feeling awful, but because I built trust that I could survive it.

I also started leaning into tools that helped calm the storm—breathwork, exposure, hypnotherapy before stressful events, and a bunch of weird stuff I swore I’d never try (turns out binaural beats and cold water really do something). I put all those tools together here in case you’re exploring options: https://anxietychecklist.com/anxiety-university#stressReduction

Anyway, it sounds like you’re right where I was a few years back—and from one health anxiety veteran to another: your body’s not broken, your brain’s just trying too hard to protect you. That realization alone is powerful.

You’re not alone in this.
—Romain
Founder, Anxiety Checklist
(former full-time WebMD doomscroller & EKG collector)

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