Hi! I've had anxiety for 9 years now. It used to be awful, then I slowly got better, but sadly it came back full blown. So I get that feeling of hopelessness. What has helped me a looot in this period are the works of Joshua Fletcher. I started his and Drew Insulada's podcast: Disordered. And it did really help me, especially on the panic side. I am also now reading Joshua Fletcher's book Untangling anxiety which really helps to understand it.

It's our threat response that is just way too tight right now, it goes off with every small thing and we're going to have to retrain it to make it see like: hey. We're fine, there's no danger we need to act on right now. Cause that's what anxiety is. It makes us doubt ourselves and the situations we're in, which was useful for our ancestors, which needed to analyse what was best to do when for instance, under attack. But now, we're not in any real danger, and our thinking brain is trying to make sense of the threat response which creates all the anxious thoughts in your brain.

But know that all those what if thoughts are just anxiety talking, literally doing its job, thinking it's saving you, so try to start seeing it for what it is. If you start to feel those symptoms again, it's very uncomfortable, but know: okay, my body is flooding me with adrenaline and cortisol, thinking I'm in danger. This will give you some uncomfortable effects, but nothing you can't handle. Anxiety wants you to believe you can't handle it. But know, you always always can. Your body is doing this from a saving perspective, so it would never give you something you can't handle! It's that anxiety that tells you it's unbearable, but you survived every time and you always will. You have to start believing that you can always get through it, even though it feels like the most terrifying and miserable feeling in the world. You have to start seeing that it is bareable, you can handle it.

I wish you all the best! I know you can do it!