If you’re wondering whether your anxiety has been leading to panic attacks, read on to learn how to tell — and how to get help.
Alyssa’s Panic Attack
Alyssa is a high school senior and member of her school’s cheerleading team. She has never had a panic attack. When lifted into the air by her teammates during practice one day, she suddenly feels very dizzy. She fears that she is going to crash to the ground. She yells to her teammates to put her down. When they do, Alyssa begins shaking, hyperventilating, and notices her heart is racing. She tells her coach she thinks there is something wrong with her and runs, terrified, to the nurse’s office. After about ten minutes, she feels better and returns to her team. However, she refuses to be lifted into the air again.
Things get worse
Two days later, Alyssa walks into her morning science class. She suddenly feels dizzy again, and then notices her heart racing and feels she cannot catch her breath. She worries that she is going to collapse and die in the middle of her class and runs out of the classroom and back to the nurse for help with her panic attack. Alyssa goes home for the rest of the day and stays home from school for the remainder of the week.
Over the weekend, she starts to worry about going back to school. While watching TV with her sister on Sunday, she begins to notice her heart is beating faster than usual. She suddenly begins to feel very dizzy and sweaty, her vision blurs, and she feels she cannot breathe. Certain she is having a heart attack, she yells for her mother. They drive to urgent care, where a doctor confirms that there is nothing physically wrong with Alyssa. When Monday comes, she is terrified to go back to school. She fears that the same thing will happen, and that she will collapse or die in the middle of her class.
What Is Panic Disorder?
While Alyssa may not have a medical condition, Alyssa likely has something called panic disorder. Panic disorder is a relatively common but extremely distressing anxiety disorder that can affect children, teens, and adults. Panic disorder is marked by frequently occurring panic attacks that occur in seemingly random and unexpected situations.
What are panic attacks?
Panic attacks are relatively short periods of significant fear in a situation where there is no real danger. The attacks involve a variety of intense and alarming physiological symptoms, such as a racing heart, shortness of breath or the feeling that one cannot breathe, hyperventilation, dizziness, sensations of choking, nausea, sweating, tingling, numbness, blurred vision, and more.
In addition, during a panic attack, one can have fears of dying, going crazy, having a heart attack, or losing control. For this reason, panic attacks often drive sufferers to the emergency room or their doctor’s office to get help. When doctors are unable to find a medical explanation for these significant physical symptoms, panic attacks may be the cause. When panic attacks recur, they often bring with them a fear of these attacks happening again. Panic attacks can occur for a variety of reasons and in a variety of situations. Panic disorder is the combination of repeated and unexpected panic attacks, as well as the fear of these attacks happening in the future.
Avoidance and Panic Attacks
In an effort to protect oneself from a panic attack, those with panic disorder will often avoid places or situations they believe are likely to trigger an attack. Alyssa, for example, refused to be lifted in the air by her cheerleading team because that was the activity she was engaged in the first time she experienced a panic attack.
Sufferers of panic disorder may avoid places where they have had a prior panic attack, or places that seem likely to trigger one. These can include crowded places, like stores and subways. It’s also common to avoid any place where having a panic attack would seem dangerous or embarrassing — such as while driving or in a meeting at work.
“Out of the blue” panic attacks
Sometimes when a person has panic disorder, their panic attacks can occur in out-of-the-blue situations. Alyssa avoided being lifted into the air, but then had a panic attack in her science class. She had another later while watching TV. This seemingly random pattern of attacks can be increasingly confusing and frustrating, and can cause individuals to avoid more and more situations and places.
The consequences of avoidance
Avoidance may provide short-term relief from panic attacks or from worry about future panic attacks. However, it will likely exacerbate symptoms in the long term. It will increase future worry about going to these places and engaging in these situations. Additionally, avoidance does not allow the person to learn new, healthier ways to cope with these symptoms and fears.
Safety behaviors
In addition to avoidance, people who have panic disorder may engage in a number of “safety behaviors.” These are things that make them feel less likely to have a panic attack. Examples of safety behaviors include carrying around an anti-anxiety medication, drinking cold water, rolling up their sleeves, or sitting by the door in a meeting or classroom. As with avoidance, safety behaviors do not help them to learn to better manage or decrease their panic symptoms in the long-term.
Getting Help for Panic Attacks
Fortunately, panic disorder is one type of anxiety that can be helped with cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT for panic disorder includes systematically addressing all three factors that combine to create this disorder: physiological symptoms, unhelpful thoughts, and behaviors that may exacerbate the disorder.
With the help of a CBT therapist, you will gradually become more comfortable with the relevant physical sensations. (Learn more about how to find the right therapist.) This improvement happens by increasing your exposure to the symptoms so that they no longer elicit fear. You also learn to identify and challenge their distressing thoughts and worries and learn how to respond to these thoughts in healthy and productive ways. You also gradually reduce and alter avoidance and safety behaviors and begin to more fully participate in your life!
If you or your child is dealing with panic disorder or recurring panic attacks, help is available. When panic attacks interfere with quality of life and with ability to participate in regular activities, consider reaching out to a cognitive-behavioral therapist for further information and treatment.
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