About six million people in the United States have panic disorders that are diagnosed. About three times that number of people are undiagnosed.
Nearly all of us will experience a panic attack at least once in our lifetime, yet a stigma still lingers around it. The idea that you lose control of your body while your outside life seems to blunder as well is pretty terrifying in truth. Of the multiple panic attacks I've had in the past, the worst was unimaginable.
The sound of my heart pounding was all I could hear and the world around me began to dim until I could see nothing. My vision was gone forever as far as I knew. I didn't know if or when it would come back. With the cards I was given in life, I was at a standstill, quite literally because it seemed like I couldn't move as well.
Losing your sight is not necessarily a common symptom of a panic attack. In fact, most people generally think a panic attack is a freak episode, when it is rather quite the opposite in most people because of course, it manifests differently in everyone.
A panic attack where you are frozen and essentially lose all of your senses can seem normal to a bystander. It can seem like nothing at all. In situations like this, it's hard to be able to help someone and sometimes help is never even given. So the victim is left feeling like they're falling into an empty void for what seems like forever.
Your entire being is completely sure that you're dying. You feel a sort of catastrophe in all the world around you; from the top of your head to the tip of your toes you can feel it. You can actually feel yourself vanishing, especially without your vision to tell you it's not true. There's a complete disconnection from your mind and your body, so all control is lost. It's absolutely terrifying.
But the worst part is, the embarrassment of it happening around other people. In a world where most people fear public humiliation more than death, it can be easy to see why. Panic attacks are very hard to understand and even harder to try to mediate. Often times, some people trying to help can make things worse if they don't understand what's happening.
Suffering from panic attacks aren't a fate to wish on anyone, but if everyone can do a little to understand them more rather than stigmatizing them, the life of those that do suffer from them can greatly improve.
