Don't fight the PANIC

I had a full blown panic attack last week...

It's the first one I've had a while and, honestly, it scared me - eventually I became more upset about attack than I was about the situation that initially triggered it. I was one of those attacks that's triggered by everything and nothing. It had been building for weeks and it finally broke through. 

I spoke to my therapist this week and she helped me come up with a strategy to keep a bad panic attack from becoming even worse.

Her advice: don't fight the panic!

It seems counter-intuitive - my first response to panic is to stop it from happening. I shut it down either by suppressing the feeling entirely or distracting myself. 

But I haven't really processed what made me panicked in the first place and even if there's nothing I can do to change the situation that's making me anxious, my body is still having a response to it. Denying my body that response will only lead to a more aggressive response later. That's exactly what happened this time. I hadn't taken the time to work through the things that were making me stressed and eventually, it was all just too much. 

Now, I'm trying to accept my symptoms, persevere through the panic, and use coping statements. I've written out this strategy in my journal so that I can get to it more easily.

I hope I never have a panic attack again, but I know that's unlikely. At least now I've got a set of tools at my disposal to help me through it!