A panic attack feels like dying. Your body is absolutely convinced it is dying. Your heart hammers, you can't breathe, your hands go numb, and a voice inside you screams that this is the end.
I had that experience every single day for two years. Sometimes twice a day. It started with no warning — I was at the grocery store, perfectly fine, and then I wasn't. I left a full cart in the aisle and didn't go back to a supermarket for three months.
I stopped driving. I stopped eating in restaurants. I stopped going to meetings at work and made excuses so convincing that people believed them. Meanwhile I was in my car in the parking garage, unable to get out, breathing into my jacket collar.
Anxiety built a smaller and smaller box around my life, and I let it, because every time I pushed against the walls, the panic came back and convinced me the box was safer. And the box kept shrinking.
The turning point was a therapist named Dr. Reeves who specialized in exposure therapy. She didn't try to stop the panic. She taught me to walk toward it. To feel it