Embrace the panic attack.

My anxieties have gone through the roof over the last few days. I have been a bit of a mess. Mild to severe panic attacks are a daily occurrence for me and over the many years of having them, I’m very good at recognising and dealing with them. My point of call with a panic attack is to embrace it, ride the wave and eventually they fade away. The secret, I’ve found, is to never give in to the ‘flight’ mechanism, otherwise they tend to worsen and then you associate them with whatever the situation was that you had the panic attack in.

Climb the mountain, enjoy the view.

It’s how phobias develop. You have a panic attack in an elevator, you get off the evaluator instead of battling through the panic attack, then you assume you’ll have one every time you get in one. Suddenly you find you’re claustrophobic and can’t ever use the lift. Not that using the stairs is a bad thing, as a health advocate I’m much more for the stairs. But you get my point. For me, I’ve always recognised this so I never let a panic attack become associated with a situation. This said, there are definitely certain situations I tend to get them in when my anxieties aren’t playing ball.

Classic places for me tend to be anywhere that is full of people. Crowded areas that are hard to get out of. The worst places are always those that are full of people, have no windows and are completely silent or quiet. These places tend to put me on edge as I feel as though I cannot exit them without causing a scene. Because I’m aware of this, I tend to try and put myself into these situations as often as possible. I almost always get a little panicky and once I get through the panic, I almost always get a proper buzz and endorphin release from getting through it.

A gig is all about feeling, so is life.

This week I have some personal issues going on that I won’t discuss on the blog, I know full well why I’m getting more and worse panic attacks than usual. However, I am not letting them stop me from doing anything differently. I’m still showing up and I’m still putting myself in uncomfortable situations because thats what you should do.

The trouble with modern life is that we don’t embrace those anxious emotions enough. It’s good to have feeling and emotions, whether it’s panic or excitement, it’s much better than being totally void. Feeling shows that you are aware and in touch with your surroundings, it shows you are conscious and this should be celebrated. The projection of bad and good is only something we have created. Panic isn’t necessarily a bad emotion, it’s just we have perceived it as one. When you think of it in this way, you can then realise that perhaps when you feel these emotions, you shouldn’t try and fight them and rid yourself of them and perhaps embrace them, ride them out and you’ll find the more ‘positive’ emotions follow.

Just try it. Maybe? It’s my best solution and I’m getting by just fine.

Much love.
BG