The Storm Never Lasts Forever

These four words held so much strength during one of my most intense panic attacks, even in my frazzled mind at the time. Because it is 100 percent true. The storm will never last forever. Your panic attack will NEVER last forever. No matter how frightening or gruelling or exhausting it is, it will ALWAYS pass.

And more often than not, once the storm passes, a calm breeze, rich blue sky, and a striking sun will come out. You will get to that feeling, no matter how long it may take for you to feel it.

I understand all too well that in the deepest midst of a panic attack where your mind is beyond reason and your body feels like it might explode, the only thing you are thinking (if you can think at all during this state!) is that this will never pass. All you're thinking is that this is how you're going to be feeling for as long as you live. And then the next thing that happens, guess what, it dies down. The tides weaken, the thunder loses its strength, the sun grows a little brighter again, and you find that the panic has passed.

That will happen. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. It will NEVER last forever. In fact, statistics prove that a full on panic attack cannot last longer than a few minutes. It just feels long to our panicked minds.

For many years worth of gruelling panic attacks, I never had a positive bone in my body towards getting better and finding a way out of this spiralling, vicious cycle of panic. And although I'm not fully recovered (sadly not even near), I still feel panic attacks have loosened their grip on me because I am gradually training my brain to accept the reality of the fact that they will always pass.

And to do that, it really is as simple as just analysing every panic attack you've had and letting it prove to you that: A. you didn't die from it despite every thought telling you it would; and B. it lasted a lot less time than you thought it would. And by training your brain (over time) to adjust to this guarantee with a panic attack, it makes them a lot less frightening.

In a sense, it comes down to that good old adage, "mind over matter." An anxiety disorder, by nature, is a condition fed by anything but reasonable, rational thought. It drives on feeling, instinct, the evolutionary need to survive. Which, in turn, unfortunately means our logical mind is put to the back, making words said like "you are fine," "you will get through this," during an attack difficult to get through to us. But it is not impossible. It just takes some empirical reasoning to train our minds so that our logical thinking is back in the equation during an attack. Which is why it is best to analyse our panic attacks while not having a panic attack, when we have full control of our mind again.

So start by maybe writing in a journal, sentences like "you did not die during your last panic attack," "you won't die during your next panic attack," "the panic attack will pass," etc. And that way, even when all line of reasoning is jettisoned during our next panic attack, we can still go back to our journal (it may be best to have a small one in your bag so that it's always with you) and read these sentences of truth, which, after doing so over time, will feed into our panic and will unbind us from it. I will be realistic and tell you that it will take time, but it does work.So the bottom line is, you will get through a panic/anxiety attack every time, no matter how strong and powerful it may seem. And it will always pass no matter where you are—at home, on a plane, during a meeting, in a restaurant, wherever. Even if you can't fully believe that a panic attack won't last and it won't kill you, rest assured that that is just the reality of an attack.

You will be ok. You will get through it. You're doing great.