Panic Disorder: Lived Experience

so I grew up with an undiagnosed panic disorder and I suffered um great Exquisite distress pretty much every single day of my life it was organized around separation so it was any time I had to leave my mother I would Panic as I was growing up I knew there was something wrong with me and I knew it because it interfered with my everyday life in ways I watched my friends and my siblings not be bothered you know so my childhood was really filled with a lot of dread and chaos and confusion and you know misattunement and misapprehension but then I had this realization that [Music] it was harder for me to live my life avoiding everything and it would be easier if I stayed alive to face every single thing I feared thank you foreign [Music] podcast I'm your host Jackie colbeth and it's great to be with you today we are going to be talking about panic disorder with Amanda Stern Amanda grew up with an undiagnosed panic disorder and was plagued with the fear that her friends and family would be taken from her or pass away she detailed this experience in her Memoir little Panic dispatches from an anxious life her fiction non-fiction and poetry have appeared in among other places the New York Times and the New York Times magazine Amanda is also a mental health Advocate speaker and Advisory Board member for bring change to mind she is the author of the novel The Long Haul and 11 books for children written under pseudonyms her Weekly Newsletter how to live draws on her personal struggles and offers the best of what she's learned from Decades of inquiry Amanda is an inspiration to so many and we are so excited she took time out of her busy schedule to chat with us Amanda welcome to it's all in your head thank you I'm really happy to be here well we are very happy to have you this is a topic that our audience uh definitely wants to learn more about as do I uh we always do and it's something I feel like has become so prevalent um or at least more diagnosed than usual in in this day and age so we're just really pumped to listen to your experience I think what's super helpful at least it is for me is context and that usually starts around childhood and I think a lot of times people underestimate just how perceptive children are and when they know maybe they aren't feeling right or something isn't really well they are often dismissed and and I think sometimes they're more honest than a lot of adults so I think it would be super helpful if you could share with our audience sort of you know how you grew up and and what childhood was like in the sense of discovering um uh what it was like to struggle with this anxiety sure yeah yeah experience like like um I was so young I was um probably still in a crib when I first experienced uh anxiety or Panic or whatever it was called whatever it's called when you're an infant I think it's it's called something else but yeah so I grew up um with an undiagnosed panic disorder and I suffered um great Exquisite distress pretty much every single day of my life I maybe had a week off here and there where um I would be released from the like phenomenal dread that was living inside my body at all times and it was organized around separation so it was anytime I had to leave my mother I would panic and I had to leave my mother all the time I had to go to school in the morning I had to go to my father's every other weekend and this is starting at age two you know I was very very young when my parents separated and I you know I was too young to be separating from my mom to go to my father's every other weekend but it was a totally different time and yes you know um I don't even know if the word anxiety was on anyone's lips it was definitely not in The Ether right right you know so so as I was growing up I knew there was something wrong with me and I knew it because it interfered with my everyday life in ways I watched my friends and my siblings not be bothered right by the same things that that really um incapacitated me so I knew that I was suffering or struggling with something that other people weren't and there was no name for it and um the trouble with being little um being a child and having pain mental pain invisible pain is that your ability for um emotional awareness is um exceeds your capacity for language you're living in this cognitive dissonance yeah where um you're holding on to something that is monstrous it's so big you just don't have the capability or the capacity to express it in any way verbally so what's happening is that adults around you begin to assume and guess on your behalf most most ly they are incorrect and I actually will say but this morning I ran into an acquaintance of mine in the dog park and he was with his daughter and he was telling me that he was writing little books for her to make life easier for um him and his wife as parents and I was like that's amazing so give me an example and he said well where I'm writing a book about how to get excited for bedtime and how to look forward to bedtime because she doesn't like to go to bed and so um I'm making I'm making a book where she's just you know everything is exciting and I was like that's that's great um I I wonder though if you might be leaving something out um because perhaps you're assuming that she doesn't want to go to bed because it's boring which is not really a reason that kids don't want to go to bed it's usually about something else right and great so I see this a lot with parents is that they assume something sure and but they're not assuming it from the child's point of view they're assuming it from the adult's point of view so I suggested that he think about whether his daughter didn't want to go to bed because she didn't want to miss out on anything or she didn't want to separate and if that were the case then perhaps the angle of the book should be inclusive of other you know maybe five things and see which one she relates to yeah and then Focus the book on that I see that a lot and I I you know when I was when I was growing up a lot of things were assumed on my behalf yes and um one of those assumptions was that I had a learning we called it a learning disability but that I had learning challenges and I I did have learning challenges and I had learning challenges because I was having panic attacks right and when you're having a panic attack you can't learn no so um so what they did for me was they ended up sending me for testing to see to identify the learning challenges however when you have a panic disorder and it is organized around being tested and separating and all that you don't do well on tests no that's got to exacerbate the living hell out of it yeah it made it worse so um so you know so my childhood was really filled with a lot of dread and chaos and confusion and you know misattunement and misapprehension and um you know and it wasn't anyone's fault it's not like you know my my parents weren't raised to be attuned emotionally they were grew up in the 50s you know so yeah so they grew up with you know people taking care of them right you know other people so um so yeah so that is um my very long-winded answer about um what my childhood felt like and how long-winded no no that thank you for sharing that that that is super helpful so during that time you're experiencing all this and for our audience obviously I I really want for you to read Amanda's book and you will get such an unbelievable um you'll really be able to feel what it was like um you know experiencing this and and Amanda I mean you're such a great writer I were I had like anxiety which I can get easily to begin with but that just tells me what a great you know it's so descriptive and so as you're feeling this is there anybody around that's kind of like you know geez I'm maybe a little concerned like you know maybe Amanda's struggling and we want to I want to be able to help her obviously as we know a lot of people certain Generations don't necessarily have the tools um for that but was there anyone like jeez I we got to try something or um anyone that kind of like sweeped in and and tried to alleviate some of the anxiety maybe not successfully but they gave it a shot well yeah I mean I think that my mother um really wanted to alleviate my pain um but because she didn't know anything about anxiety or you know mental illness or Panic or anything she did all the wrong things sure and it's not again not her fault no it's she did um what she thought would be helpful which was to remove the obstacles from my life okay so instead of helping me to face my fear she removed my fear so that I wouldn't have to face it and that made things so much worse for me because what it does when you allow someone to um to sort of get away with it and or you know or or not have to deal with the looming thing they have to do the big presentation the going away is that it it sort of validates for the person who is scared that that their right to be scared that the world is too hard for them to handle yeah I could see the world weren't too hard for them to handle they would be able to face this thing with some help so no one helped me to face anything and and because they didn't know how to do it themselves so instead these things were were removed you know sleepovers for instance yeah I couldn't do it oh me neither growing up no way my mother knew she'd be getting a call it may be around you know like the ask you know or even before then but yes I I when I read that in the book I identified with that a lot yeah I mean I I had one and I had to come home but you know if there were birthday party slumber parties or anything like that and I would say you know I can't do it and there was never um a never period of time where she would or anyone would be like you can do it ah and here's how yeah and let's take it slow and let's break it down and you know so no one helped me to manage um my emotions or you know my emotions in the face of hardship and so my life just became harder and harder and smaller and smaller because of that yeah and when did you feel like was there a point where you felt like you have such knowledge of this now and and how that pattern was set in and why and it's totally understandable is there was there a point sort of as you grew up and you know as we become adults was there a point where you were like okay like some of this stuff isn't getting removed was there sort of like oh man is The Jig up here like uh is there anything that prompted um because obviously you've taken such you have such agency and you've taken such control I'm wondering if there was a point where you were like okay uh it's been nice that all this stuff obviously not well you know nice in the respect where it was helpful in the immediate moment but hindsight 2020 was there ever a point where you were like okay this is getting like really difficult now that I have to kind of manage this myself yes so right before I was diagnosed I went 25 years and I know I I just I yes wow really brutal so when I was you know and I I'm gonna be honest I've been saying for years and years and years that it was 25 but I may be wrong oh okay I may I may have been older and I may have been like 26. sure I don't think I was 27 but I was either 25 or 26 and yeah anyway I um I had um I it just got worse and worse my my anxiety got so bad that I couldn't leave my house right and so I spent three weeks in my apartment unable to uh even really open the window without and you know I could open the window but I couldn't stick my head out right because I I just I don't even remember why I just remember it being like this air is going to kill me right you know I need the air in my house that's that's safer everything was safe and dangerous safe and dangerous and I you know couldn't have anyone come over I thought they would like breathe up all the available air and it just got to be a point where you know even thinking about leaving my house would would send me to the bathroom to throw up in in fear and um I just I I was sort of at the end you know and I thought yes I that this is not a way to live I can't live like this it's too hard to live my life avoiding everything yeah and so I decided that that was it I you know I I felt like so I you know I'm gonna just end my life I feel like this is right right the right time and I have no other options I don't know what else to do but um you know I I always have this weird sort of Suspicion or paranoia that I was crazy and that my mother knew I was crazy and was just keeping it from me right right I think that's very common in people who have a long-term undiagnosed illness absolutely and so I thought well I'm gonna I'm gonna call my mother first and I'm gonna I wanna hear her say what's the name of this thing is and then I'm done and then I'm gonna end my life and yeah so I called her and um she was like you know I don't like the way you sound and um so she sent a um a cab over to me to go to her house and when I was in the cab um you know I had all this he like put the lock down and I like panicked that he was going to kidnap me of course and then murder me and then I was like wait a minute I why am I scared I want to die and then I was like well maybe I don't want to die if I'm afraid this guy's gonna murder me wouldn't I want him to murder me if I wanted it easier right right I had this whole like weird like spiral of epiphany is that was like oh I guess I don't want to die and then I thought um but then I had this realization that it was harder for me to live my life avoiding everything and it would be easier if I stayed alive to face every single thing I feared it would be easier for me to face my fears than to live life avoiding them wow and that was my realization in the back of that cab on the way to my mom's house and I thought uh okay I'm going to do this I'm going to live my life walking towards my fears because I know ultimately that'll make my life bigger and I'll feel stronger and I'll grow right and the next morning my mom sent me to her therapist yeah in 10 minutes he diagnosed me and wow was that a relief did you feel a sense of relief or were you still little like I'm baffled I felt relieved I felt like I felt like that you had just said my name yeah like I've been searching for my name and you've said my name and so yeah I felt it was very like oh my God that's it but my confusion was that my whole life I was looking for the name and I thought I had this mistaken belief that as soon as I heard the name right I would be like cured that the name was the remedy was the right yeah isn't the remedy it's just the name of the condition for which you need to find remedies it's the beginning it's the beginning of the exploration so but it was um you know it was Major and it made a lot of it put everything into place and made a lot of sense and it made a lot of sense to everyone around me who I told and you know made a sense to my mother and my father just to everyone and um so it was really a revelation and it was also sort of embarrassing because you know when you're like I do yeah you know when you're just like I know the name what is the word I'm looking for what is that word and it's like you can't come up with the word and the words like Epiphany and someone else says and you're like yes right not like that like oh my God yes Panic duh yes that's the word I've been looking for yes and I've been like circling around it without being able able to you know come up with it well yes and a lot of times I think you know and and this is where ignorance you know is anyone who's you know both of us we've been diagnosed with conditions there's a lot of ignorance around certain things and people make a major presumption that there are only certain situations in which a panicky feeling should arise and if you feel panic in other situations that's you know um looked upon is like not the right way to handle it or you know I'm I'm certainly preaching to the choir here right with how that that's um how Society thinks about that and kind of deals with that but it it is truly and this is what I really want you know the audience and and people watching to take away is this isn't like a little tightness right in somebody's chest like oh I have to get up in front of like 10 colleagues or oh you know the that's a natural physiological reaction to something but but panic disorder is not that it's like the equivalent of calling a headache you know migraine just a headache do you want me to explain yes yes so um a panic so a panic attack is when you um have a sort of an oversized reaction yeah to something that is threatening to you but perhaps not actually literally threatening sure so um that's a sort of a panic attack from uh from the place of someone who has an anxiety disorder someone who who doesn't have any disorder and has a panic attack when they're walking down the street because of an actual danger so they right you know so someone with you know not a disorder right um can have a panic attack right because there's a danger there's a visual physical threat yeah and you're panicking due to that threat yes when you have a condition uh anxiety or Panic condition you you are like you're like an alarm system that doesn't work so you know an alarm system in your house is supposed to alert you to out to Intruders from the outside right but when you have a pen disorder the alarm system instead of alerting you to people breaking in it alerts you to any movement inside the house so you know a dog will pass great way to put it and the alarm will go off yep and so that is a person with a panic disorder their alarm is constantly going off as though they are being physically threatened it feels as though there is an actual um literal life-threatening experience about to happen to you and it feels that way because physiologically the Cascade in your body that is set off is is biological and can be measured in a doctor's office you can measure it you can take someone's pulse you can hear the speed of their heart you can if their blood pressure goes up so um your face gets hot but beyond the biological physiological aspects of panic attack is the mental and emotional aspects of it and you know you do you feel like you you're so alarmed by what's happening inside your body and you try to make sense of it but you can't make the only sense you can make is that you're dying right right I'm having a heart attack or I'm about to yes say you're in great distress because yes and the reason is because it's not synchronous with the experience it's out of alignment with whatever is happening so it feels like oh my God I'm in this situation right now and my body has decided that I will die right I don't even have a stroke or a heart attack or it just comes out of nowhere yep and so you're trying to identify what it is that feels unidentifiable and because your heart is like pounding and speeding and you feel a fear an intense life-threatening fear yes that you're in danger you can sometimes separate from your body and float up to the sky you can feel like you're gonna throw up you can feel like you're gonna pass out you can feel it you feel like you're that actual regular person walking down the street and someone with a gun comes up to them yes um and says you know I'm gonna I'm gonna end your life oh yeah it's absolutely Terror it's terrifying yeah so when you have a panic disorder there's no trigger there you know it's a you panic because you're afraid sure to panic right that's real that feeling is is a real feeling you can't make it feel unreal you know feelings that's the about feelings right exactly but so the actual definition of a panic disorder is panicking in anticipation so does do things like exposure therapy yes like because I'm curious you know obviously feeling this way is is scary and stressful in in I'm wondering what types of different therapies or things and and you're so well read just with your experience um on this are there certain things that you were able to learn or do that at least gave you maybe a little bit of relief or feeling that you're you know moving forward well for me you know I didn't I didn't start with the therapy yeah so I I things were backward for me I started with the exposure therapy by myself yeah yeah I started with I'm just gonna face all my fears and like yeah a very specific person and I advise against being like me because I've quit like I quit drugs cold turkey me too like it does way to go yes yeah um so I you know I'm very I'm I'm because when you have a panic disorder or anxiety you're you're usually very concrete these are either black or white they're this or that's all or nothing you're very concrete so that it makes sense that I would do something very extreme it's all this so you know so I did do the things that scared me that I want so it's not just that I do things that scare me I want to make this very clear it's that I the things I wanted in life yeah scared me and I wanted that life so for instance I wanted to be on stage but I had stage fright and it was so bad that I would throw up just thinking about being on stage so I if I wanted to be on stage I had to do it and I had to face that stage fright and get through it enough to manage to learn how to manage my stage fright so that I could do it so things like that reading from my book in public writing a book publishing a book writing things all these things that that are privileges to do you know it's not like it's not like these are horrible traumas that I you know I had to do I had to force myself to do no they're extraordinary things but but as a person with a panic disorder they felt terrifying and undoable to me and so that is what I chose to do is I chose the life I wanted I chose the life I was afraid to have yes that's what I did and but yes to your question um cognitive behavioral therapy is very helpful okay great um and that's just a a way to sort of reframe the way that you think about things the way that you think about things in black and white terms you know it was the most helpful thing to me going from CBT for me in in my bipolar II disorder it it was Game Changer I think CBD is is like tried and true yeah it's amazing and I'm gonna can I recommend a book yes so um this book just blew my mind and changed my life and it's got the worst title so I just need you to bear with the title and buy the book anyway right I have nothing to do with this book I've never met this person who wrote it I just like the book and I are a little bit married um and but the book doesn't know it's married to me right it's called that's not a marriage it's called the worry cure uh it's by Robert Lee h-y it is okay fantastic and he's a CBT therapist and basically what it is is it's CBT for you that's awesome and it's incredible so that book is amazing and then um and then exposure therapy which I did on my own and I still Amanda don't know how you did that on your own it it is one of the hardest things even like uh being privy to watching like an exposure therapy session it is it is infinitely more difficult when you are witnessing it then one could ever fathom you know like I I huge I mean you know I think that for people without Panic or anxiety for them to really understand it they have to think of the thing that scares them the most yes you know is is being buried alive the thing that scares you the most because that is that when you feel that in your body when you feel your greatest fear yep that is what people with anxiety and panic feel yes on a average day absolutely you know just feeling some anxiety or Panic absolutely I I find it Akin I've had I've had lots of panic attacks before anxiety is really a nice chunk sort of of my mix on my spectrums so yeah it is a it's a a trail mix and I remember thinking to myself at you know at the time I was having panic attacks as a team and then it wasn't until later when honestly I thought that this is very random but I was on a safari in South Africa and I almost I thought I was about to get pounced by two cheetahs that I had like spooked and they flipped around and they looked at me and I remember like hearing all I could hear well I couldn't hear people I'm just hearing my heart pound and then I'm feeling the burn like the sweat right yeah it's like you look like you dumped a puddle on me and I feel like it happened like almost instantaneously and afterward you know I made it obviously afterwards afterward I remember saying I was with my father and I said that felt like my first panic attack and I had never had a near like almost near-death experience but when I tell people that I say I'm not being dramatic right like for me having had both there's a huge parallel to be drawn there with what you are going through in that moment you know it's interesting I've never thought of it in comparison to um like a near-death experience for me it felt like that at least I remember going I think that's really act I think that there's perhaps some things missing from it but it's very um they're definitely parallels and similarities because it it's not that we are I mean in that case Perhaps Perhaps with the two guys you actually might have cheated death yeah um but while it can feel like a near-death experience when you're panicking it that's just the feeling it's not the fact no no and and I was nailed into my head feelings aren't facts feelings aren't facts and I took such solace in that because I gave them facts status yeah I think that's one of the early things that I learned that helped me so much and I because we get so confused you know because when you feel things deeply they feel true and how could you how could they not be true they're so you know potent and extreme and so you know so you just sort of start buying your your bill you start buying your beliefs like like I'm gonna give you an example yeah yeah or the the listeners an example like let's say you're on a dating app you reach out to someone and they don't text you back yep that day and then they're gonna come back the next day and then you're sort of like screw you man right and so you text them the next day like oh you know I'm not pretty enough for you and in that span of time what's happened is you've created an entire story yes that has nothing to do with this other person great Point your um your own reality which is not reality it's just your own little you know spiraling fantasy in your own little head yes and those are feelings and we are when we send that text that says oh I'm not pretty enough for you we're mistaking our feelings right relax yes and we need to really be wary of doing that because I've had so many emails to me yep from people saying um so I guess not huh or and I'm like I actually have like 14 jobs you know right I was busy not about you and so but I understand what's happening to them yes and yes I also understand I don't want to date anyone who has not evolved enough to know that my not responding to them within three days has nothing to do with them I've never met them right they are unknown to me so you can't have anything to do with them so you know anyway so that to me was a really uh like a formative yeah understanding a formative like template that I learned um and I do to this day and facing my fears I do to this day yeah it's a lifelong Endeavor it's not like a I'll do this for three months no and and it's a shame when expectations and I say this frequently on the podcast I think a lot of it with the frustration with mental health is there's these unrealist expectations as if you're gonna get cured with a pill and you're gonna get cured with one session and then you know you confront it and you deal with it and then it's behind you in a rear view never to be heard from again in it it couldn't be work that couldn't be a worse or more inaccurate right portrayal but it's a consonant it's a daily thing in in I'm wondering what what do you do like maybe on the daily or something regularly where you're like you know um because you you are so successful you get so much done I have to believe that you've got like some tips or or things that you do to keep propelling you along the path I mean I mean I don't we don't have there's not enough time for all my tips like that is how Tippy I am I love that and we have a term for it now when the term hat came out I was like yeah yeah I was like yeah life hack give them to me or just take all mine I have so many okay so because I'm a writer and a like a performer sometimes or I used to be pre-pandemic I um I'm very good at pretending I'm really good at buying my own you know country on your own Kool-Aid I get it exactly um and let's all right so this is not um this is not about anxiety this is just about um how like how do I get so much stuff done sure and a lot of it is that like I'm I'm driven to do it I have a fire in me for it so I love it and it's what I want to be doing and when people are like what do you do for fun and I'm like I work right they're like no that's not fun I was like nobody no but it is if you're fortunate enough yes so but there I don't want to do it all the time oh you know so what I'll you know I'm working on two books right now I have a Weekly Newsletter I do talks I do a lot of different things and so what I'll do is if I'm like you know I should really I haven't published a story in such a long time I should probably publish a story yeah um I'll be like okay I'm going to pretend that I work for me and that as my own assistant yeah I've been asked by my boss like I'm My Own assistant and my boss is me um so Amanda has asked me to pick a short story that could be submitted to magazines you have to work on it for her and because I'm such a people pleaser it works for me because then I can like be like I really want my boss to love like it's a whole mind game but sure but it works it works for me it's the point yeah I mean I do it for cleaning my house you know it'll be like I pretend that I am um a housekeeper and for someone who really really really rich and that um but if I don't clean the way that this person likes to clean I'm not going to get my money and so I like I mean I just am a weirdo and so I'm doing a million hacks like that but for anxiety you know I've been in therapy for so long sure um Talk therapy I've been in for 20 years yeah with the same therapist who oh that's amazing wow that's gotta be a record oh it is yeah it's Ripley's Believe it or not it's the whole yeah I'm going in some big getting a trophy you should yeah you've been nominated for an Oscars I was just I'm getting egot doing I'm getting egot and um yeah well that's that would be the longest relationship I've ever had with anyone ever all right I'm and I'm going to tell you something I'm actually downplaying it because it's 23 years and I'm just embarrassed you're rounding down until it's 25 we don't even need to worry about that well I'm I'm ending we're ending well it's not like you didn't put the time in right yeah I was like you know it's been a minute I think maybe uh wind it down so what's that like because I've usually just like moved in that like I've moved States and they can't treat me over state lines what's it like I'm wondering if someone you know that you've known you've come to know for so long um is it like acrimonious or is it like we want we wish you the best Amanda like you're doing great it's it's beyond anything like either of those things she is my mother like she raised me you know she is she saved my life she saved my life she she is she's kind of a miracle like I was I was useless you know I was just useless and I did not do I walk down the street without having a panic attack yeah she saved my life and it was all just sort of talk therapy and you know it's psycho what's it called not psycho it's um oh my God what psychodynamic psychodynamic therapy okay which is just a fancy name for like talk therapy but about Consciousness and getting to subconscious exploring the subconscious and unconscious unconscious and all the Consciousness um but um so no so it's been amazing like the the whole treatment has been amazing and I've changed entirely and I've recently felt I felt for like the past year like I'm I'm ready to go I'm ready to like you know split like be independent from my mother sure you know I have that relationship with her where I like I get annoyed with her like I would my mother right right she has to be technical like questions about technology like my mother like she's my mother and not only so I just was finally like I I brought it up and I was like I feel a little bit like I might be ready to like try the world on my own right and she was like okay well let's talk about it so we talked about it and then she was like you know I do think you are ready too but I slept let's have a period of two months where we sort of talk about everything you've learned yeah and make sure that you know you know how to apply the essentials yeah and um so we're blinding we're finishing totally in July and it's every session has been kind of amazing where you know it's almost like she'll be like and what is the lesson there I'm like um um yeah so she um so what is great it's great and and I you know I I again as someone who faces her fears yeah this was a fear for me and what happened the thought just the thought of of having the conversation right it was it would have given me anxiety just having to go in like hey I'm thinking about you know it's almost like it to a degree you feel like you're breaking up with someone like special it gives you that anxiety oh it's hard it was really scary but I I really surprised myself by and I surprised myself because I did it in a way that surprised me where I said to her you know this is really hard and really sad yeah because you've CH you've changed my life you've saved my life and you changed it and you know I was crying and of course you know and I was I said well you know I just told her how I felt about her and what she had done for me and it was that I think that a lot of people maybe Miss when they're ending something is that you know she I wanted to make sure I she knew that and yeah like I'll tell her again and again but I think that um she also wanted to make sure that it wasn't just an end but uh sure uh you know a long like a landing absolutely it's like the when I'm done with my work day and the way my brain is comprised is you have to let me come on The Descent so if you start knocking at me for something at five or six that's just not the greatest time right I you know and I'm very open about that now instead of biting your head off you know the older you get I would you know hey let me just like Land This Plane uh we're at ten thousand I'll I'll do it in an hour or so you know but just um I think that's great that's such a special yeah relationship and and to hear you talk about this person's really touching yeah I do want to say though the original question was what are my tips for anxiety and I never really gave them um but I do want to I gave my tips about it so I do want to save my great um for anxiety is that to if you can get good and it takes time or not some people just are like this yeah if you can get good at identifying where your distress is in your body yeah um and start giving a name to what that distress is signifying to you um like oh we're ha where I'm about to have a conversation that's going to be hard and I feel like a tightness in my throat yeah so you link it you're like okay I feel tightness in my throat about talking to this person so this is fear this is like what happens to me when I'm scared and um so okay so I'm scared so all right so what do I do when I'm scared I breathe and so you know you have these sort of techniques for different um Sensations in your body and okay great usually the technique is to breathe but um but it's really smart I think to start learning how to identify your feelings inside your own body because you can sit with those feelings and then slowly take your time to put words around them so you know what you're feeling and as soon as you know what you're feeling you can often deal with the the concreteness of it you know when it's just an emotion or just a sort of a a sensation in your body it can feel overwhelming yes so the key is to identify the sensation and then to put words to it yeah and once you put the words to it then you're like okay this is what I'm dealing with yes in the conundrum it sounds is it's hard to get clarity in the middle of feeling in major panic I mean it just it's like it's they're all along but you almost have to like it sounds like just like sitting almost like white knucklehead if you have to and then it right but the key is to to do this when you're not panicking the key is to constantly be assessing your body for sensation and so when you're online and you have to order something yeah and all of a sudden you feel like nervous right you'll be like okay oh this is nervous nervous I'm nervous I'm nervous to order oh I'm nervous because I have to speak out loud right you start slowly getting to identify what it is so that when you're in a panic yeah you can be like oh I'm not dying I'm have this feeling and that feeling is nervous that feel this feeling is scared this you know it's almost like it's a way to manage What's Happening by identifying the sensation instead of giving over to like I'm having a heart attack you know because if you're like oh this is familiar I know what this is right begin to build a language of sensation yeah in your body and create your vocabulary for these experiences then you can really you're having a like you're building a language for your body yeah it'll help you get through really hard big moments you know I I love that that's that's so applicable I think I think it's especially too when you I always think there are there are stigmatized emotions like anger sadness and I feel like if you ever feel these things people are like well just you know don't feel that and I feel sometimes when as soon as those come up right there's almost this sick conditioning of like on you know no no no no no no not gonna look at this not gonna is that the no from you or a no from someone else so if that's it a no from someone else okay so the no from someone I think this is really vital too yeah nothing is about you nothing right I have to remind myself everything that other people don't want you to do is about them everything that people do want you to do is about them it's never about you it can't be right it can't be right and so whenever someone is making you feel like you're feeling the wrong way right just remind yourself there's no right way or wrong way to be a human being absolutely so however you are is human yeah we're all human so however you feel whatever you feel it's it's it's part of the human condition yes and because someone else is uncomfortable with it just means someone else's uncomfortable right and that's where it starts and that's where it ends you know sometimes you know I know with myself I'll pick up a storyline liking to read liking my stories and it's it's easy to run with that when it's you know it's not that deep as some of my friends say you know if something upsetting I think I gosh I mean you've pretty much answered what I always like to leave the episode on and that is if there's anyone watching this to those who are watching this today who are who are in the thick of their panic disorder in their anxiety and and they're watching this what advice would you give to those who are hurting the most right now I guess I would say a few things one um just because something feels scary yeah doesn't mean it's dangerous so you're panic and your anxiety it feels dangerous you know but it's not it's just a feeling and that's where you're confusing the facts for the feeling so so facts and feelings not the same thing yep um and fear is not actually dangerous it's a feeling um and also that like you know having anxiety and panic is really about never having been taught how to manage your emotions yeah and never you didn't know you weren't taught or you didn't you didn't learn from the right person or you didn't learn in the right ways or you you know it doesn't matter why really what matters is that um your relationships your emotions is not uh congruent and so the best part about being in that situation is that there's you can learn how to be self-reliant and how to be strong and it's not hard to find the resources they're all over yeah but you know I would say if you are really suffering I buy the worried cure it's amazing also Tamar chansky has great books um another tip I'm going to give you yeah please for those who have suffered even those who didn't suffer in childhood but I found this really um I started doing something that that no one else without children does which is to read books for parents about childhood anxiety so I read parenting books about childhood anxiety because I had childhood anxiety right who better to dig in so to read about what I should have gotten yeah teaches me what to give myself and so I think that that's a really good place to start to to Mark chansky has two books one is freeing your child from anxiety yeah and that's a great one I've read that and freeing yourself from anxiety so I think that if you know you have at least these three resources right yes that you have something concrete to look to look forward to and to to start with and it gets it does get if you work on it yeah you'll get better and you'll be stronger for it and you'll you know be richer you'll be a richer person for IT emotionally not financially can't promise that I know that um Amanda I can't thank you uh enough for coming on uh when I read your book I just was propelled to reach out um and ask you to have a conversation with us because I just think you're you're very impressive person but you're a very strong person and I know that our audience and and I certainly did got so much out of our chat today so thank you again thank you so much this was a real pleasure thank you all for joining today's conversation with Amanda if you visit medcircle.com you can access tons of other conversations including weekly workshops with our credentialed doctors an award-winning video Library featuring almost 1 000 educational videos become a member of our community today visit medcircle.com to learn more and thank you for listening to it's all in your head

Channel: MedCircle

Views: 6,691

Keywords: mental health, anxiety, panic disorder, panic, panic attack, panic attacks, anxiety disorder, mental health awareness, anxiety attack, agoraphobia, panic attack treatment, anxiety attacks, mental illness, jackie colbeth, amanda stern, little panic dispatches from an anxious life, little panic amanda stern, medcircle, med circle, social anxiety, what is a panic attack, depression and anxiety, psychology, panic attack relief, severe panic attaks, lived experience mental health

Id: LYra87pN1Xk

Length: 55min 44sec (3344 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 12 2023