I’m sad to say that panic attacks have become as common in modern society as a common cold. By now we’re all well aware of the symptoms; shortness of breath, increase in heart rate, inability to carry out daily tasks etc. But maybe it's time to look at what a panic attack in itself is a symptom of?
When the early morning alarm goes off it tells us that it’s time to get up, it’s our wake up call. A panic attack works in a similar way. It too is telling us that we need to wake up and pay attention to something that has been sleeping within us but can snooze no longer. In fact it is probably more useful to think of a panic attack as a panic alarm and like all alarms they don’t stop ringing until we’re fully awake and have switched them off.
So what causes a panic attack? The specific cause is different for each person and directly related to their life and what may be going on within it. It is something that each person must work out for themselves and often is the very thing that we don’t want to really think about, the thing that we put off thinking about but actually is always there. And therefore the common cause of a panic attack is the way we relate to whatever this thing is that is going on for us or to put it more frankly the way we’re not relating to it and putting it aside.
When emotional pain is ignored for long enough it makes itself visible in other ways and as human beings our primary form of communication is always with our bodies. If we don’t talk about it, our bodies soon will. I am of course not suggesting that every time we put things off we are in danger of bringing on a panic attack, no absolutely not. Putting things to one side or procrastinating implies in itself that we have a pretty good idea of what it is we’re not doing, there is still awareness, whereas the panic attack gets its power from withholding information and instead transforms our bodies into loud speakers shouting out that something is very very wrong.
So how do we know what it is we don’t yet know?! How do we decipher a panic attack and understand what it’s really about? To help the investigation along a bit it may be useful to ask ourselves some reflective questions;
How do I feel in my life?
What makes me happy?
What is making me unhappy?
How do I feel towards myself? How do I feel towards others and the world?
What’s on my mind a lot of the time? What keeps me awake at night?
If I could describe how I am right now what would I say?
Taking the time to really think about how we feel in our lives starts the awareness ball rolling. Awareness is the key, it is a bit like making toast, you can’t undo it once it’s happened. When you know something, you know it, and that knowledge changes things. I’m inclined to go a step further and say that a panic attack harbours a knowledge we’ve chosen to ignore for whatever reason and therefore the alarm will keep ringing until we are able to face the music. A panic attack is full of knowledge not yet brought to light but the way it manifests itself makes it the perfect red herring. ‘If I feel a panic attack coming on whenever I have to give a presentation at work that must mean that presentations give me panic attacks...’ There may obviously be a connection but it’s more than likely that it’s not the whole story. A panic attack comes from within, it is not about the external world even though of course that’s what tends to trigger it but essentially it is an anxiety we hold internally and then how we relate to it in the world.
Overcoming panic attacks involve being inquisitive about our life, becoming our own research and presenting the findings to ourselves on a regular basis. Lieutenant Columbo is the epitome of inquisitiveness but even he had to ask question after question until he found out what he already knew from the start. The more we learn about ourselves the more unity our mind and body will have with each other. The panic attack alerts us to the fact that a separation between the two has taken place and that it’s our job to bridge the gap and bring our body and mind in line with each other again once more. Believe it or not the panic attack is a sign for potential change, it is offering us an opportunity to do things differently and though not a subtle sign it is none the less a sign to re-evaluate our lives and listen to what the alarm is telling us. But this time don't hit snooze, turn the light on and make toast instead.
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