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My eyes opened a bit earlier than normal as I was already anticipating my weekly 10am check in call with the “Damsel team.” I was staying at the Montage Deer Valley in the coziest of beds, called down for eggs, toast and coffee and snuggled up with my laptop. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and life was quite great in fact, except for a familiar rising lump in my throat. The call went great and I bounced up to get ready for the day. Moments later, after trying to put make-up on and pull together an outfit, I found myself on the closet floor, the bathroom floor, any floor trying to focus on taking deep breaths. 1…1…2…2…I breathed in and out carefully counting to 10.

If I’m being completely honest, I used to think that people who had “Panic Attacks” were full of crap. I stupidly made the judgement that people who could not handle the stress of day to day life would blame their weakness on excusing their behavior for a “panic attack.” Boy was I completely wrong {and did I mention stupid?}. My first few panic attacks happened while I was driving. I would have a complete, hysterical meltdown on the phone with my husband over what we were having for dinner and before I knew it I had to pull the car over because I felt like I was going to faint. The more and more this seemed to happen I began to take note of “triggers,” and still blamed my episodes on lack of sleep, food or PMS.

For me, panic attacks go something like this: Shortness of breath sets in along with millions of uncontrollable thoughts racing through my mind like a hurricane. The thoughts are very inconsistent, very sporadic and there are so many that I cannot hold on to one thought for longer than a millisecond. Anxiety starts to set in as I take a few deep breaths and try to get myself ready. I look at myself in the mirror, struggling to put on concealer, and that is when the voices start. “You are hideous. You are fat. You will amount to nothing. Who do you think you are? Look at that crooked nose and that weird eye. Your forehead is huge. Your chin is too pointy. You suck.” I pull myself away from the mirror and sit on the closet floor looking up at what to wear in effort to quiet the voices. “You are materialistic. Your style sucks. You are ugly. Anything you put on isn’t going to fix or hide your pathetic sadness that you are feeling.” And so forth and so on. The voices follow me to wherever I am going and it isn’t until I break down into a full set of tears that I am finally able to quiet my mind. I simply cannot get a handle on anything. The long list of errands and to do’s in my mind is so unbelievably vast that I feel like I am losing control on reality. I feel dumb, I feel dizzy, I feel out of control and as though I am literally losing my mind. The tipping point usually happens over something quite silly. At the Montage Deer Valley, the tipping point was when the waiter brought my eggs with no toast {I had ordered toast} and I lost it. After about 30 minutes of crying, calling my life line and talking myself of the ledge, it’s business as usual. Luckily, my panic attacks now only last an hour or two whereas they used to last an entire day. This is why I am writing this post. Not only is it vital for a person having a panic attack to know how to coach themselves through it, but if they have someone on the outside to help … it is extremely helpful!

10 Ways to Help Someone in a Panic Attack

1. Stay with that person and keep calm.

2. Don’t make assumptions about what the person needs. Ask them.

3. Speak in short, simple sentences.

4. Be reassuring by saying things like “You aren’t crazy. This will pass.”

5. Try to help avoid stressful environments and keep the person in a calm place.

6. Take their feelings seriously. Do not dismiss what they are going through.

7. Ask them what you can do when they aren’t having an episode.

8. Do not tell them to “calm down.”

9. Request to put on soothing music that may uplift their spirit.

10. Give a hug.