Panic Attacks Quotes

“Panic attacks are a lot like being drunk in some ways, you lose self-control. You cry for seemingly no reason. You deal with the hangover long into the next day.”
― Sara Barnard, A Quiet Kind of Thunder

“Carla's description was typical of survivors of chronic childhood abuse. Almost always, they deny or minimize the abusive memories. They have to: it's too painful to believe that their parents would do such a thing. So they fragment the memories into hundreds of shards, leaving only acceptable traces in their conscious minds. Rationalizations like "my childhood was rough," "he only did it to me once or twice," and "it wasn't so bad" are common, masking the fact that the abuse was devastating and chronic. But while the knowledge, body sensations, and feelings are shattered, they are not forgotten. They intrude in unexpected ways: through panic attacks and insomnia, through dreams and artwork, through seemingly inexplicable compulsions, and through the shadowy dread of the abusive parent. They live just outside of consciousness like noisy neighbors who bang on the pipes and occasionally show up at the door.”
― David L. Calof, The Couple Who Became Each Other: Stories of Healing and Transformation from a Leading Hypnotherapist

“Yesterday it was sun outside. The sky was blue and people were lying under blooming cherry trees in the park. It was Friday, so records were released, that people have been working on for years. Friends around me find success and level up, do fancy photo shoots and get featured on big, white, movie screens. There were parties and lovers, hand in hand, laughing perfectly loud,
but I walked numbly through the park, round and round,
40 times for 4 hours
just wanting to make it through the day.

There's a weight that inhabits my chest some times. Like a lock in my throat, making it hard to breathe. A little less air got through
and the sky was so blue I couldn’t look at it because it made me sad, swelling tears in my eyes and they dripped quietly on the floor as I got on with my day. I tried to keep my focus, ticked off the to-do list, did my chores. Packed orders, wrote emails, paid bills and rewrote stories,
but the panic kept growing, exploding in my chest. Tears falling on the desk
tick tick tick
me not making a sound
and some days I just don't know what to do. Where to go or who to see and I try to be gentle, soft and kind,
but anxiety eats you up and I just want to be fine.
This is not beautiful. This is not useful. You can not do anything with it and it tries to control you, throw you off your balance and lovely ways
but you can not let it.

I cleaned up. Took myself for a walk. Tried to keep my eyes on the sky. Stayed away from the alcohol, stayed away from the destructive tools we learn to use.
the smoking and the starving, the running, the madness,
thinking it will help but it only feeds the fire
and I don't want to hurt myself anymore.
I made it through and today I woke up, lighter and proud because I'm still here. There are flowers growing outside my window. The coffee is warm, the air is pure. In a few hours I'll be on a train on my way to sing for people who invited me to come, to sing, for them. My own songs, that I created. Me—little me. From nowhere at all.
And I have people around that I like and can laugh with, and it's spring again.
It will always be spring again.
And there will always be a new day.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“You know, having a panic attack feels like you're
collapsing, like your organs are rebelling against
you, and that you'd throw them up. It's like
you're on a swing ride in an amusement park. At
first, you're there waiting for things to happen,
and for gravity to mess up with you. After a while
of waiting, it starts working, and slowly you're
reaching a frightening height. And it's not like you
have phobia, but you certainly feel things as your
chest starts tightening, you think it’d explode.
Then, it's swinging and you just want to scream
or jump or whatever, but you can't do that.
You're tied and scared and there is no way you'd
reach a solid ground.”
― Nesrine BENAHMED, Metanoia: Different shades of life

“I’m in a caregiver's relationship with my body, a perpetual internal gauging of wellness. My spine is Hogarth’s thermometer. I ascend and descend its rungs a hundred times a day, reading the mercury level. The same dis-ease speaks many languages. If you block one mouth, another will speak. The symptoms represent differently, and as I get older, my translation changes. The prescription changes. Must be vigilant. Must be my best nurse.”
― Jalina Mhyana

“No one had ever wanted me. And for some reason I didn't even want me anymore. I wished I could have stepped out of my body and given it back, like you do with a shirt that doesn't fit properly.”
― Stefanie Sybens, Letters from the What-Went-Before

“The panic attacks have been a part of Zinnia’s life for almost six months. They allow no pathway back to the innocent complacency with which she once made sense of the world around her. With every new attack more of her identity crumbles. Every day the panic rubs something else out that has been achieved with application, sometimes with inspiration.”
― Glenn Haybittle, The Memory Tree

“I wanted to go to a few therapy sessions and be back to normal. As I saw it, the panic attacks were the problem. What I really wanted was to stop having them. I genuinely thought I could do that. I didn't want to think about the past.”
― Olga Trujillo, The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder

“If only you could command your brain to actually do that. It would be cool to have some kind of remote control to switch off your thoughts. Thoughts off, Siri. Or, more positive thoughts, Siri. Forget about this thought, Siri. if only.”
― Stefanie Sybens, Letters from the What-Went-Before

“One aspect of DID is the PTSD suffered by some of the alters. PTSD is similar to Panic Attacks in that once turned on, the anxiety is fed into a vicious cycle.”
― David Yeung

“I’ve been worried since I left the womb
Like a schizophrenic on shrooms
Like a hypochondriac on crack
Never shy with the panic attacks;
Internal reality succumbs to psychosis
Dreams destroyed by self-diagnosis.”
― Justin Wetch, Bending The Universe

“I started crying because this would all disappear including me and no one seemed to realise it. Did no one feel what I was feeling.”
― Stefanie Sybens, Letters from the What-Went-Before

“You can do this.”
― Jacquelyn Middleton, London Belongs to Me

“The temptation to worry is also the invitation to pray. You must choose the later if God is your Master.”
― Kingsley Opuwari Manuel

“On December 31st of 1958 Lila had her first episode of dissolving margins, The term isn't mine, she always used it. She said that on those occasions the outlines of people and things suddenly dissolved, disappeared. That night, on the terrace where we were celebrating the arrival of 1959, when she was abruptly struck by that sensation, she was frightened and kept it to herself, still unable to name it. It was only years later, one night in November 1980--we were thirty-six, were married, had children--that she recounted in detail what had happened to her then, what still sometimes happened to her, and she used that term for the first time.”
― Elena Ferrante

“Danger is only when we feel the insecurity of what pains us the most.”
― Kangoma Kindembo

“How'd you know that would help, Grandma?

Used to have a regular who had attacks like that all the time. Poor guy. He was an accountant, loveless marriage-most of em were back then-and vaginas scared the bejeezus outta him.”
― Jennifer LeBlanc

“Y ese colapso creaba un vacío en mi pecho. Como si todo los nervios de mi cuerpo estuvieran marchitándose, alejándose de los dedos de los pies y de las manos. Estuvieran contrayéndose y desapareciendo.”
― Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why

“First, you’d discover that the monster was not real. You’d realize that it was just an illusion that you never had anything to fear in the first place. You’d see that the monster had no teeth. This would be an incredible triumph.”
― David D. Burns, When Panic Attacks: The New, Drug-Free Anxiety Therapy That Can Change Your Life

“It's during those times that we're weakest when God can show himself the most dramatically. And I'm not talking about just taking way your panic attacks, pumpkin, although if he wanted to do that, he certainly could. What I'm talking about is you having the freedom and courage to live out your life - stress, anxiety, and all - in front of others with a vulnerability and grace that can only come from above.”
― Alana Terry, Policed

“Your degree of panic is determined by the degree of faith in God to take care of you!”
― John M. Sheehan, Application Commentary On Friendship: The Book Of Ruth

“At that moment my shyness and anxiety all flooded back and I took a few steps back, and then sank to the ground; crouching, overwhelmed, covering my face. ‘What will he think? What if he already hates me? Maybe I was wrong in the first place? Maybe he didn’t like me at all.’ No matter how much I tried, I wasn’t able to produce a single positive thought to counter my panic. I wasn’t able to take a deep breath and relax. This day had been too eventful. I began to shake furiously, afraid of what was to come. ‘He hates me! He hates me!’ I thought over and over. Hot tears began to fall down my cheeks and I squeezed my eyes trying to stop them. My breathing quickened. What was I doing? I had said what I wanted, proudly, trying to be something to him but here I was: a total mess.

‘What kind of a confession ends in a panic attack? GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF!’ I thought furiously, my efforts rewarded with futility. The world started to spin, my mouth becoming numb for reasons I couldn’t understand, almost as if to prevent me from panicking aloud. As if I had the friggin’ courage.”
― Anja Owona Okoa, What if we're faeries?

“For the briefest moment, Jack's face formed the faintest smile as he considered fear and anxiety, the latter two of which often caused people to forget what truly mattered most.”
― Jermaine Watkins, The Heart Train (The Hartford Series Singles) (Episode 1): Jack and Jill

“(On Panic Attacks) And once I had my first one with Maegan, they crept up about once a month. And without warning. It was worse than getting my period. In fact, I called it my exclamation point.”
― Mamrie Hart, You Deserve a Drink: Boozy Misadventures and Tales of Debauchery

“The waterfall, while scary, would've released us. The panic attack will also release you. Just relax, and don't feel weird about being vocal about your feelings. ... Just breathe, And if possible, drink the nearest thing to you.”
― Mamrie Hart, You Deserve a Drink: Boozy Misadventures and Tales of Debauchery

“The beginning of an attack I always experienced as a swell lurching up from unseen depths, similar to the physical sensation of standing waist-high in the sea when there are no waves but all of a sudden the great body of water heaves itself up as if the planet has shifted a fraction on its axis. That was the signal for me that the nature of reality was about to terrifyingly change.”
― Glenn Haybittle, The Tree House

“The first time I had a pap smear done, I was so traumatized, I now take prescription Xanax to avoid having panic attacks when I get pap smears done now. And I'm only 24. How many more am I going to have to have for the rest of my life? What am I going to do when I want to have children and every doctor wants to shove his/her fingers and tools inside me?”
― Barbara Ehrenreich, Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer

“With Angela's help I'd become much more confidant in my abilities yet I still didn't know who I was, what music I liked or felt stable enough to set my home up as a home and why was I training? It made me feel better but it wasn't leading to a fight so what was the point? I let the art therapy or self work as I'd started calling it slack and I'd stopped meditating. Before I knew it I was taking the late night parties home with me. Just a small bottle of baileys of a night and then within weeks I was getting up hungover, going for a run and picking up more on the way home. I'd just survived, I'd won at everything and who cared? What did it change? One night I fell off a P.C chair and cracked a rib because I'd drank tequila too fast,”
― Tracie Daily, Checkmate: Care Abuse Love Murder

“Every time the days morphed into night, my mind spun around like a carousel. What was it about the night that made people overthink everything? Their whole lives? The meaning of their existence? Why the hell they did that one weird thing in third grade, and why were they dwelling about it now? It was only the bad memories that seemed nocturnal, insecurities and self-doubt that sprang to life at night, louder than they were during the day.”
― Morgan Lee Miller, Hammers, Strings, and Beautiful Things

“How'd you know that would help, Grandma?

Used to have a regular who had attacks like that all the time. Poor guy. He was an accountant, loveless marriage-most of em were back then-and vaginas scared the bejeezus outta him.”
― Jennifer LeBlanc, The Tribulations of August Barton