subject: You Can Trust Panic Away [print this page] Back in the 80's, prior to Panic Away's existence I suffered from elevated anxiety and panic attacks. The attacks were truly horrible and I tried for six years to figure out how to stop them.
I frequented the library and read what I could find on anxiety and panic attacks. I went to psychiatrists. I went to therapy. I went to MD's. I went to quacks! I got massages.
But I had a hard time relaxing and I had an especially hard time with the attacks.
My worst fear of the attacks was all about business meetings. We were meeting to discuss various ways of making money and these discussions were intended to be productive. Before these attacks started I was getting a lot of good, positive things out of these meetings.
That was definitely not the case after the attacks started.
It went like this. The meetings were every Thursday at 1:30pm. The people at the meetings were my friends as well as business associates. We went on vacations together. We had dinner at each others homes. It was a good thing and it usually resulted in increased earnings. So I didn't want to lose it.
One day I looked at the calendar and saw the meeting scheduled there and I felt a shiver of fear as I imagined the panic attack taking me over just as I got there.
The day came, I hopped into my car and headed to the meeting. I tried not to think about the possibility of an attack but it didn't work. I could hardly think of anything else. And I'm not sure that "thinking" is the best descriptive here.
It was more like I was fearing. I was worried about many things involved in this. Certainly I was afraid of the attacks themselves, anybody that has them is afraid of them.
But I didn't want to look foolish or like somebody that was going sort of crazy. I just wanted to look normal.
As I parked the car the tension was rising. As I walked toward the meeting room's door I was red in the face and starting to sweat. I told the people who were already there that I had been running and needed to go to the washroom to "clean up."
Actually I went in there to hide, but you can't hide from a panic attack!
I stared into the mirror and I saw myself, red in the face and, most irritatingly, just pouring sweat. I looked at myself in the mirror and tried to calm down! That was no use, the panic attack was on, and I had people down the hall waiting for me!
I ran straight cold water into the sink and just started splashing myself down really well.
Well, it seemed to help! My face wasn't red anymore, at least not very, and you couldn't tell if I was sweating anymore or just soaking wet.
I cleaned up the best I could in a Men's restroom and walked back down the hall to the meeting. When I walked in a few people looked at me and remarked about my incredible state of wetness and I told them that I had run a long ways before the meeting and that I didn't want to sit among them while pouring sweat.
They let me get away with it. I spent the rest of the meeting unable to concentrate on what was being said and, of course, I contributed very little.
Before the end of the meeting, the attack was really dying down but I was afraid it would flare up any second so I was completely pre-occupied by my fear of the panic attack.
After the meeting I immediately started worrying about the next meeting and how I would handle my new, crazy self.
This went on for years! I got pretty good at going through a business meeting in a panic mode. I made plenty of excuses. I felt like I was crazy.
As the years went by, a pattern developed. I didn't have the attacks every day, it was more like once a week, usually kicked off by some sort of meeting.
After enduring these pernicious attack for so long, all the while trying to figure out a way out of this mess, an idea started forming in my mind that had some appeal.
By this time I saw panic attacks as a living thing, an evil entity, that was out to get me, and, so far, it was winning! I realized that, even though I had lost many "bouts" with this evil thing, I wasn't hurt.
I used to box at the gym, strictly amateur minor leagues, but I can tell you this...when you know someone or something can't hurt you, you are usually completely unafraid and you come out on top.
That's when it all came together for me. I saw the attacks as an "evil entity" that really couldn't hurt me. I lost my fear of it. They NEVER came back.
Now this remarkable cure took me six years to accomplish and I was grateful for having worked it out.
A few years later I ran across the panic and anxiety disorder coaching program called Panic Away, created by Mr. Joe Barry and I was fascinated in it and I looked into it thoroughly.
It was a real "aha!" moment for me when I got to the part where Joe explains how his "one move technique" enables the panic attack sufferer to no longer fear the attacks or the possibility of their return.
I could see exactly how it works, and work it does.
