Panic Attack (Part 1) — Spotify from the CEC Library

Panic is the sum of all the fears a person has, arising at a certain moment as a state of confusion. The person becomes completely confused and may experience sweating and tachycardia. Sometimes the person visits a cardiologist, thinking there is a heart problem. The person feels short of breath, internal trembling, and tremors—especially in the legs—as well as weakness in the legs. The mouth becomes dry, and there is a lump in the throat. Someone with panic may experience some of these symptoms. Pressure in the chest, anguish, and difficulty checking reality are basic symptoms.

There is great difficulty knowing what to do and getting in touch with reality. The person may lose nervous control, enter a hysterical crisis, scream, and reach a state in which the structure of the ego is completely lost. The ego becomes disorganized, and the person enters what we call panic without knowing what to do. Mental confusion is also at the foundation of this panic disorder and the difficulty expressing oneself. During the crisis, a person experiencing panic cannot articulate ideas coherently and remains in a confused state.

A press officer reported: "I visit clients, but I have to take taxis because I feel panic just from getting into the car. The other day, I tried to face the situation and stopped in the middle of the street, frozen, sweating cold, and unable to think. I asked for help, my heart racing, while everyone honked and cursed at me, until a kind soul noticed and came to my aid. It was a nightmare. I underwent therapy for six months, but it did not help. What could I do?"

This person truly had a panic attack. A panic attack usually prevents the person from doing anything. There is the case of someone who called while she was on the subway and experienced a crisis: she froze, everything became strange, she did not know what to do, and she could not talk because she was confused, did not know whom to turn to, and asked for help: "Help me, I am having a panic attack."

The worst part is that if you approach someone on the subway or on the street and say, "I am having a panic attack," the person will not understand what that means. No one knows that a panic attack is serious, that the person completely loses self-control, does not know what to do, and becomes confused and terrified. Panic is a state of inner terror that makes the person feel very ill.

For the person to come back, she managed to make a call. Imagine: she froze but managed to take out her cell phone, dial the saved number, and have the call answered; she began to stammer, the situation was recognized, and I spoke to her while perceiving what was happening. I asked her to look around, calmly observe what was in front of her, try to see the things around her, and begin reading whatever was before her. She was still stammering and had no control, but she gradually calmed down and got back in touch with reality, and later sought me out so that we could talk.

Panic is exactly that: a complete loss of control. If this happens to you, six months of therapy may not be enough. It is necessary to identify the causes that led to these fears, or to the fear that arises suddenly and throws you off balance. To truly understand, one must undergo therapy with a recommended professional, someone who can genuinely help.

One fundamental aspect of therapy is continuity and the determination we have to resolve our problems. It is not a matter of undergoing therapy while thinking that the therapist, psychoanalyst, psychologist, psychiatrist, or physician will solve everything with the wave of a magic wand. It does not work that way. When we speak of physical problems, perhaps a physician can resolve them more easily than an emotional problem. If the physical problem has an emotional cause, you will also have to reconsider that. Emotional problems must be addressed; it is not enough to say, "I am going to undergo therapy, I am going to continue." There will be times when you do not want to go to therapy, but you must go and say, "No, this is sacred."

Your resistance is at its peak, and that is hindering you. You do not want to reexamine yourself. A second email reports: "I was calmly watching a movie with a friend when I suddenly began to feel desperate; I was terrified and wanted to run out. I left my friend, grabbed my purse, and did not stop until I reached the shopping mall parking lot. I sat on the hood of the car until my friend arrived. Is this panic? My friend took me to a priestess who said that I had a spirit attachment and recommended a ritual; it did not help at all. What can you say about this? Can you help me?"

This is another panic attack. These are accounts from people who, at some point, feel fear take hold suddenly, regardless of the place: it may happen at home, on the street, at a shopping mall, at a movie theater, inside a taxi, or even while driving. They lose their reference points, become dysfunctional and out of control, and can no longer manage themselves. They are frightened, absolutely frightened by everything around them, terrified. During a panic attack, they may experience the symptoms already mentioned: sweating, tachycardia, shortness of breath, trembling in the legs, dry mouth, a lump in the throat, pressure in the chest, anguish, and mental confusion. Therefore, it is already known that one should seek a professional for help. Do not dismiss this as just a nervous episode. Seek help.

Current circumstances are more turbulent than they were a hundred years ago: at that time, when walking down a street at night, there was no one there, and during the day there were few people and almost no cars. Today, there is room for neither cars nor people; everything happens at a very high speed, and the volume of information is extremely high. When walking down the street, one cannot even see the buildings. Because of the buildings, one can see neither the mountains nor the sky. We have been completely stripped of our essence. We can no longer see a tree, except for those planted along the avenues, which do not have the character of nature.

The speed at which we live in order to survive has had to increase. You have to run from one place to another; distances are greater, and you enter public transit crowded with people—nervous people, anxious people. All of this is perceived in your unconscious processes. Within what you are, you will certainly perceive this condition of high emotional speed that affects you. Having a panic attack is not a matter of whether we are strong. We are immersed in an extremely turbulent society that has lost its characteristic stability. At that point, we need to seek help. It is like having depression and thinking that taking a sedative will resolve it. No; seek help, because these processes tend to be cumulative.

You have a crisis today; other situations then accumulate, and so on. When you have a panic attack, another fear already arises: the fear of having another panic attack. A person with depression lives in an agonizing cycle: the person has a crisis and hits rock bottom; upon improving and stabilizing, the person fears returning to that state. Only someone who has experienced depression or a panic attack knows the magnitude of this suffering. Some people say, "You are very weak; you cannot handle yourself." It does not work that way. If someone approaches you and says that they are having a panic attack, you need to be very careful: try to ease the situation, calm the person, have them sit down, offer a glass of water, and speak positively. You should not say that the person looks very ill or pale.

If the person says, "I am in a panic," and you respond, "You are very pale, very ill, and out of control," that only makes the situation worse. You should speak calmly and try to reorganize the person through appropriate verbalization. Not everyone is capable of doing this, but at least say: "Calm down, try to relax. I will get some water. Relax. Things are going through a difficult time."

When someone reports that she sat on the hood of a car during a panic attack, we can say that she should remain calm, but it is not possible to remain calm during a complete loss of control. Curiously, two women sent emails reporting this. Is this more common among women? No; women have more courage to speak. Even in cases of depression, when one observes a woman, one sees that she asks for help. Men, on the other hand, conceal depression and rarely seek help—generally only when the situation becomes very serious.

Men tend to say that it is nothing, only a passing moment, that they will work it out, take some medicine, and calm down. But the situation worsens because we do not know the conditions in which the person is interacting. The person may be in an entirely dysfunctional family structure that is producing this. At work, the person may face difficulties in a relationship with a boss, with authority figures, or even dissatisfaction in performing their duties; all of this accumulates within the human being. Therefore, one must seek help: a therapist who provides guidance, a psychoanalyst, a psychologist, a physician, or a psychiatrist.

Someone who can say, "Let us see what is happening to you." You seek a physician, and the physician detects depression or panic. The physician prescribes medication but recommends that you seek someone who can help in the behavioral area. There is another account: "I am terrified of the dark. I cannot sleep with the light off. My husband complains about this and the electricity bill because I need to leave all the lights in the house on. One day, the power went out—there was a blackout—and I began to scream desperately. Then I forced my husband to go to the garage with me and turn on the car's headlights. It was a major ordeal."

We may even laugh when we hear this, but it is very serious: the person is completely lost and unbalanced. Someone witnessing it may become irritated because they do not understand that it is a serious situation. Therefore, if someone has a panic attack, respect that moment and provide attention and support—it is serious. On the other hand, someone with panic should not create crises to attract other people's attention because this can be exploited. The person should not take advantage of the situation to manipulate someone else.