I’ve gotten far enough along with my Panic Disorder that I do not take medication daily, though I still carry Alprazolam with me in situations that might trigger a panic attack. Fortunately, I have not had to use it in quite a while.

And it is an effort to manage Panic Disorder, especially at first. I have found the coping methods I’ve learned to become a habit over time.

I will have the Panic Attacks reference document up this afternoon. It has turned into a 5,000 word dissertation, but I felt it necessary to cover the subject fully and accurately.

Mike

The single thing that helped me most, many years ago, was an outfit called Recovery (http://www.recovery-inc.org/Tools_0507.html). It was founded circa WWII by a psychiatrist who was ostracized by his peers. What it offered was neither therapy nor medication: it offered a way to cope, day in and day out, with panic attacks, as well as other mental disorders. It’s out of date and simplistic, in the “simple but not easy” sense of “simplistic.” The collection of slogans–mantras you can tell yourself when you’re too panicky to think straight–are life-saving. And he insists that you can do it. One of his basic tenets was, “Let your muscles re-educate your brain,” by which he meant, “Do it, bearing the discomfort, and your fears will decrease.” Everything I’ve read about how to cope has been a restatement of principles he laid out many many years ago.