Panic
One for those who know how to live with it, if not deal with it
Panic anxiety disorder is a bit of a bastard to live with.
I was interested that the very root of the word ‘panic’ is from the Ancient Greek ‘panikos’, which is directly linked to the god Pan.
When I was diagnosed with it in 1996, I was 27. Of course, upon learning more about this particular psychopathology, I realised that it was firstly genetic. My father probably had it (certainly, if I’m honest). I had the trauma of sexual assault from around my 9th birthday, which makes anyone more fearful, withdrawn and prone to anxiety.
Having been diagnosed, I was of course given benzodiazepines to medicate myself with.
That offering brought with it crippling addiction, for one.
They were handed out like candy to unsuspecting kids on Halloween. And like the old stories run, that candy was in fact tainted, albeit with a different kind of razorblades and heroin.
In the intervening years, I unsubtly alternated between victimhood and triumphalist.
Let’s face it, when croakers hand out feel-good pills, its no surprise that I for one got deeply addicted. I took the doctor’s almost offhand recommendation to pop the Xanax with a glass of wine with a liberal and literal misreading.
Cue 25 years of mixing them with alcohol, and a peculiar sense of elation, enlivened by vertigo.
Now, in my case, I was really helped by something that otherwise seemed like a tragedy. I had a stroke (my 4th, aged 51, in 2020). Now the stroke was a right median pontine stroke, which performed a hard reset on my brain stem. One rather interesting manifestation was a complete dismissal of panic, anxiety and major depression.
Having lived with these matters for 40-plus years at that point, this new reality was both welcome and uplifting. It was, not to put too fine a point on it, a miracle.
For the last 6 years, I have lived with a rather new sense of the preciousness of life, a sense of optimism, and I have discovered ‘emotional lability’ (where one alternates easily between crying and laughter).
To combat the more optimistic feelings I experienced, there also came a kind of irritability with strangers. This has seen me become more apologetic, ALL THE BLOODY TIME. I know what I’m doing, and it horrifies me.
Now the real kicker is, I feel depression trying to kick me in the nuts again.
And anxiety is making its inexorable return, although only, so far, when I am trying to pay for my groceries at the supermarket and my phone starts doing unpredictable things, like freezing up or shutting off entirely.
I don’t know, and cannot explain why this drives me head or arse first into a spiral of panic. But at least I can see the problem is there, and at least attempt some regulation of my emotions.
This is my story, and I’m sorry if I repeat the same mistakes that I make every day.
I appreciate you all bearing with me, and I hope I’m not pissing you off, banging on about my previous health issues.
I appreciate you all.
This took real courage to publish. What stayed with me most is your refusal to romanticize any phase of the story—neither the suffering, nor the medications, nor even the stroke. The way you describe panic disappearing not through insight or therapy, but through a neurological event, quietly challenges a lot of comfortable narratives about control and recovery.
I also appreciated the specificity of the triggers that remain. There’s something deeply modern—and deeply human—about panic surfacing at a supermarket checkout because a phone freezes. That recognition of pattern, without shame or dramatization, is powerful.
Thank you for trusting readers with something this raw and unfinished. There’s a steadiness in the way you write about seeing the problem clearly, even when it hasn’t been solved. That honesty matters.