A panic attack is a sudden, intense, uncontrollable wave of panic-like fear characterized by its debilitating, suddenly immobilizing intensity and its unexpectedly suddenness. You might feel dizzy, your heart races, you can barely breathe, and you might feel like you're going crazy or dying. Panic attacks can occur out of nowhere, without warning, and in some cases with no obvious trigger. What causes them and how to control them, are the questions that beg to be answered. Like many conditions, panic attacks are generally of two types: the anxiety type and the phobic type. The anxiety type manifests itself through a host of symptoms such as chest pain, difficulty breathing, trembling, hot flashes, dry mouth, and feelings of impending doom. In the case of anxiety, these symptoms might be triggered by an imagined or actual stimulus (such as the feeling of being watched when walking alone at night). When it comes to phobia, on the other hand, the symptoms are much more concrete and pr...
As a child of the eighties, I remember my parents' excitement over the idea of testing for depression in adults. The thought of taking a pill every day to "make me feel good," was a far more attractive option than the prescription drugs my parents were taking. I grew up with parents who could never imagine themselves as adults. In my mind, their adult emotions had to be somehow "determined" by some mental process that could never be completely understood by the average person. So they put aside their qualms about the use of psychiatric medications, and enjoyed the benefits of their choice. Today, I am an adult who have had "the experience" of having "depressed feelings," but not necessarily experienced the debilitating episodes of depression that my parents' generation did. Today, I have learned how to "cope." Through a course of prescribed medication and therapy, I have discovered how to treat depression, and I no longer take...