To start, I am a 30 year old man with panic disorder and to preface towards the end of this post I will share information about an app I created, you are free to ignore.
I have had panic disorder since I was a young child. I used to uncontrollably shake, usually at night time when I had gone to bed, and horror movies in the lounge room didn't help. In fact, I'd shake so much that I'd generally need to throw up. As a child, it wasn't linked to a specific fear, not that I connected anyway. But it did also regularly occur before school, despite being a pretty extroverted young man, I've always loved making friends with everyone..
Today, I have a simple life, I drive an old car, married to someone great and I am lucky enough to own a home whose value I truly do not care about - although I wish it was mortgage-free so that I could think less about finances. I work with applications in my local hospital and I love helping out in random departments too, I am in constant need of learning new things. I feel my panic disorder is very hit-or-miss, you know the song "Comes and Goes (In Waves)" by Dean Lewis? Yeh, that pretty much sums it up. A lot of my panic has stemmed from health, dying really, which funnily enough doesn't scare me at all when I am baseline, I'm honestly surprised I made it this far with some of things I used to get up to.
Stoicism has helped me tremendously and has allowed me to get to a point where honestly, I think some people can become worried. I have found it impossible to fear death if I focus on loving life. Despite having things, I do not fear having nothing, my aspirations are practically all to do with an endeavour to learn and experience new things, and I just generally want to be better every day.
Along with stoicism, I have practiced mindfulness meditation, kept journals and generally learned as much as I can. I feel like I see deep into my own soul, yes, but also others and this is truly rewarding. All of these things have allowed me to slowly regain control of my wonderful life and most importantly, my mind.
Fair warning, I'll now talk about my app. I know I know, but I hope this is seen as Amor Fati for some. I hope someone reading this truly needs my app because I know it's useful. It is iOS only at the moment and is called "Grit: stoic journal". It includes stoic quotes, journalling with the ability to export, reflections, guided mindfulness meditations, breathing exercises with haptics and privacy mode (because I always wanted to do breathing exercises in public, but always felt awkward), and sleep noises. Ok done!
Nowadays I still have the occurrences time to time where my unconsciousness just randomly dumps 10 tonne of pure noradrenaline into my blood stream and starts asking "are we dying? is that a heart attack?". I remind myself that I can only control what is within my control, I am healthy, I am safe and I can take daily fear head-on. I am still working through all of this and somehow I feel like I always will be, as it seems to morph and mutate into different forms as if a virus bypassing detection.
If this resonates with you, do you feel you have overcome it or are overcoming it? What have you found works?