This is my first post to asap and there are so many things I would like to say and to discuss, but in summary: I have had panic disorder for over three years now, though I had signs of it before then. It has literally ruined my life in irrecoverable ways that I won’t go into now. I took medicine for a little less than a year, then went off the drugs in order to have a child. I had a honeymoon period; while I was pregnant and for some time after, I was better than I had been since the panic disorder began. Then, slowly, it began to creep back into my life, leading to a major panic attack aboard an airliner.
Flying is my absolute worst thing, yet just mere months before I had flown a long trip and was amazed at how “well” I was. I have been reluctant to resume Benzedrine therapy since kicking Xanax was SO hard the first time, but a series of antidepressants, including the tricycles and SSRIs, has not been helpful. Meanwhile, I’ve had to move house a few miles down the road from my old house (read: a few miles farther from the hospital, etc.). I still own my old house but need to sell for financial reasons. I’m reluctant to part with it because it was/is my “safe place.”
I lie awake in my new house wishing I were in the old house. The only advantage the old house has is familiarity and proximity to the hospital; the new house is everything I want in every way. So the panic overtakes me regularly now, and I struggle, and struggle. This disorder is the worst: it ruins everything and it comes and goes. I thought I was well after a course of medicine *and* cognitive-therapy. But it returned with a vengeance, and my cognitive-therapy skills are not able to help. In addition, hating flying means that I cannot travel for work purposes and this is impacting my career. Yet if I have a panic attack, I will make them land the plane to get me off (yes, I have actually done this.
