From Terror to Trust: Finding My Way Through Panic

I remember the first time it happened. My chest tightened. My heart was pounding so fast I was sure it would explode. My hands trembled, my vision blurred, and a voice in my head screamed, Something is wrong. You’re dying. I felt trapped inside my own body, convinced that each breath could be my last.

I had my husband call 911.  I checked my heart, my blood pressure, my blood. Everything was normal. Normal. And yet, the fear wouldn’t stop. It kept coming back, uninvited, overwhelming, exhausting. I began to feel like I was losing my mind..or maybe even my life.

It took a few months to put words to what I was experiencing: panic attacks. When I heard those words for the first time…I was defensive. There’s no way this is a panic attack, something is physically wrong with me. How is my body feeling this way? There’s no way a panic attack could do this. But then I sat down and started to read more about them. Panic attacks aren’t life-threatening. They are terrifying, yes, but they don’t mean I’m dying. That moment of realization was like someone opened a window in a dark room I’d been trapped in for too long.

I learned that panic attacks are my body reacting to fear, stress, and sometimes memories I haven’t fully processed. The racing heart, the shortness of breath, the dizziness..they are all symptoms, not death sentences. That knowledge didn’t instantly erase the fear, but it gave me a foothold. A way to say, Okay, this is scary, but I can get through it.

Therapy taught me to notice the signs early. To breathe when my chest tightens. To ground myself when the world feels too fast. To remind myself that my body is safe. And slowly, over time, I started to believe it. I started to trust myself again.

The day I fully realized I wasn’t dying—that what I was experiencing had a name and a treatment and a way forward—was life-changing. It didn’t make the panic disappear, but it made it less terrifying. I learned that fear loses power when you face it with knowledge and patience.

If you’re reading this and you’ve ever felt your heart racing, your chest tight, thinking, Am I dying?—know this: you are not alone. You are not broken. What you are experiencing is real, but it is survivable. And someday, with time, support, and self-compassion, it will feel less like a prison and more like a storm you can weather.

I’m still learning. Some days the panic whispers, and I still have to remind myself: You’re okay. You’re alive. You are not dying. But now, when it comes, I breathe, I ground myself, and I survive. And that feels like victory.