What is a panic attack and what can you do when the screws come off

What is a panic attack

 Unlike an anxiety a panic attack is reasonable good to treat. You might seem surprised that I say this, but I have experienced two myself within a months time of each other. It was my mother who urged me to seek professional help at a clinic in town. I was lucky and got an appointment the same week, from then on a extremely difficult period of about a year commenced, but never again was I attacked by such a fear as in those panic attacks.

I still don't know how they actually began, but in the middle of the night I was suddenly strangled by a immense fear that seemed to come directly from the devil. I was shaking all over my body and was hot and cold at the same time. The thoughts in my head were so dark that I felt as like being in a never ending whirlpool. It must have stopped at some time, but I do not know how long this took. During an attack people can have a black out, see or hear things that aren't real (hallucinations).

Why do people get panic attacks

We all carry our memories wanted or unwanted with us in our mobile computer the brain. When there are things we rather forget or have hurt us we do our best to cover them up by applying a defense mechanism. This is working in a different way with children because their brain isn't fully developed yet. These coping skills a child learns its self are or might be useful in that particular period, but there comes a time they are outdated and have to be replaced. The transition for the replacement can be started by will, which was the case with me. I will write about this later in another post. However in most cases the transition takes place involuntarily.
Possible triggers:

• the birth of your first child
• a traumatic event 
• the death of a relative or friend
• marriage
• moving out of the parental house
• or any major change in your live

Your brain has being busy over the last couple of years, maybe it was a decade or perhaps it was even longer, but now a few of the screws which were dodgy from the time you had your bad experience come lose and the whole thing gets into a terrible tumult. Of course this is a metaphor. What I mean is that two parts in the brain, the Hippocampus and the Amgdala are sending each other the wrong messages.

The best thing that can be done now is to seek professional help. Unfortunately the waiting lists at the clinics and other free health centres are long and it can be too late for many people before they get the help they need. Many people chose to go to their doctor and he or she often prescribes them an anti-depressant or sends the patient through to a psychiatrist, who then medicates the person with an anti-psychotic drug.
But these medications aren't the answer. You might say they keep the hallucinations and the panic away. They might but the underlying cause is still there and the patient has to take the medication for the rest of his or her life and has many side effects, like shaking and weight gain. I have a lot more to say but I leave that for another day.