How To Conquer Panic Attacks

Inexplicable feelings of mortal terror strike 6 million Americans. Here is one womans journey back to reassurance.

- Bonnie Munday

It’s six o’clock on a September evening in 2001, and I’m driving our minivan on a Toronto highway, heading to dinner at my parents’ house. My husband is in Bermuda, where he has landed a two-year contract; he’s looking for an apartment so I can join him. Now it’s just me and my little black poodle, making the half-hour drive I’ve made hundreds of times.

The news is on the radio—top story, the recent 9/11 terrorist attack. It seems I can’t get away from the shocking stories and images. As I approach a bridge, my heart suddenly starts beating rapidly. Then my legs turn to jelly.

You’re going to drive off the bridge, a voice in my head warns. Now my arms are numb. You’re about to lose control and die. I’m terrified. My hands grip the wheel; I just want to make it over the bridge and to an exit. I do; then I pull into a parking lot and start to cry. What is happening to me?

I TRIED DRIVING on the highway a week later— and again, panic drove me to the first exit. After that, I took only smaller, slower roads. Weeks later, I moved to Bermuda, where we did not have a car. I was so relieved. I hadn’t told my husband about the episodes; I knew he loved my independence and strength, and I felt ashamed of being so weak.

To get around, we had a motor scooter that I rode on the back of, or I’d take the bus when I went somewhere on my own. I did this often over the first couple of months, but one day as I rode the bus into town to do some Christmas shopping, my heart started racing. Sure enough, next came the sweating, my legs turning to jelly, and the feeling that somehow I’d lose control or “go crazy.”