Panic Away: My anxiety story

Panic away: My anxiety story

The story of Tamanna Bhasin (Name changed)

Spanning over India and Germany

Written by Mallika Bhatia

After seven years of blissful existence, when I started sensing doom in the eighth, I initially didn't know what to do. I started constantly feeling that something bad is about to happen; someone close to me is going to die, either my parents or me. I feared someone in my family would have an accident or something would happen to my sister. The thoughts were always unpleasant and each represented a fear or spoke of a disaster. After a few weeks of struggle, I decided to share my feelings with my mother. 

She identified my condition early on, having lived with an anxiety based disorder and having experienced panic attacks herself, she knew where I was heading. She took me to a Psychiatrist who put me on a low dose of anti-anxiety medicines. Back home, my mother taught me to meditate. In about ten days everything was back to normal again. I carried on with my happily normal childhood and created some amazing memories. About twelve years later, while I was in college, my anxious thoughts came back. This time I let it pass on their own. I was like any other teenager who thought I knew better and did not seek any help. Thankfully, that phase passed without any visible damage then. 

At about 24 years of age, a year after I had gotten married I started palpitating while at work, I couldn't breath, my head felt heavy, I was dizzy and weak, I couldn't control my body, I was sweating and thought I was about to die. My colleagues witnessed the whole thing and just kept asking if I was OK. I could not answer though I did manage to call my husband and ask him to rush me to the hospital. 

At the hospital I underwent every test possible; blood work, ECG, Urine test and even a CT scan. They found nothing wrong with me. After about six hours, a clinical psychologist came to speak to me and my husband. She declared that I had just suffered a panic attack and needed to start taking regular medication for my anxiety. That was a moment of truth for my husband, who had never acknowledged or understood my anxiety earlier, having known all about it from the beginning. 

We had been in a relationship for eight years before we got married and I had always been honest with him about myself. In the first year of our marriage we had taken a holiday to London during which I was very anxious. I kept talking to him about how uneasy I was but he just ignored what i was saying. He said I was simply exaggerating things in my head and I should stop doing that. He said to me that he believed anxiety to be a simple sign of weakness and an excuse to not work. That's when I stopped sharing anything with him. It obviously affected our marriage a lot. When the psychologist at the hospital gave him my diagnosis a year later, he finally started seeing some truth in my suffering. 

From the hospital, I went straight to my parent's place to recuperate. I had felt extremely unsupported in my own house with a husband who had refused to believe in me. Only when someone else confirmed what I had been saying so long, did he believe it. My mother on the other hand, took care of me like a baby. She made sure I ate nutritious food and rested a lot. She listened to me and supported me emotionally, she even made sure that I never miss my daily meditation. The medicines had begun but usually they take about a month to settle the symptoms. 

Photo by Paul Trienekens on unsplash

I went back to my place after a week to a changed and supportive partner. He had taken this week to understand my condition and learnt that help and support went a long way. He tried his best to be there for me in all the possible ways. I went back to work and requested better timings. I worked in a very high stress media house back then, where there were no fixed schedules or predictability. I was always sleep deprived and had never had enough time to communicate with my husband. On papers I was achieving a lot in my career but I truly did not have a life. 

My medicines were to continue for 3 months and I was also given a SOS, that I could take only before the panic attacks. Unfortunately I needed the SOS medicine every second day. A year went by where I had a panic attack every alternate day and that's when I knew I needed to do something more about my condition. In the past year I depended heavily on emotional eating. Together with the  medicines that made me gained about 10 kilograms.  

For additional support, I went to a psychotherapist now and she helped me a lot. Initially she taught me breathing techniques and relaxation methods. Later we started focussing on my deeper emotional state. Each session left me feeling very positive and I really looked forward to my weekly visits. The frequency of my panic attacks had reduced to about one in four to five days by now. I had started feeling settled and thought that now I could control things on my own. I stopped therapy in the middle against the advice of my mother and obviously the therapist. 

It had been three years now since the office incident. I was improving yet suffering. Mom kept telling me that medication and meditation were both supporting each other and I should use both. 

Soon I decided to take a second opinion about the medicines that I was taking. The ones I was taking were obviously not doing much. The new doctor gave me a new course of medicine that I continued to take for a whole year hence. I had gained more weight and had gone from being 65 kilograms to 80 kilograms. This time around though the medicines were really helping me. The panic attacks had almost gone and the work that I had done on myself with the therapist was keeping me afloat. The psychiatrist told me that I could slowly taper the medicines and eventually go completely off them. That was good news.

Photo Matthew Henry

Another good news was my relationship with my husband improved tremendously. We moved to a new country. Our shifting changed our dynamics. There were new places to explore and new things to learn. We grew closer and at some point I realised that I was expecting too much out of him. He had never experienced a panic attack, neither had he ever witnessed a person dealing with mental health issues. He believed what our society had sadly taught him, 'mental disorders are a sign of weakness'. I started focussing on myself more than on him. That instantly took the pressure off him.

From then on I made sure that I am well rested and well fed at all times. I never miss a day of my morning meditation and continue to work on my inner self. I still have an occasional panic attack, once in 6 months or so, yet I have been completely off medicines for the past 6 years. I have learnt to handle them naturally with all the training and techniques that I have learnt over the years. 

I want everyone to know that anxiety based disorders are like any other illness, they can be treated with medication, support, self-awareness and love I also want to tell each one of you that if you are suffering from any mental health condition.. please seek help from professionals.. Unlike the unfortunate popular opinion, you are not mad if you visit a mental health professional.. Don't suffer in silence.. For silence can kill.


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