I have panic disorder but haven't had an attack in years though I'm always on the verge of one, I know it can come back someday as I don't take medication for it. I've found alternative therapies work quite well but the lingering effects are still there.
The way I dealt with it when I had severe agoraphobia sounds simple but it's actually really hard. It took me about 3 years just to manage agoraphobia, I say manage because that never goes away also.
Whenever I go into one, I literally just let everything go and embrace it, I used to hide it as well and now I'm fairly open about it. I won't let anyone shame me about it because trying to fight against my disorder does no good really.
When you try to fight or hide against it, you trick your brain into thinking that something is wrong. When you first embrace it, you'll still have the lingering effects but what you'll find is that it will be shorter lasting, over time you'll know when you start to go into one so you can deal with it before it comes on.
Aside from the above, I also have certain techniques, one of those is rationalization.
Sometimes I can't rationalize and I rationalize that by saying to myself that sometimes there is no reason for a panic attack, it just happens. And I have to remind myself to just go with it, it takes every fiber of my being to not fight against it because that's your first instinct.
Then I work on deep breathing somewhere private or even public, I don't care lol.
But for the rest, usually talking it over with myself works fairly well:
"I haven't ate so I'm just hungry because my blood sugar"
"I'm over tired"
"I just got into an argument and need to calm down"
"Of course I'm not lost, that's just your anxiety acting up, I know where I am" (I think that last one is a bit of disassociation on my part.)
Then if all else fails I just think of cats of course, that does work to an extent also, I've often thought of getting a therapy animal for that reason.
😂
