Many people around the world suffer from panic-related disorders, some of which are obviously the result of psychological trauma and others are harder to trace.
One woman who has been living with such difficulties is Priscilla Warner. Writing in the Huffington Post, she noted that when she was 15 years old, she felt a strange sensation in the middle of her chest. Her lungs then tightened, her throat closed up and her head began spinning. She was having a panic attack.
Since this point, for the last four decades, she has been trying to control such events and seeking remedies for her problems. One of the treatments she has tried involves eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing. Experts with EMDR training are often able to assist individuals with psychological trauma and panic disorders.
According to Ms Warner, her EMDR therapist said of her sessions: “When we do this work together slowly, it’s deeper and more solidified.”
A rising number of people around the world are making use of the help of specialists who have been through EMDR training and the results in many cases are impressive.
Meanwhile, Ms Warner also issued advice to those suffering from panic disorders. She said: “The most important step in dealing with panic attacks is to understand what a panic attack is. Once you put your own suffering in context, you won’t blame yourself for feeling mentally ill or weak, as I did for so many years.”
She also stated that learning her psychological problems were connected to an overactive survival response helped her. About this, she remarked: “I knew just enough about my brain to realise that my fight or flight response was out of whack. I knew just enough about my body to realise that caffeine, alcohol and sugar could trigger panic.
And now a professional was telling me that my body really and truly did want to stay alive. It was simply fighting too hard to do that.”