I found this review by Kevin C of this book by Nicole Dake and was immediately drawn to the title. As a trauma survivor panic attacks have been a part of my life at various times and I know the same is true for many other survivors I’ve talked to.
There are other ways in the article below but this one? This one is pure gold right now because we are all so overwhelmed, stressed, anxious and uncertain about everything. In the midst of that?
Keep track of your wins
I hope we can start to understand this better and provide a wider variety of tools to help with the wide variety of ways that mental health issues can manifest in different people.
I also hope we can start to understand that there is no one “right” way to treat our mental health issues, no magic solution that everyone can just go and get.
Lastly, I also hope that we can understand that my symptoms are not your symptoms, and the way something like depression can appear for one person versus another doesn’t make one more or less severe.
I’m a firm believer that we don’t need any kind of special permission to talk about mental health and the stories of people dealing with mental health issues any day that we want to, but I also wanted to bring a couple of special days that are being set aside in Canada and the UK for the purpose.
Would you know if someone you know is having a panic attack? Whether it be at work, at some social event, or even within your own home with your family, it can make a huge difference to first know what a panic attack looks like, and then if they agree to your help, what help you can provide.
We can, and should, do everything we can to get out good information and share the truth about mental health issues. We can, and should, share our own stories of the mental health issues we’ve survived, especially those of us who have had many of these issues due to the trauma we suffered.
But that will never be enough for some people. Knowing the truth about these issues, and knowing what people need in terms of non-stigmatizing support won’t be enough to change their actual behavior. The very topic(s) will make them uncomfortable and they will act out of that discomfort instead of relying on what they know. They will put their own comfort above any consideration of how stigmatizing their actions and words are because they simply cannot handle even the slightest discomfort in their lives.
That is their weakness, not ours.
