My wife and I had some breakfast and all seemed fine…until she wanted to go outside for a countryside walk… all of a sudden (well if felt like that) i couldn't go out of the house…..I couldn't step over the doorstep…are you crazy??? i commute to work every single day… walk, taxi, train, tube, walk, taxi, work… i work in the heart of the city of London and i can't step outside my door in the countryside?????? what the hell!!!

I had no idea what was happening to me. I stepped outside of the house, just in the same way that id done million times before, only this time, as the door shut and the lock clicked, the terror started. Sheer terror….My heart started to race again, thumping in my chest, louder and louder, the sweat started to build up on my forehead, then started to drip slowly down my face. I was bright red in the face, my chest was tight…really tight..and it was getting tighter…”I’m having a heart attack!” i thought - “on no, this is it…I’m going to die right here on my own front door step”… I looked around at my wife and she was looking at me strangely. “Are you ok?” she said..”having…heart…attack” I replied, struggling to get any of the words out.. My mind racing over and over with the words..Heart Attack…..the more i thought i was having a heart attack, the more my chest tightened, the more sweat came down and the greater i started to shake. I just stood there, completely frozen, locked still with fear. I couldn’t think straight ,i couldn’t see straight. The only thing that kept repeating were the words, Heart Attack…..

Having now noticed the full plight of my attack in action, my wife sat me down on the door step and started to offer words of encouragement, telling me not to worry, that i was being silly, I’m ok, that it was not a heart attack and i was worrying for nothing. Just relax, it will go shortly, it will soon pass……

“STOP TALKING TO ME WOMAN”… i shouted, still completely wrapped with fear. “what the hell do you know about it? I’m dying right here before your very eyes and you are telling me to calm down and that I’m making all this shit up!…are you insane….Im DYING”….

She stood there, completely shocked and alarmed at my response. This wasn’t him, he doesn’t do things like that, she thought…

She continued to try to comfort me and attempt to calm me down, she knew that my life wasn’t in danger, and although she didn’t know what panic attack was, I’m sure it was blatantly obvious to her that, that was exactly what was going on and another episode that the paramedic from the night before had explained.

After what seemed an age. It was probably only a matter of minutes, for some reason i started to calm down. I started to rationalise what had just happened. Had I just survived a heart attack without even falling over? Wow.. My heart stopped thumping like it was trying to break my ribs and my chest instantly became relaxed and no longer tight. The sweating stopped and my normal colour slowly came back to my face and hands.

“you had another one” she said….”Are you ok now”?…… I felt such an arse for shouting at her, and apologised immediately, explaining that it was a classic fight or flight reaction and that fear of having a heart attack made me scared out of my whits. I explained that i wasn’t thinking straight and that i really didn’t like what was happening to me. With that, we went back inside the house.

I stayed at home with my wife for the next couple of days. Not leaving the house, excepting to go outside into the garden or into the garage. All was fine. No more panics. No more hyper ventilating, all was calm and relaxed….

A few days later, my wife returned to work, luckily i had a few days leave planned, so the thought of going back to work hadnt occurred to me at that point. I was home alone for a couple of hours, happily wasting time doing not much at all when out of the blue…i had another panic attack. I was in my own home, sitting on a sofa, watching tv with a cup of coffee in my hand. Nothing special. I remember watching some crappy morning TV show, so it wasn’t even as if i was getting excited about a plot or being stimulated by an action movie, it was bloody day time tv and it was crap! How the hell does that cause a panic attack…… anyways.. it did.

Usual thing started to happen, chest tightening, heart thumping, sweat dripping, hands shaking, “heart attack, heart attack, you’re having a heart attack”, was all that was going through my mind. I jumped up and turned off the tv just incase it was the tv’s fault in someway. I stood there in the middle of my lounge, dying…alone… all I could think to do was to find the phone and call my wife at work.. that same wife whose advice just a few days ago i dismissed as complete nonsense..

“Its me, I’m having a heart attack, get here quick” i spouted down the phone to her. Completely unaware that she was in an open planned office and everyone could see her face and the expressions that she was pulling. I didn’t care. I wanted her home. NOW, cos I was dying. “Have you left yet?” i screamed at her..”calm down” she said “Its just another one of those episodes”, she was trying to calm me down without letting her office know what was going on..”Calm down!! Calm Down!! bloody hell woman I’m having a heart attack” and with that i threw the phone across the room and waited for the pain of the heart attack to finally hit me..

I stood there, motionless for about 10 minutes, just staring at the floor, feeling my chest getting tighter and tighter, my heart beating quicker and quicker, my arms shaking, fear running through my body…”I need to talk to her again”..I thought…..”quick, get the phone”..I called her again….”Its me”….i said trying to be at least coherent. Then she said something I realised later would be the very key to beating this thing that i had developed.

“You’re not dead then”…..she said calmly.

Well, you can imagine what i thought about that at the time. I was furious! Livid! How dare she!!! Not dead then!! Did she think i was playing?? Did she think i was just making this shit up!!! Unfortunately, my reaction to her on the phone was not the best and it ended in me hanging up again and storming off muttering to myself about how much my wife didn’t care a hoot about me and that my life was shit.

Do you know what happened next? It stopped. Although very pissed off and utterly furious still, i slowly began to notice that i wasn’t panicking anymore, i had stopped sweating, my heart had stopped trying to escape from my chest and it was no longer tight. I was however still very red faced, but that was because i was pissed at her.

During that course of that evening, my wife and I discussed - repeatedly, over and over, and over again, the events of the day and the weekend. I just had to get it right in my own head. What the hell was it, ok its a panic attack… but perhaps the most import question of all.. What the hell causes them? And how do i stop them?

They came out of no where. For absolutely no reason whatsoever, nothing seemed to trigger them. I was completely fine one minute and the next, I’m having heart attack..

I tried for weeks to work it out. What the hell caused them? They could come at any time in the day, I could be anywhere, doing anything. or I could be doing absolutely nothing. Just sitting there. I tried lots of ways to deal with them. I even tried to run as fast as i could whenever i was having one, with the express thought of seeing if i would actually die of a heart attack.

I started to notice a pattern forming.

Every time i had a panic attack, it was generally without my wife being there. Every time she was with me, i didn’t have a panic attack…..
Every time I had a panic attack i would head for home. Where ever i was. On the train, in the car, at work, it didn’t matter - as soon as i had an attack, i would immediately call my wife (yes, the one whose help and advice i didn’t want) and head for home by the quickest means possible. Home was my safe place, especially if my wife was there too.

As the panic’s didn’t seem to be going away, i went to visit my GP and explained what was happening. He talked through it with me for awhile and prescribed beta blockers for me. Explaining what they were and what they did.

I really didn’t get on with them. I took then for a couple of days until they started to work. Did they stop me from panicking? Im sure that they did, they stopped me from living!! I was a complete zombie on them. Spaced out all of the time. No idea what time of day it was, or even what day it was for that matter. I was the walking - dead. “Sod that!” I thought, there must be a better way than walking around practically unconscious.

I was advised by a friend that perhaps a herbalist might be able to help. As the drugs that they prescribed were natural, maybe that was a better route. So i found a herbalist and made my first visit. What a revelation!! This was the first person that i had met that actually had panic attacks and stopped them!! “Excellent”! I thought.. this is the very thing for me. Ill be cured in no time and back to myself again! Tickety-boo!.

Well, unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out like I had hoped. Although she was excellent, very understanding and listened intently. She also “prescribed” different herbal remedies for me from bachs rescue remedy to echinacea (thats the only one i remember) and told me when to take them and how many, the panics actually didn’t seem to go away. I started to use my fortnightly visit as more of a therapy session, talking to her about my attacks, how often they occurred, what had happened, where etc..principally because the only other person that i was comfortable telling was my wife, and she was pretty bored to tears hearing for the umpteenth time about yet another bout of attacks.

All in all, it made me start to think that if I, personally, didn’t find a way to stop these panics and cure myself. No one else was going to either.