I was 16 when I had my first full panic attack. I sat clutching my French horn (yes, I played the French horn), waiting for a solo in a school band performance, and found I couldn't catch my breath. My stomach and chest felt impossibly tight. This wasn't an average case of nerves: my entire body responded to the fear of playing music publicly with what I now understand to be chronic anxiety. I felt I might die.
I managed that day to slow my breathing just enough so I could finish my solo without the audience knowing that, moments before, I'd had the intense urge to run away or barf. And I went on to reason away many similar moments, hiding them from myself and others. It took me the next 20 years, earning a PhD in the sociology of mental health, becoming a parent, undergoing three kinds of therapy, working in a national mental health organization and liaising with youth mental health advocates to identify that I went through intense anxiety as a teenager and young adult.
I still do experience anxiety from time to time, though I've learned to live with it in a healthier way -- through acceptance, a willingness to receive love from friends and family, and treatment from qualified professionals.
[For more of this story, written by Christopher Canning, go to http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/c...care_b_12049538.html]
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