Panic Attacks and Flashbacks

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By Jenny Joyce

About a year and a half ago, I had what would easily be considered a mental breakdown. I was suicidal, self-harming, and I genuinely felt like I was going to die. Every day felt like a struggle – and every day I lost the will to carry on a little more. I always felt guilty about saying I had any kind of mental illness. To me, I didn’t feel like I did.

I was told it wasn’t serious enough

When I first starting having panic attacks – despite being told by numerous people I shouldn’t do it – I went to the doctor for help, but was turned away. I was told it wasn’t serious enough, so I kept myself quiet – I didn’t feel like my problems were important.

When I eventually got counselling, after a seven-month wait, I attended two sessions. Then the Cognitive Behavioural Therapist picked up that I was dyspraxic and had autistic traits. He told me he couldn’t help me. Desperate for the help that everyone said I didn’t need, I started sobbing and panicking right then and there.

I spent the next two years trying, and failing, to get therapy. During this time, I was completing a master’s degree, working three jobs to fund it and struggling with my social life. I was having panic attacks daily, and they became second nature.

I was assaulted, then told I was overreacting

Stress and panic became so normal to me, I didn’t realise when things were actually going wrong; even when my boyfriend at the time started throwing things at me or hurting me, I was convinced I was overreacting because of my anxiety.

When we broke up, no one believed me about the abuse. So I was even more convinced that something was wrong with me. I was also assaulted by two people who were supposed to be my friends. When I left their house in tears, I was convinced by everyone that I was overreacting, because that’s what I did. When you have a panic attack even when you’re ordering food at KFC, it’s hard to tell when something actually is seriously wrong.

Even when I attempted suicide three days after the assault, I still couldn’t get treatment.

I remember calling up crisis numbers when I was panicking, begging for help, having friends disappear, lying up all night in bed with flashbacks and panic attacks – then having to get in my car and drive back to work as if nothing had happened. I attempted to take my own life nine times in total.

Finally diagnosed

It took a long time before I ever got my diagnoses of social anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

PTSD wasn’t a diagnosis I was expecting, but as soon as I was told that was what I had, a lot made sense. I could cope with the stress of working and the stress of university, but I couldn’t cope with the random flashbacks, the social aspects of university, or the pressure of having to do and say the right thing all the time. When I realised someone I thought I could trust had hurt me, my main worry was about how everyone else was going to react if I went to the police.

A big problem with stress at university, I feel, is that the social aspects are too often overlooked. It’s pretty much common knowledge now that a third of women are sexually assaulted or harassed. Yet I have no idea what to do when I go into university and feel stressed that I might see the person who assaulted me. I had no idea what to do when I started getting abused. It got to the point where I felt like I had no option other than to end my life. I felt too damaged to be alive.

Now I know it wasn’t my fault

I’m never going to be fully recovered, but now I know that having flashbacks and panic attacks are a normal reaction to what I went through. I know that no matter what other people try and tell me I did nothing wrong.

Sometimes I still struggle to get out of bed, and sometimes I still can’t sleep. But now I know I can fight it, tomorrow might get better.

Reproduced with permission; originally published here nonconcentric