If you really want to deal with anxiety/panic attacks you have to challenge what it causing them. Medication can work, for a short time anyway. I found that medication (sertraline, citalopram, mirtazapine, fluoxotine etc) all served a purpose until they no longer served a purpose at all. And if they continue to work, the side effects from taking them for me are not worth it. Numbing yourself to life isn't the cure and from my experience with meds and anxiety/panic attacks, that's all they did in the end.
There are no magic bullets. Learning to deal with these things is key. Anxiety you deal with by facing the anxiety head on. When your mind is telling you something is wrong you keep moving and prove it to be false. If you envision the worst case scenario unfolding find out whether it's going to happen. Have the courage to fight it and you'll find what you think might happen actually doesn't. There's a story in your mind playing out and the minute you start believing it and not questioning this story is the minute you take the abit and get hooked. How long will you go for a ride? Depends on how long you let the ride go on. You can get off anytime you want by seeing it for what it is - a story in your mind. Experimentation is very important. If it's busy places you lose your nerve, busy places is where you start. If it's talking to people that buckles you, start talking to people more. You can use each and every situation as a learning experience and an opportunity to experiment with different ways of handling the situation. Whatever the story, it's your job to contradict it by doing something that, according to the story, would be the end of the world. If you're in a busy place and you start getting anxious and your mind is saying "People are judging you" then make owl noises or some shit. Flap your arms about. Do something outlandish. The point here is to prove that it's not the end of the world and to challenge the beliefs behind the anxiety and to do it in a way that counteracts the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario is someone comes up to you and asks if you're okay and in which case you can say "Yes, thanks. And you?". God forbid they don't approve of your antics but hey, they aren't in your shoes and they probably aren't committing to exposure therapy like you are learning that it's perfectly okay to challenge what you are going through and be the better person for finding ways to succeed through your experiences. In some situations you might even want to face rejection. In many cases and if the anxiety revolves around other people, the best medicine is learning to give less f*cks and to make a joke out of the seriousness of having to be in the headspace where your are consumed by others, their thoughts, behaviours, expectations etc. In other words, rebelling can be crucial. When you think you're being judged. Do something that makes you judged and then see what happens. Keep doing it and you'll see that whatever target in your minds eye that is judging you slowly loses it's power when you continue to throw shade at the assumption that you NEED to be a victim in the process. A victim freezes. A strong person sculpts the situation to his/her benefit and so do that - sculpt the situation. Don't be afraid to get creative. When you think something is wrong with you, make sure to truly have something wrong with you in the context of the situation in order to really pry open the narrative in your head. See what happens then. Do the worst possible thing. Wave your hands in a long queue. Speak a foreign language to someone behind you, or make up your own. Start making cat noises. Try and get everybody to do a Mexican wave. The narrative in your head suddenly starts to lose it's power and now it's just noise. And noise is really all it should be considered to be because otherwise and if you choose to believe everything in your mind, you are opening yourself up to becoming a slave to every single thing your mind produces and we all know our minds can produce some dark and f*cked up sh*t. Make art of that darkness. Put a beard and a cowboy hat on the skeleton your mind draws. Dance with the devil when he is summoned.
Find out what happens when you say something the group doesn't want to hear. See whether the Earth freezes over. Whether your life ends right now. Whether you can cope with having contrasting opinions to someone else. Find out what happens when you put on a fake accent on the subway when someone talks to you. On one side of the coin you are anxious and don't want to be judged less you dissolve into your chair, and on the other you are making a parody out of the situation by pretending to be Fred the Flintstone or Peter Griffin. You are learning that it's not the end of the world. The person you are speaking to you probably won't ever see again. And it's not a life or death situation. You're not asking for his/her approval in marrying their daughter. You are on a subway and you got anxious and so you turned that anxiety into comedy while also realizing you can take control of the situation and turn it around.
Panic is similar. The only thing with panic is, your body tends to REALLY think it's the end. The best thing to do here is to learn to sit through it. While your mind is telling you you are having a heart attack and you're finished. Sit with this and focus on your breathing. You'll find that, shit, I'm still here. And if I'm still here today then chances are, I will still be here everytime I have a panic attack. Breathing is really important with panic attacks because it overrides the panic attack. You can't be thinking about dying AND breathing at the same time. You can either be thinking about dying OR breathing. Meditation teaches this when you practice focusing on your breath when thoughts bubble to the surface and you realize that when you focus on your breath the thoughts can't persist because your attention is focused on breathing. The thoughts have no choice but to move along. Sure, they keep cropping up but they always will. You focus on your breath and those thoughts come and go.
