“Since that day I feel like my body is no longer my own. It’s on such high alert that it doesn’t let me sleep or eat. My stomach refuses to digest my food. I have headaches almost every day and I can’t concentrate or remember anything.”
“Even though I strive to put the event out of my mind, my brain betrays me and zeros in on the horror of those moments. My thoughts are spinning, with nowhere to land. My emotional reactions are like a panther attacking anyone that twitches in my direction . . . usually it is my husband and kids. Yesterday I lost it on a co-worker just because she moved my stapler without asking me. I am losing it! I am so embarrassed and ashamed and scared. I just want to run away and hide!”
“I was 17 when I experienced my first panic attack. Soon I was unable to go to work, abruptly ending my modeling career. Things seemed to normalize and years passed where I would realize I was anxious but I did not have a lot of debilitating panic attacks. There were even years where I had few or no symptoms at all, and life went on, for the most part, prettynormally.“
“When the second minor traumatic event occurred I travelled back in time, as though the last eight years had not happened at all. It re-triggered me and I experienced again the original violent movie. When I sought help from a Bayridge therapist I began to understand that I suffered with PTSD and that anxiety and panic were the result of it, not the other way around.”