Ettie’s Story

I remember the first time I had a panic attack. I was 31 and had had three miscarriages for which my husband blamed me, but the NHS wouldn’t do anything. I already felt terrible both physically and emotionally, and my toddler son was very demanding. My husband was really stressed - he’d been made redundant and was now earning a pittance for shift-work in a rotten job. He was really prickly so we weren’t getting on too well. One night when my son was at my mother’s and my husband was at work, I went downs to the kitchen at about eleven o’clock to make a cup of hot chocolate.

And surprised a burglar. He grabbed the bread-knife and threatened me. My heart began beating like crazy. I screamed and ran away, out the front door and to my neighbours’ house, but they weren’t in. I was terrified the man would follow me. I ran to the phone box at the end of the road and called the police. It seemed to take ages but they eventually arrived. I got in their car and they went to the house. The burglar was long gone, so the police brought me in to find out what was missing. Not much, really, just the video and a portable radio, though the place was a bit of a mess. One of the constables made me a cup of tea, and the other one had a look round. I knew I’d left everywhere locked up because I always do. He said the burglar must have got in through the window by using a wire to pull up the catch. After we’d filled in the paperwork they asked if there was anyone I wanted to call, but I didn’t know anybody who lived nearby and my mum could scarcely get my lad up in the middle of the night, so the police left me alone and went away.

All this time my heart had been going like the clappers. It was booming, really shaking my rib-cage, and I was sure I was having a heart-attack. But there was no pain down my arm and I could still move about despite feeling faint and peculiar. I thought about calling an ambulance but they charge you money if they don’t think you need one and I’d only got about 50p. I was too scared to walk down to the cashpoint - it was about half-past one by this time - and I just never thought of getting a taxi to take me to the hospital via the bank. Anyway, I didn’t want to make a fuss. Besides, I was scared that if I left the house, or even went upstairs to bed, that man would come again. I couldn’t help thinking how furious my husband was going to be, and that he was bound to blame me somehow. But it was really horrible, knowing that man had been in our house, going through our things, and I hadn’t even known it. I kept being afraid someone would break in again.

So I sat up all night. I tried lying on the sofa but it seemed to make my heart beat louder and I was scared I’d die in my sleep. It was really drumming in my ears. I made myself check all the doors and windows over and over again. About 3 a.m. I rang the Samaritans and the woman I spoke to was great. Gradually my heart-beat subsided, though I was still too frightened to sleep, but when my husband came in he blamed me just like I’d thought he would, and we had a blazing row. I was relieved when he took himself off to bed.

The lady from the Samaritans had suggested I go to see my GP in the morning if I still felt ill, so I did. The doctor had been totally unsupportive about the miscarriages, and he wasn’t much use now. He more or less said, "If you think you’ve had a heart-attack we’d better get it checked out at the hospital." I know now, years later, he was doing it to reassure me, but I’d wanted him to say, "No, of course it wasn’t a heart-attack," and he hadn’t. That scared me even more.

For the next couple of years I kept having to go to the heart clinic, and it got to the stage where every time I tried to go to sleep I’d have what I know now were panic attacks. I only wish I’d known it then. What with that keeping me awake for hours in terror, and nightmares when I did drop off, I was permanently exhausted. Even when we could afford a car I was too scared to drive. When my husband pushed me into it I almost crashed. Then I had a major panic attack on a busy road and he shouted at me.

It wasn’t just in the car or the house.

I was so scared I was going crazy I couldn’t get on buses or trains. When I tried once, I collapsed on the stairs at the railway station. It was horrible. People must have thought I was drunk because they kept walking around me, until an old lady came to help. After that I had panic attacks about stairs, too.

For a while I couldn’t go up town even with someone else. Things with my husband went from bad to worse. I’d have left him except I had dreadful visions of myself dropping dead in front of my little boy and he’d be left crying over my corpse with nobody to help him.

Two years later, after loads of ultra-sounds, echo-scans and ECGs, I finally saw a doctor at the hospital who said I hadn’t had a heart-attack. She confirmed it was a panic attack and that they were different. By this time we had a different GP. She prescribed me Propranolol, and I could have kissed her. The panic attacks started getting less severe and some nights I actually didn’t have one at all! She also sent me to a stress therapy group. It was one and a half hours every Thursday evening at a local mental hospital, and though it could have been better run I did learn how panic attacks work and what to do about them. I also came to realise that most men don’t behave like my husband did so I didn’t have to put up with his aggression and bullying. I got strong enough to get a decent job. I left my husband who’d started to get violent, and set up home a safe distance away with my little boy. I still had panic attacks quite a lot at night, and it didn’t help when my husband would ring up at 2 a.m. and threaten me, though he never actually did anything. I stopped that by recording his calls (just leave the answerphone on).

Gradually I learned that panic attacks don’t kill you. One would start and I’d just feel so bored by it. It was like I couldn’t be bothered to go into the anxiety any more. Stopping smoking and changing from coffee to tea also helped. So did Paul McKenna’s relaxation video, and some meditation techniques I learned from a Yoga class. I think probably the assertiveness course I took helped too, but the best thing I ever did was have one-to-one therapy with a Transactional Analysis psychotherapist. I’ve made new decisions about myself and I feel better than I have ever done in my whole entire life.

I haven’t had a panic attack at all for years now. I have to think hard to work out when I had my last one, it’s so long ago. It must be at least nine years. I drive to work every day and can even drive on motorways. I can travel quite happily on public transport, and enjoy meeting new people on train journeys. I no longer have to be embarrassed about being scared of stairs. I’m happily remarried, and though I never had another child, my lovely new husband is a wonderful father to my son.