"I didn’t think my life was particularly stressful, but I kept on having these funny turns. Heart pounding, sweating, shaking, feeling sick, thinking I was going to faint or fall over, or even die..."

The doctor told me not to worry, they were only panic attacks and that I should learn how to relax and they would go away.

I panicked at the thought of having to get on a bus or the Underground or even going to the movies because I got anxious as soon as I was in a situation where I couldn’t get out immediately. Standing waiting for a train was awful because I sort of knew I was going to have a panic attack, which in turn brought it on. The thought of doors closing behind me and not being able jump off was the worst feeling.

So I bought a couple of CDs which played nice music but they just sent me to sleep and didn’t stop the panic attacks happening. Then a friend of mine introduced me to a Relaxation for Living teacher.

We had a chat and he said that panic attacks were really common and the more you worried about them, the worse they were likely to become. He told me about NATs (Negative Automatic Thoughts) and explained the Fight or Flight response which makes the attacks start in the first place and showed me what I could do to help myself. I realised I was hunching my shoulders and clenching my fists to defend myself against something (the memory of some really bad stuff that happened to me years ago) and that was what was making my breathing bad and making me feel ill.

I learned about WASP (Wait, Absorb, Slowly Proceed) and how to check my breathing and do the exercises. When I had calmed down, I realised that there were all sorts of other things I can do to help myself – take a couple of minutes every now and then during the day to relax my muscles and check my breathing, don’t fret about things I can’t control and even learning how to let people down occasionally was one of them!

The attacks haven’t gone completely, but they only happen once every two or three months, not five or six times a week. And of course the best thing is knowing how to stop them and realising that they’re not going to kill me!