When the Therapist Became the One Having Panic Attacks

If you’ve ever experienced a panic attack, you’ll know there is a version of yourself that exists before it…and another version that exists after.

For most of my life, I had never experienced anxiety.

I was the person others leaned on. As a psychotherapist, I spent my days helping people navigate panic, trauma, grief, and overwhelm. I understood the nervous system. I knew the theory. I knew what happened in the brain and body during a panic attack.

Then, one day, I became the person who needed that understanding the most.

To this day, I don’t know exactly what triggered it.

Was it COVID? Was it the overwhelming fear of almost losing my son after what we later learned was a febrile seizure? Did that terrifying experience quietly overwhelm my nervous system? Or was it the beginning of perimenopause as I approached my fortieth birthday?

Maybe it wasn’t one thing at all.

Maybe it was years of carrying, coping, pushing forward, until my nervous system finally whispered, I can’t do this alone anymore.

What I do know is that my life changed almost overnight.

The bedroom became my safe place.

It wasn’t because I wanted to stay there.

It was because my nervous system simply couldn’t manage much more.

The only other room I could reliably make it to was our home office, because I still had clients to see.

Looking back, I’m still amazed that I kept working.

Not because I was functioning well, but because I was determined to hold onto the parts of myself that still felt familiar.

From the outside, most people probably had no idea how much I was struggling.

I was still seeing clients.

I was still creating videos for couples.

I was still running my practice.

If you had watched one of my videos back then, you probably wouldn’t have guessed that moments later I would retreat straight back to my bedroom, trying to calm a nervous system that felt completely out of control.

Everything looked normal.

Nothing felt normal.

Every session required enormous effort.

Every video took energy I wasn’t sure I had.

I wasn’t working at my usual pace, but I was doing everything I could just to keep going.

Outside of those two rooms, the world felt impossibly big.

Leaving the house felt terrifying.

Not because I believed something terrible would happen… but because I no longer trusted my own body.

Every sensation became something to analyse.

My heart.

My breathing.

My balance.

My vision.

My stomach.

My thoughts.

Every little change made me wonder whether something was seriously wrong with me.

People often describe panic attacks as feeling scared.

That wasn’t my experience.

It felt like my own body had become a stranger.

During those three months, I lost nearly 20 pounds.

One day I stood in front of the mirror and barely recognized the woman looking back at me.

It wasn’t just the weight loss.

It was the look in my eyes.

The exhaustion.

The fear.

The version of myself that had always felt grounded seemed to have disappeared.

That may have been one of the hardest parts.

Not simply feeling anxious… but grieving the person I thought I had lost.

For about three months, life became incredibly small.

My children would come into my bedroom to spend time with me because I couldn’t always go to them.

My husband quietly stepped into everything that needed holding. He carried our family through one of the hardest seasons of my life without ever making me feel like I was failing.

I don’t think I’ve ever properly thanked him for that.

I also tried returning to therapy.

Ironically, as a therapist myself, finding someone I truly connected with proved incredibly difficult. Living in a new country made that even harder. When your nervous system feels like it’s in survival mode, starting over with someone new can feel overwhelming.

There were many moments when I genuinely believed this was simply my life now.

Would I ever enjoy leaving the house again?

Would I ever stop scanning my body for signs that something was wrong?

Would I ever feel like myself again?

If you’re reading this while sitting in the one room that feels safe…

If your world has become smaller than you ever imagined…

If you’re grieving the version of yourself that feels lost…

I want you to know something.

I understand.

Not only as a therapist.

But as someone who has lived it.

Looking back now, I don’t believe my nervous system was broken.

I think it was overwhelmed.

At the time, though, I couldn’t see that.

I simply wanted my life back.

And slowly… One tiny step at a time… I got it back.

In my next post, I’ll share what recovery actually looked like for me. Not the quick fixes or the clichés, but the real process of rebuilding trust in my body - and the three things that ultimately helped me find my way back to myself.