“Shoo!” I said to my own thoughts. My brain was having mental diarrhoea in the middle of the night when the whole world was asleep. I was lying with my eyes shut on my cozy bed and an overwhelmingly soft pillow under my head. I had been tossing and turning at least a hundred times from one side to the other, laying on my back and then my stomach.
“It must be the pillow”, I tried to convince myself.
I picked up a second pillow, which had been lying next to my leg for the past half hour, hugged it tight and took a deep breath. But I couldn’t stop my mind from racing. First, I had ideas about what I wanted to do in the future and then random thoughts about things I had done in my past. All this while I became more and more aware of my heart beating: faster and faster, and harder, pounding in my chest as if it was going to break out and run away, dragging me with it so I could still feel its rage.

“Am I having an anxiety attack?” I asked myself. I could hear my heart beating even faster and then it became difficult to breathe. I forced a few deep breaths but then I suddenly felt the need to sit up on my bed. I kept taking deeper breaths but I couldn’t breathe enough. I was suffocating.

I walked out of the room, walked through the hallway with my chest congested, trying to find an open space. And then I realised what was happening.

It was my first panic attack!

I stopped and thought to myself. What on earth are you doing? You are so strong. Why are you trying to run away from something that my own mind created?

I thought I needed to make my choice right there. Either I was to run away from the situation and be scared about another panic attack my entire life or walk back into the situation, fight my battle and finish that enemy right there. Once I win it, I knew I would never have to be scared ever again.

I pushed myself to walk back into my room and slowly lay down in my bed and shut my eyes. I was immediately back in a state of panic. As I tried to tell my mind to control it, my body became numb. I could feel a tingling sensation in my feet, my chest felt heavy, and the heaviness was getting out of control.

I finally managed one deep breath and decided to fight it.

“Alright then,” I said out loud. “This is going to be uncomfortable but remember it’s not dangerous.”

And then I told myself to follow the next few steps:

“First, stop trying to control your breath. It is your body’s natural process to take in air and breath out air.

Next, remember that it’s uncomfortable but it’s not dangerous so hang in there because it will only last until you want it to last.

Then, most importantly, do not even try to empty your mind of these thoughts, because an empty mind can cause more anxiety to those who are already having one. Instead welcome them, each one of them, embrace them and consciously thank it for coming. And then consciously speak up in your mind that, you choose peace than to panic. Say it aloud if you need to. ‘I choose being in peace than to be in panic.’
Say it a few times, until your mind is convinced that you really want to be peaceful.

Next, tell yourself that these are your own thoughts and your own creation and you will not allow them to control you; you are the one who controls your thoughts and that acknowledges that you, and only you, are the one who has the power to change your thoughts to something that you would like to think about.”

At this point, in the middle of the night, all I wanted was a peaceful sleep. And that’s what I told myself, and I made it very, very clear.

The next time I opened my eyes it was 9 am. I smirked at my panic attack and flipped up my middle finger to any anxiety that was planning to come my way ever again.