How I wish that life were as simple as in the Harry Potter books which can basically explain everything that needs to be explained, like panic and anxiety. According to the books, there are dark creatures called dementors that can suck all the happiness and a man’s soul, which basically is how one panic and anxiety attack can make you feel. Also according to the book, the only way to get over the hangover from these attacks is through a bar of chocolate.

Laughable and silly it may sound, but have you ever had a panic and anxiety attack, I mean a real one, and not just a simple and normal everyday occurring one? Have you ever felt so incapacitated that there is no sense of logic, there is only the physical experience? It is like your whole being is vacuumed into a space where nothing can get you out of it. And yes, getting over it afterwards is exhausting, and sometimes a bar of chocolate can do the trick.

There have been a lot of write ups about panic and anxiety attacks and the people who suffer them and unfortunately the effect of the written word has managed to convince a lot of people that the attacks are so bad that when it happens to them, there is an instant recognition and the load just got heavier. The attacks are worse; because you know you are having the attack and everything that you have read scared you senseless.

There are also self help books that are designed to help, if you buy it from a website at an exorbitant prices most of which are designed not to help really, but to gain money from the desperate. But are the attacks really desperate events? Unfortunately for some, they can be desperate. There is no hope for those who suffer the extremes of panic and anxiety attacks. The only way to help is through psychiatric means and some simply never get over them.

So if you are not in that desperate category, how can you prevent it from becoming so? As Professor Remus Lupin suggested to Harry Potter, you have to learn to defend yourself and the only way to do that is to face your fears head on. I wish I were in Harry Potter, then all I have to do is simply say ‘Expecto Patronum’ and my attacks would just go away.