I Thought I Was Dying: What My Own Panic Attacks Taught Me

I remember the awful feeling of waking in the wee hours of the morning, heart pounding out of my chest. Am I having a heart attack? Panic. Breathing out of control. Scared and bewildered. The thought that I was going to die sent me reeling outside onto my deck, desperate for air and desperate to escape. I was in my twenties and had no idea what was happening to me. It was a time of many firsts. My first job as a front line social worker investigating child abuse and neglect during the height of the crack cocaine epidemic, in a city known at the time as the murder capital of the nation. I had my first child, married my high school sweetheart, and money was tight. I had bought my family's home and it was in disrepair, which required money I did not have. And as if that were not enough, the city was in a budget crisis and I was furloughed too. My nervous system was carrying more than any person should have to carry alone. It was only a matter of time before it sounded the alarm.

What I did not realize then was that I was not going to die. And the panic would subside if I rode out the wave of anxiety that had hit me like a tsunami.

Instead, I unintentionally made it worse. The fear of the fear was more intense than the first wave. I reacted the way many people do when they experience a panic attack for the first time. I panicked. No pun intended.

Having a panic attack is something every person deserves to understand, because of how deeply it disrupts and interferes with living.

Why Does It Happen in the Middle of the Night?

First, know that you are not alone. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), panic disorder affects 6 million adults in the United States, and research published in peer reviewed journals shows that between 44 and 71 percent of people with panic disorder experience at least one nocturnal panic attack. If you are waking up in a panic in the middle of the night, this is a recognized, well studied phenomenon.

Nocturnal panic attacks are not random. They follow a pattern that makes sense once you understand what the nervous system is doing. It is also important to know that they are not nightmares. Research confirms that nocturnal panic attacks occur during non-REM sleep, specifically during the transition from Stage 2 to Stage 3 sleep, not during the dreaming phase. That is why there is no story, no image, nothing to point to. You simply wake up in terror with no apparent cause.

During the day, anxiety builds. Stress accumulates. Worry runs in the background. Most people push through it, stay busy, stay distracted. But the nervous system keeps score. By the time you fall asleep, it is already primed and on alert, a state I call anticipatory anxiety. The body is braced for something, even if the conscious mind has quieted down.

Then, during sleep, the brain detects that heightened state and does exactly what it is designed to do. It triggers the fight or flight response. And you wake up in a full panic, heart racing, chest tight, convinced something is terribly wrong.

Not everyone who experiences nocturnal panic attacks carries obvious daytime anxiety into the night. In my clinical work I have sat with clients whose days felt calm and manageable, yet they were waking up in a panic with no clear explanation. For some people the trigger is less psychological and more physiological. A shift between sleep stages, a slight change in breathing, a subtle fluctuation in heart rate, any of these can be enough to set off a sensitized nervous system. If your days feel fine but your nights do not, know that this is real, it is recognized, and the pathway out is the same: learning to respond differently rather than reacting in fear.

What Is Actually Happening to You

Secondary anxiety is what makes nocturnal panic attacks so brutal. The first wave of anxiety is frightening and feels very uncontrollable. But it is not dangerous. For someone experiencing a panic attack for the first time, though, it is unbearable. And the fear of that feeling creates an even more intense second wave, a wave that keeps the spiral spinning.

That is what I experienced on my deck. I was not responding to danger. I was responding to my own response. The fear of the fear had taken over.

"The nervous system is trying to protect you. It is putting you on high alert about something. But the research is clear: for those who have been medically evaluated, panic attacks are not dangerous. As distressing and as scary as they feel, they will pass."

My body did not malfunction that night. It did exactly what it was built to do. It just did not know the threat was not real.

What to Do at 2am When It Hits

Before anything else, I want to be clear about something important. Panic attacks are something to take seriously. If you are experiencing them, being medically evaluated for any underlying medical causes is crucial. Conditions like hyperthyroidism, heart arrhythmias, and others can produce symptoms that closely resemble a panic attack. See a doctor as soon as possible to rule those out. If medical causes are ruled out, a mental health professional can help you understand what is happening and guide you toward the right treatment. You do not have to figure this out alone.

With that said, if you are lying awake right now and you know from prior medical evaluation that what you are experiencing is anxiety, here is what to do.

When you wake in the dark of night in a full panic, being asked to react calmly may feel completely counterintuitive. I know that feeling personally. But this is precisely where the Webster Calm Response Method applies.

The first thing to do is Label the Anxiety Alarm. Say it to yourself: this is my anxiety. It is not dangerous. That single act of labeling interrupts the spiral before it gains momentum.

Then, Downregulate the Body. Do not reach for your phone. Do not start Googling your symptoms. Do not begin running through everything that could be wrong. Control your breathing gently and deliberately — not forced, just slowed slightly and let your body follow. That behavior feeds the second wave. Decline the urgency to do anything at all and bring your body back to calm.

Do not react impulsively in a scared way. I know because that is exactly what I did. I fled to my deck, escaped, added fuel to my panic, and catastrophized. Every one of those reactions made the second wave worse. Do not escape to another room. Do not turn on every light. Do not text someone in a panic. Those are safety behaviors, and while they feel like relief in the moment, they teach your nervous system that there was something to escape from. The research explains why: every time you escape or seek reassurance, your brain never gets the chance to learn that the threat was not real. The danger signal keeps firing because it was never given the opportunity to discover it was a false alarm. Next time, it will sound the alarm even louder.

Instead, Allow the Wave to rise. Label it clearly: this wave will fall. Sit with the quiet resolve that this too shall pass. Because it will. It always does.

Then Continue With Life. Keep doing what you were doing. Make the coffee. Finish the email. Go on the walk. This is how you rebuild confidence in your ability to function even when anxiety is present, and confidence is what eventually quiets the nervous system for good.

This Is a Learnable Skill

I did not know any of this the night I stood on my deck convinced I was dying. I learned it over time, through clinical training and through my own experience of riding out waves I once thought would swallow me whole.

What I want you to know, if you are reading this at 2am right now, is that you are not in danger. Your body is doing something it was designed to do. And there is a way through it that does not involve running, Googling, escaping, or waiting for morning in a state of dread.

You can learn to respond differently. That is not a platitude. It is a skill. And skills can be taught.

It is also worth understanding the difference between a panic attack and panic disorder. A panic attack is a single episode. Panic disorder is diagnosed when attacks become recurrent and unexpected, and when life begins to reorganize around them through worry, avoidance, or changes in behavior. According to NIMH, an estimated 4.7 percent of U.S. adults experience panic disorder at some point in their lives. If you recognize that pattern in yourself, professional support is important alongside any self help approach.

The approach I developed draws on decades of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy research, which the National Institute of Mental Health identifies as one of the most effective treatments for panic disorder. CBT has been shown to produce lasting reductions in panic frequency and severity. My method translates those principles into practical, repeatable steps that people can use in real time, including at 2am on a bad night. Individual results vary, and this course is not a replacement for individualized clinical treatment.

I used bibliotherapy, the practice of using books and research literature as a therapeutic tool, to find the strategies and tools that helped me overcome my own anxiety disorders. During that time I also took medication for a limited period. The combination of bibliotherapy and medication worked well for me, and I never looked back. That is my hope for you. That is why I created the Webster Calm Response Method.