Jumping from the top step

I once read that a panic attack is basically your nervous system standing at the top of a flight of stairs, and jumping all the way down to the bottom without walking the steps in between. Your panic goes from 0 to 100 in a split second. The same source also said that a normal amount of fear is completely healthy. When you see a stove burner lit up all red, we KNOW not to touch that bc we will be burned. When you are standing at the top of a mountain looking over the edge, you are afraid to fall, that fear is good because if you didnt have that fear, you would be jumping down the side and probably dying or getting seriously injuried. So in THAT aspect there is a healthy dose of fear. Those of who suffer from anxiety and panic attacks, we skip all the steps in a normal amount of fear. A normal fear is walking from the top of the stairs to the bottom maybe a little bit faster than normal bc you are in a hurry. But WE, just leap from top to bottom with our emotions. 

A book i read called, "Overcoming Fear, Worry and Axiety", by Elyse Fitzpatrick, gives a PERFECT EXAMPLE of the cycle of our bodies loosing control. ( a panic attack is loosing control). Its basically like a Downward spirial. Picture with me if you can, a tornado. How they funnel, the top is big and the bottom is small. Ok... so we are looking at our tornado, and these are the order of emotions:

*The Desire to control some aspect  of your world leads to:
*The realization that life is out of your control, leading to:
*The physical appearance of fear, 
*Leading to the desire to control the fear experience as well as the circumstances, 
*Leading to anger, isolation, depression, and a 
*world that grows smaller and smaller and more and more out of control, 
*Leading to increased efforts to control and more fears, and so on!

One of my favorite quotes from this same book, is:

"Fear is a more dangerous enemy than those that you fear..."
-Thomas Watson

Basically, when you are having anxiety, i used to believe that it was something that i can control. Like i was doing it to myself. I believed that all the symptoms were all in my head. But really, they are all quite real. They may be false fears, such as thinking that i cannot breath, but they are physically happening to me. 

When we are nervous or have fear, our heart rate beings to speed, which causes adrenaline to release, and our bodies are in panic mode, and we are looking for something to be afraid of. We are truly afraid, and experiencing the heavy chest, dizziness, and or whatever symptoms accompany your anxiety, but really we are subcontiously controlling them and causing them.

I know that most of this makes no sense at all, and sometimes i wonder why i want to know so much about it, but i used to be afraid to know how  or why, and now i am hoping that it will help me find my answers. Hope it helps you find yours too!!