Hey you, Sorry to hear about your panic attacks. It sucks so much and I can relate. In my case I’ve been diagnosed with anxiety after getting my MS diagnosis. I think the anxiety in my case is because of the symptoms my ms gives me. Particularly all the things it makes me not able to do. Especially because I used to be very eloquent and good with words. My many brain damages / plaques has changed that, because I now have a lot of cognitive difficulties which means I often feel stupid or slow, when I’m among other people now. And THAT has been the trigger to my anxiety. The fact that I constantly say the wrong words or names. That I can’t respond quickly anymore. That I get distracted by the smallest things like sounds or change of lighting etc. Or that I’m no longer the clever, funny and most outgoing person in the room anymore. I used to be all that. Joking around and making sarcastic quick comments, which made people laugh a lot. Now I’m often so overwhelmed by the socialization alone, that when I finally know what I want to answer people to their questions, the conversation is far past that. And that has led to me feeling anxious about everything in social interactions in general now. It took me a while to acknowledge that THIS was the reason I kept getting anxiety attacks. Defending myself because of my ms particularly makes me anxious. Also because people don’t get it at all even though I try to explain my disability and difficulties. In my case talking to the psychologist from the MS association here in Denmark has helped me a lot with how to answer people when I don’t know the answer right away. I’ve gotten to know standard sentences to respond, so that I give myself time to think before I answer. And to not sound too stupid. But it’s hard. And it takes time. I suffer from anxiety everyday these days. It especially accelerates when I’m stressed or put in situations where other people can make decisions on my behalf or other people have to judge me and my MS from their perspective. I hope you will get better and I suggest you talk to a professional about it too. In my case it only got worse because I didn’t think I needed help for a long time before it finally exploded entirely. Take care of yourself and good luck 👍🍀

Callan, you are not on your own. I know exactly what you mean. Its like my illogical brain is going up against my logical and the illogical is winning. I have to remove myself and just breathe through it. I try to do something positive to lift my mood like my favourite songs, I find a good head banging, singing at that top of lungs gets the stress out. 🙈🤣🤣 Life isn’t going to be the same but that doesn’t mean it has to be a bad one. Once I feel back in control I can start thinking again about a future. And we all have a future just a modified one. Really hope this helps.. wishing you all the best Lisa