Buy me a drink, sing me a song, Take me as I come cause I cant stay long

I saw the special specialist.
The special specialist has never in his life had a panic attack.
It was clear as we were sitting there talking about the symptoms of a true PANIC attack (not just an anxiety attack) and he had NO idea what this lady was talking about when she said, “It’s like a surging through your body.”
He looked at her like she was crazy and then about 10 of us started explaining what she was talking about and she turned around and looked at us with such relief that we understood what she was going through and that we had the same thing.
She also talked about the physical pain of anxiety and he said, “Yeah, it’s normal for you to feel some pain in your chest.”
No. It’s not just your chest, it’s your whole body. Somewhere in the middle of a panic attack you’re rolled up in a ball in physical pain.
I remember sitting on the couch while Shaun held me in his arms and I admitted to him in between sobbing, “I hurt.”
That was a hard thing for me to admit. I didn’t want what was going on in my head to be something that caused me pain because that would mean I wasn’t as strong as I should be and I wasn’t strong enough to handle it. “I hurt.” were words that released me from holding EVERYTHING else in. If I could admit I was in physical pain for something that I had going on in my head, then I could tell him everything and hope he wouldn’t wrap me in a blanket and drag me to the hospital.

This woman admitting in front of a whole class that the physical pain was too much to handle was a huge thing for me. The fact that the teacher didn’t understand how much pain comes along with panic and anxiety disorders was kinda scary.
I wanted to believe that he had been there and understood where all us ‘crazies’ were coming from. He did say we aren’t crazy. He’s never seen us in the middle of one of these attacks and i’m pretty sure if he ever saw me as a passenger in a car he would admit we were a little bit crazy.

My friend, ‘Cita came with me to the class and she said she was about to have an anxiety attack by end of the class.

I signed up for the 6 week class, but the more that I have been thinking about it, the more I feel like I need to have faith in the person teaching the class and I don’t think the guy had a single clue. Sure, he has facts and knows special breathing techniques, but unless he’s been ‘there’, he just can’t understand.

Sympathize, but not understand.