I am a 47 year old woman who has been experiencing on and off waves of panic disorder since my late 20's. I did do cocaine and other drugs in my late teens and early 20's. So, perhaps that attributes to why I ended up with this panic disorder. However, there seems to be many other people out there with the same disorder who never touched a drug. Nevertheless, even as a child I was an avid worrier and I was extremely shy. I haven't been shy since my early teen years, quite the contrary, but the panic attacks are back again in full force. I had to put a cat to sleep in December (2007), who I had for almost 16 years. I’m a huge animal lover, plus never had children, so even more so than the average animal lover, my cats are like my children. Recently in January (200, my other 17 year old cat was diagnosed with kidney disease. I lost my roommate (help with paying the bills) on January 1st, and lost my job on January 16th and still unemployed now February 24th. I don't know if losing my job was a good thing or a bad thing, because my job is one of the most stressful occupations (property manager), but it pays the bills. It's a trade off occupational stress vs. financial stress. I can't win! For the past ten years, my panic attacks have been occurring on and off, unfortunately more on, especially again recently (the past 6 months or so), especially the past 2 months!! I'm not on any medication for it (since I no longer have a job I lost my medical insurance). So, I have to figure a way to deal with this on my own, naturally. Besides, in my late 20's when I experienced my first panic attack and ended up in the emergency room and went to a neurologist and had all sorts of tests done, showing that I was perfectly healthy, I managed to TOTALLY rid myself of the panic attacks for over a decade WITHOUT any medication. This was done by making changes, removing the things in my life that was causing me the most stress (broke up with the bad boyfriend, quit the bad job for a better one, etc, even moved to a warmer state...) They didn't have selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in those days. Panic disorder was not as commonly diagnosed. Now, I am not having as much luck. In 2000, they started again. Yes, I broke up with that boyfriend (actually fiancé), but the waves of attacks never really went away like they did in the 1990's. I've purchased numerous meditation cds. I read a lot. I don't know what else to do. It makes it so hard to look for a job when you're afraid to get behind the wheel of a car. Or worse yet, walk from the car to your destination (especially if I have to cross a street!). At least, in a parking lot, I can grab onto a car. There have been times I’ve grabbed onto shopping carts to walk around with in the store, even though I was only picking up a few items in which a cart was not really necessary. Yesterday, even with the shopping cart in the supermarket, I started freaking out and raced through the star like lightning and ended up not buying half the things on my shopping list. Had to get out of there, only to get behind the wheel again to drive home (which is a 5-minute drive that felt like 5 hours). I've been ordering my cats' pet food online from another state and having it delivered because the local store that carries the healthy pet food of my choice is too far away for me to drive to, it’s about 10-15 minutes from my house. How pathetic is that! I must do something soon. I'm open for any suggestions from anyone!!!

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