Hello all. Its been a while since I was active on here but I wanted to share an update on my life to try and give everyone here some hope today. I developed Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia on January 13th 2021. It started with a random Panic attack while I was in my car at a red light. I had never experienced rogue anxiety before so this first panic attack was a shock. As my anxiety progressed over a month or 2, it got so bad that I was having upwards of 20-30 Panic Attacks a day, mainly while driving. Driving had become a major trigger for me, which was not ideal because I have to drive upwards of hundreds of miles a day for a living. It was absolutely debilitating. I experienced severe migraines and ice pick headaches, along with horrible disassociation as a result of this tremendous anxiety. I remember spending many late night staring at myself in the mirror and I would just touch my face and my brain wouldn’t let me believe that I was touching me. It was as if I was going through life in 3rd person. Watching everything I did through someone else’s eyes. I decided very quickly that I couldn’t live like this. It was so horrible…at least I thought it was at the time. I started seeing a therapist about 2-3 months into this experience. She gave me some coping strategies and really helped me learn how to make time for myself; daily meditation, not answering the phone. All good things that definitely helped, but nothing that gave me that “wow thats really working for me” moment which I so desperately desired. I then decided to give CBT a try (cognitive behavioral therapy.) This was much more successful for me than traditional talk therapy. Forcing myself to feel anxious, it was my first real step towards recovery. However, after a few months, I started feeling like I had plateaued. My anxiety and panic attacks, while better, were still relatively severe. At this point I decided to go back to the drawing board and really dig to see what exactly was going on with me, and what it was going to take to fix it. I was browsing on Amazon one night when I stumbled upon a book titled: Its Only Anxiety. I was willing to try anything at this point so I figured a simple book with some advice might help. Little did I know, this book completely revolutionized my recovery process. I don’t want to spoil the book too much, but basically the main method the author describes is similar to CBT, however it goes much deeper than I had ever even thought was possible. The method is: Accept, Allow, Surender. Thats it. Sounds easy right! Nope. Not at all. It lead me down a dark and stormy path full of more panic attacks and anxiety that I had experienced in months! But I kept at the method, recognizing the anxiety, allowing the anxiety to be there with me, and then finally fully surrendering to all the thoughts and feelings. As he says in the book, “walking directly into the storm.” This book changed my life. It has been almost 3 full years since I first began this journey, and I can proudly say, I am fully recovered from Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia. I still experience some occasional anxiety when driving at night but this is even almost nonexistent now. I wholeheartedly believe in this method. The classic get rich quick schemes that people pitch about anxiety will not work in the long run. In order to conquer your fears, you have to face them. I was terrified of the anxiety. But once you start to push through and realize that anxiety actually isn’t all that scary, those terrible thoughts and feelings that we all run from, start to fade away all on their own. Good luck to everyone out there suffering from anxiety. But I promise you there is a path to recovery. It just takes time, patience, and understanding.