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Is Panic Related to Your Personality Profile?
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Is Panic Related to Your Personality Profile?
Many experts believe that panic is “in the genes” and in the experiences of childhood. That is, it’s related to a probable biological predisposition, and to early experiences, whether specific events or ongoing family circumstances. But you may have also wondered: Is panic related to a particular personality profile?
The answer to that question is — perhaps. Some personal qualities that seem to go along with panic have to do with attachment and fears of loss.
Separation anxiety. Are you the person who’s a “marshmallow” when it comes to seeing someone you love suffer? Would you do anything to protect your loved ones from harm or distress? Do you long for your family to be physically near you so you can be absolutely certain that they’re safe? Do you worry about their well-being when they’re not?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you’ve got lots of company. Panic sufferers are frequently people who attach deeply to others, who are extra sensitive to separation and who experience intense fears of losing the loved ones who are so important to them.
Frequent, serious worries about death and disaster. All of us have some anxieties about death, but for panic sufferers, fears of death are especially prominent. Why would this be? Perhaps because the experience of a panic attack feels so much like imminent death. It’s awfully hard to feel again and again as though you’re dying and not start believing it. And some panic sufferers already may have had a special sensitivity to death and loss at the time their panic developed. For them, the first panic attack only heightened a fear that was already lurking beneath the surface.
If, at a young age, you lost someone beloved to you, or if you lived with the ever-present notion that you might — perhaps helped along by an overanxious parent — you may have developed intense fears of death early in life. Even if that wasn’t the case for you, repeated panic attacks can bring about vivid fears of sudden death. And if you attach deeply to others, as so many panic sufferers do, the notion of death — yours or someone else’s — is likely to be all the more distressing.
Excessive concerns about illness. If you worry about death, you worry about illness. After all, illness is one pathway to death. Concerns about illness can readily arise out of the experience of panic; the physical symptoms of an attack feel convincingly like those of a catastrophic illness.
Need for control. Most of us prefer to be in control of our fates, but this preference is often especially striking in those who have panic attacks. Wanting to have control may be partly an effect of panic attacks, which can make you feel so very out of control. Or the need for control may be related to your fears of tragedy and loss: If you’re in control, you can prevent bad things from happening to yourself and to those you love. If your early world felt especially out of control and unsafe (physically or emotionally), and left you with core feelings of vulnerability, this quality may be especially strong. Being in control, quite simply, means being safe.
In short, panic sufferers seem to struggle to feel secure from loss. It’s as though they have little confidence in the world as a safe place and little confidence in themselves and their own capabilities.
“No matter what brings on your panic attacks,” states Dr. Denise Beckfield, author of Master Your Panic and Take Back Your Life, there are strategies that can be used to not only overcome the current panic attacks, but to become more resistant to future outbreaks as well.” Beckfield encourages panic sufferers to learn these strategies from her book, or from a qualified therapist.
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Adapted from Master Your Panic and Take Back Your Life! Twelve Treatment Sessions to Conquer Panic, Anxiety and Agoraphobia (3rd Ed.), by Denise F. Beckfield, Ph.D. Available at online and local bookstores or directly from Impact Publishers, PO Box 6016, Atascadero, CA 93423, www.impactpublishers.com or phone 1-800-246-7228.
