Hello!

I am sorry to hear about your panic attacks, cause I recently suffered from this kind of situation also. I was kind of like you, I’d only had 2-3 attacks per year in extremely stressful situations, but they never disrupted my life till now. Given the fact that you are battling this for a while, I guess you might know more than me, and I know there is more to this story as anita suggested (what caused them, really… fear of what exactly, and when did they start and why). From my brief but really really ‘intense’ experience, I can only sincerely help by pointing out the 3 crucial mistakes why you still struggle:
1. exercise… It’s a must, really. Till you ‘lose yourself’!! Than a hot shower and mint/chamomile tea. It works better than a pill, confirmed by many anxiety ‘sufferers’ like us :). I am lazy person myself but since I discovered this, I’d walk 3 hours per day just to feel good. Every day if I have to. Once I ‘lock’ myself inside the apartment, trust me no meditation or online course can help me (and I do yoga and meditate every day almost, do breathing exercise few times daily, now also doing the ‘mindfulness’ course, gone through CBT, medications, etc ). Before you ‘reason’ this out with your gray brain cells, you need to ‘train’ your body to relax. So make yourself tired, every day, as long as you can. You will not have the strength to ‘fear’. Trust me.
2. Socializing… You said you work from home. how much time do you spend with people? I hope you are not alone with your self destructive thoughts all the time… Socializing is the best way to release Oxycontin, one of the happy hormones that battle anxiety big time. My friend who also suffered from anxiety (she worked in busy hospital -ER, can you imagine the stress and panic? ), battled panic by making herself surrounded with dear friends as much as possible. She didn’t have childhood trauma that a therapist needed to sort out, she didn’t do yoga or meditate, or did tones of research like me .. but she got better 🙂
3. Do not give into fear. It’s fine that you decided for now to stay at home, cause you can’t sort out all at once, I know. You shouldn’t. So your home is your safe zone, and it’s great !(cause imagine not having one-like me 🙂 ). But you need to slowly gain your confidence, day by day. So I am not saying to go bungee jumping, or get yourself into the messy crowd. This is also advice you’d get from any good therapist, you need to face slowly your fears, at your own pace, and make yourself comfortable during this. So try walking few block further than comfortable, few meters if that’s too much… with someone you trust maybe. Do your own ‘plan’ you can work with. Applaud yourself for every small success. Just remember, the key is one small step at a time! You will feel good once you start believing that you are starting to be in charge. I know it can be scary, I know how you feel. I don’t want to be alone, to be in closed space like train or bus for hours, to go in new strange city. But still I travel every weekend. I try to explain my partner how challenging it is for me to do simple stuff sometimes, but maybe when I think twice, his effort to treat me as ‘normal’ was the force that made me ‘act’ normal when I also just wanted to stay at home, all the time, with my dark fears.

I sincerely wish you all the best. I know you will get through this, I know many who have, and you (and me) will be one of those people… You will always have challenging moments, but it will get better, much much better. Remember (as you probably learned in CBT), anxiety and panic are not life threatening, you are not going to ‘die’, stop breathing, faint, go crazy… It won’t happen, it’s not possible (if you wanna remind yourself why, check out the free lessons on this link http://www.paniccure.com/CoachNeal/Intro-1/1-1.htm). It is just a very unpleasant sensation that will go away.