A woman's panic attacks starting at 19 sent her to the ER repeatedly, but doctors just labeled them panic attacks and sent her home with no explanation, reassurance, or referral to therapy. It took ten years before she saw a therapist, leaving her anxiety untreated while her life got worse.
They would rush me to the ER for them to just be like, she's having a panic attack. And they're like, well, Joy, what has you so panicked? And I'm like, I don't know. Sometimes I was in the movie theater watching the movie, normal-ass movie, right? Mm-hmm. Playing with my friends, not playing, but like playing video games. Because I wasn't confident. But it felt random. And I didn't— nobody explained, "Oh, you're anxious. This is what's going on. This is normal for your age group." No doctors said that to me, not even in the hospital. They made it seem like this is something off with me and it's— there's really no cure and just kind of sucks to be me kind of a thing. Oh, gross. Yes. Oh. I didn't even think about telling a doctor or therapy. Like nobody ever inserted like, "Maybe this could help you." Mm-hmm. Right? It wasn't that— that was at what, age 19, 20? Eventually the panic attacks, cuz that for a while they were like every few weeks. Mm-hmm. And they stayed that way for quite a while. Um, but eventually they did kind of stop. I have a lot of— Yes. Yeah. And it wasn't that— actually things in my life got worse, not actually better. So it took quite a while until I, you know, literally 10 years before I was like, maybe I need a therapist.
