To me, anxiety has always felt like the lamest mental illness to have. I think this is mostly because of Western culture, where kids are taught to always face their fears and work hard to overcome them. Even the 32nd president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt said one of the most oft-quoted lines in history: “let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is...fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

We’ve been conditioned to battle fear and worry as if they were substances that could otherwise be abused, but anxiety and the symptom of panics attacks are not simply fear and worry. They are a certainty that you are about to die.

Ever been too scared to get on an elevator? No? Here’s my story of a panic attack from a few years ago that illustrates just how debilitating runaway anxiety can be.

I was in Philadelphia for a large wedding. Easily 400 people were crammed into a lovely old church for the service, and then we were bussed back downtown for the reception. I had some anxious thoughts during the wedding, and I was able to breathe my way through the worst of them, but the reception was a different beast all-together.

At first, I was perfectly fine. Enjoying shrimp cocktail and a Jack and Coke on the rocks. Conversing with my girlfriend at the time and several new people. The trouble began when someone announced that we were all to move into the Grand Hall.

We were greeted with strobing lights and music blaring from a twenty-person band. I was immediately overwhelmed, but I tamped down my initial fears and managed to hold out for about half-an-hour. At that point, I told my girlfriend that I needed to get some fresh air. I walked out the building and around the block; breathing deeply and slowly in a vain attempt to put the anxious genie back into the proverbial bottle.

I ran into my girlfriend on my way up the stairs to the reception hall. She could tell something was wrong, and suddenly I was seized with a profound fear of stepping foot back into that raucous environment. We walked downstairs and spoke with the concierge. I said, “I’m about to have a panic attack; is there anywhere I can go that’s quiet?” He directed me to a small reception room that had a handful of folks in it. I clarified, “Is there anywhere I can go where there aren’t any people?” He recognized the pain and fear in my eyes, nodded somberly, and walked us downstairs to what I now think was a cigar smoking room - absent of any other people.

I walked to the corner, tore off my suit jacket, and collapsed onto the floor. Curled in the fetal position, I shook and silently screamed for about twenty minutes as my mind unwound.

After the worst had passed, my girlfriend helped me to my feet, and I shuffled over to a chair while she went to get me a glass of water. She placed the glass on the table in front of me, but I found that I couldn’t move a muscle. I was paralyzed. Totally unable to reach forward nine inches to pick up the glass. I felt betrayed by my own brain because I knew this paralysis was entirely in my mind. My girlfriend had to physically move my arm toward the glass so I could slowly grasp my fingers around it. Then she helped me raise my hand to my mouth, tipping the glass just enough for water to flow down my throat.

Half-an-hour passed before I felt capable of standing. Holding onto my arm so I had some added stability, we shuffled out of the building, and slowly made our way to our hotel about two blocks away. Being outside and moving, I felt my strength and confidence increase, but the worst was still to come.

We entered the lobby of the hotel, and by then I was walking almost normally. Then we curled around the bar and I saw the elevators. I froze immediately.

My mind was certain that if I took another step toward the elevator, I would die. A completely irrational fear, but one that I could not let go of in the moment. I was so scared that I backed up to a column by the bar, and wrapped my arms around it. I didn’t care if people looked at me oddly. I needed something stable to hold onto, and, as far as I was concerned, the granite column was my safe place.

I asked my girlfriend to find someone who worked for the hotel to direct us to the stairs. Problem was, we were on the twentieth floor. Without complaint, she walked with me, step by step up the winding staircase. Pausing to take breaks and breathe deeply, my irrational fear receded, and I felt comfortable enough to ride the elevator the rest of the way. It took a minute to step across the threshold into what my mind still thought was a death-contraption, but I managed.

Finally back in our hotel room, I stripped down to my briefs, got under the covers, and closed my eyes. My entire body felt like I had just run a marathon after having already completed an Ironman. I was exhausted. Only capable of breathing. Thankfully, I quickly slipped into unconsciousness, and the reigns of panic that my mind placed on me finally slackened.

That is what anxiety and panic attacks do to a person. They rob an individual of their capacity to think or to move; inserting the immediate sense of impending pain and death atop every thought. The point of this story is to color in what most people understand about anxiety. They see it as black-and-white. “Oh you’re anxious? Just don’t think about it.” “You’re worried? That’s ridiculous, nothing is happening!” I share my story of fear, paralysis, and a terrorized mind because I don’t want people to think that anxiety is a “lame” mental illness. In small amounts, it forces a person to avoid things they might enjoy. In large amounts, it can take a healthy man in his late-twenties, and beat him into a shivering ball on the floor.

If a friend or family member discloses that they are feeling anxious, please, I beg you to respond with kindness and compassion. Ask how you can help or, “What do you need right now?” All that person wants is to feel supported during this mental storm.

Be the life preserver.