Panic attacks? I know they won’t stop Emma
(...and I say that as someone who’s suffered attacks for decades)
THIS week Emma Raducanu was forced to retire from Wimbledon with breathing difficulties. The general conclusion – still unconfirmed – is that she suffered a panic attack on court and, if so, she has my deepest sympathies.
The only positive for the poor girl is that at least panic attacks are a recognised phenomenon now. That wasn’t always so. When I experienced my first one back in the late 1970s, they were almost
unknown. Certainly no one I knew had ever heard of them.
It came completely out of the blue when I was in bed at home. I ran downstairs to find my parents as I was convinced I was having a heart attack. Since I was only 20, they took the view that this was unlikely and eventually calmed me down.
A few weeks later it happened again but worse, and the frequency increased until they were almost daily. I thought I was going to die. Nobody ever mentioned the words ‘panic attack’. Now they seem almost as common as Covid. While all these incidents are unpleasant, not all are equal in ferocity.
Obviously the pressure on Emma was intense and panicking could be a perfectly rational reaction, even if she had been trained for championship-level performance. But panicking is not a panic attack, which is when emotional pressure manifests itself as physical pressure, very often on the chest, which leads to a feeling that you can’t breathe. An overdose of adrenaline released by the fight-or-flight mechanism floods your body. Often such attacks don’t happen in a stressful situation but appear out of nowhere, when you might least expect them.
In my case the pressure was always in my head – a buzzing that got louder and louder until it felt as if my brain would explode – accompanied by dizziness and sometimes that breathlessness.
I could breathe but felt no air in my lungs. All these years later I am still susceptible to them and even though I know what they are, nothing will convince me that I am
not in dire physical danger. I have been known to call an ambulance.
The most insidious aspect of panic attacks is the risk of becoming a victim of the fear of them, which itself becomes a trigger. Hopefully by removing herself from this year’s tournament, Emma will be able to quickly cauterise that connection and learn how to manage them should it happen again. Some people only have the experience once or twice and never again.
When I was first diagnosed – and this was after visits to several doctors – I visited a therapist who would inject me with Valium, lie me on the couch and talk me through how I felt when I was having one. It
was a lovely feeling – I still remember the warmth of his electric bar fire – but it didn’t work. More recently, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and a variety of other medication has been more helpful.
At least now it’s possible to acknowledge vulnerability of this kind rather than being advised, as I was, to keep it quiet in case it damaged my career.
Friends and family knew, but it certainly wasn’t something I spoke about with everyone. Now mental health is on everyone’s lips, and having suffered some difficulties is
not the impediment it was then considered.
The reasons why these attacks occur are peculiar to each individual. Luckily for me, I always knew that it was never pressure from work. Even during the most highwire moments at Vogue, I never felt remotely close to a panic attack. And today, as I very occasionally experience one, I still can’t figure out exactly why.
But at least I can advise younger people such as Emma that they won’t stop you leading a successful life.
TURKISH writer Orhan Pamuk’s Museum Of Innocence is a novel where he employs everyday objects to tell stories – of romance, of history, of his own past.
I thought of it yesterday when I found a tin of spinach puree in the garden shed, along with a tin of lentils and some canned vegetable soup. I had bought them right at the start of the pandemic when we weren’t sure what we were going to be able to get hold of, or even if shops would be open.
I’d never bought any of these before and they remain there, unused reminders – along with the N95 respirator mask, the lateral flow kit, the miniatures of hand sanitiser and the sourdough starter – of this very specific period.
It’s not a time I particularly wish to remember but I wonder whether in years to come, once the pandemic is a historical event, they might serve as curious mementos of these extraordinary months. Something to show the grandchildren.