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That’s because internally, that is basically what is happening. And on top of that, the body gets addicted to the stress hormones...but more on that later.

While you might have had your first anxiety attack around a medical test, it had been building up to that for a long time, as you seem to have noted, based on your history. The test just ‘tipped the cart.’

It’s not uncommon to have long periods of not feeling symptoms, and then have them show up suddenly. As I mentioned before, my Dad had severe PTSD from Vietnam, yet he has a basically normal life, until he had his first big flashback while taking a shower on a calm day....33 years after he left the war. No apparently triggers, just stuff simmering below the surface for a long time. The subconscious is a very, very interesting area. There’s a lot we don’t know, but what we can say for sure is that time is basically non-existent there. Years can go by, but deeper down the body can be experiencing past events as if they are happening now, even if we were thinking about something totally different.

I’ve refined the ‘how to get out of this’ since I posted here last. But please understand, there isn’t just one way to do it. I’m going to list what I believe to be the crucial points, but there isn’t much order to them. Do them to the best of your ability, every day, and you’ll pull yourself out of this eventually. But be forewarned, it’s probably going to take longer that you’d like it to....unless it doesn’t ;-).

I’ll number these, but they are in no particular order...although the first 2 are probably best to start with.

1. Acceptance of the mind/body diagnosis.

As you’ve done, it’s important to rule everything else out first. This is crucial, because lack of doing so will slow your progress or stop it completely. Stay off WebMD and similar sites once you have been tested for everything else.
Acceptance also means to accept the symptoms whenever they may come. This isn’t easy, especially on bad days. Do your best to observe the pains, anxiety, palpitations, or whatever you are experiencing. Fighting it, getting angry, despairing, frustrated, depressed, about them can all slow recovery, because those reactions will cause further release of stress hormones into the system.

2. Knowledge. Knowledge precedes experience, and you’re going to have to study the mind/body connection a lot. Part of this is to help reprogram your brain and body chemistry, and the other reason is to give you confidence (which also changes your biochemistry for the better). There are tons of resources on this, but my personal faves are anything by Claire Weekes, ‘Mental Health Through Will Training’ by Dr. Abraham Low, and of course any of Joe Dispenza’s books. Or you can start with this video. Pay particular attention to the beginning, where he discusses how a stress response becomes chronic:

Set aside a little time every day, even if it’s only 5 minutes, to read/reassure yourself. And then see if you can explain what you are learning to someone. If you can’t explain it clearly, study it until you can.

3. Awareness. This can get a little tricky, but you have to guard against any thoughts/actions/words that unconsciously reinforce your current situation. Stop all of them immediately:

-Defeatist mannerisms (‘this will never get better!’).

-Romantic, overly dramatic mannerisms (‘This is SO BAD. It’s the worst, I feel so awful all the time! What if it comes back? What if it never goes away?)

-Over-analytical mannerisms (time spent self-diagnosing, ‘well yesterday I had a panic attack at 11:18 after I ate a peanut, so I must have a problem with peanuts! Or maybe it was the full moon, or that argument with my sister! My great-grandmother had a nervous breakdown, so it must be my genes!).

Be aware of how often you do these things, or how often you are just focusing on you, and you’ll be surprised how often you’re doing it. At my worst I was doing these things 99.9% of every day.

ALL of them will elicit further stress hormone releases. So spot then (as Dr Low referred to it), and stop. This will take practice, so don’t be too hard on yourself if you fail a lot, especially at first. Just stop, correct, and move on.
Which brings us to...

4. Practice. This includes practicing awareness and observation of the self, as well as any of the calming modalities, like meditation, listening to relaxing music or isochronic tones, breathing exercises, EFT/Tapping, etc. Try things out and find what works for you. Just keep practicing!

These practices also help change the internal environment faster than thought alone. If your body has been on high alert for a long time, and you try to just think something like ‘I’ll be ok’, the thought generated in the brain won’t make it past the brain stem and into the body, because it’s in conflict with what the body is experiencing. This is why, during any of these practices, you should try and produce an internal environment greater than it was when before you sat down to practice. So for example, if you’re feeling anxious when you sit down to practice, keep staying in meditation until you can produce an emotional state greater than when you sat down. It doesn’t matter if it’s relief, joy, hope, excitement, etc. Just something greater than when you sat down. Use your imagination, but try to feel the new state of being as intensely as possible, for as long as possible...even if it’s only a few minutes.

Here is a great, simple breathing technique to start with:

Also, as Dispenza notes, this entire state of being is just the body caught in a fight-or-flight loop, which it ultimately becomes addicted to. You think your thoughts and actions are all ‘you’ but they aren’t. Your body is stuck in a very primal fight or flight survival response. The chemicals it produces in that state influence how you think, act, speak, and feel, and in doing so, we re-introduce stress hormones into the system. And then the loop begins.

Even if the outside is calm, the body can rage inside, like a furnace. And it will often drive back into the stress state because it has become so dependent on the release of stress hormones.

Using my dad as an extreme example, I remember him being very argumentative all the time, and always rushing everywhere. There could be one car on the highway and he’d be right up on it, swearing and red-faced.

Why? Because how else could his body get the stress hormones it had become so used to? There was no one shooting at him anymore, so he needed to constantly, unknowingly, create situations to rush, fight, etc. And then we always blame it on the external circumstance to validate the release of the stress hormones. Make sense? Dispenza’s vid should clear this up more.

I typed this all on my phone, so I hope there aren’t too many typos!

Feel free to ask any questions, but please start doing the homework immediately. Little by little you will get better, but expect some bad periods here and there as the internal fire burns out slowly.