From thirteen years old, I have carried a burden over my shoulder, that I never fully understood and I don’t believe is mine to carry. I am not a science or spiritual world expert, so I can’t write this article wholly from either perspective, but I can share with you my experiences, my thoughts and one or two things I have learnt on the matter.

I can’t quite remember the first time this concern became an official part of my life but I do remember; when it did, it came at me so fast and so naturally it felt as though my life was and will always be this way. Where did the confidence I never had go?
At the time when I started seriously experiencing daily panic attacks; I was already a member in my Secondary school Cadet Corps and became unable to participate in Cadet Activities and my duties without experiencing these emotions, so I dropped out as a Recruit and never received my Cadet uniform.

I have carried this burden with me the rest of my teen years and young adulthood completely alone. I have never really shared what I was going through with anyone and when I did, I felt as though they couldn’t possibly understand how it feels and they thought I was crazy, it was all in my head and I could fix it if I wanted to. I did talk to my mother about it once but she never really did take it very seriously; I spoke to my doctor about it one time and he wrote me a prescription for a month’s worth of medication that did gave me a temporary fix until it was gone and I could not get anymore. So my Secondary school years became about surviving each day without giving away my secret, hiding away and running scared. I survived, I graduated, I did not excel. I finished school a quitter and an almost complete failure; well by man’s definition anyway.

I was a teen then; so I was just trying to survive my life; as we teens often do, but as a young woman in my twenties, I started to become acquainted with who I am; I realized what my dreams where and I pursued them with every passionate heartbeat. I still experienced the same panic attacks but not in the way I did before, they did not come as regularly and at some points I really was able to have a normal life. Until I got married, became a mother and moved out of the country I lived in for twenty-four years of my life. Now as I am vastly approaching my twenty-six birthday, for the past year, it was as though I am right where I started, trying to fight the same battles but this time it’s different because I have the greatest ally, I have a deeper relationship with God than ever before and a greater understanding of this whole thing, I have the WILL to overcome and be restored to the Champion I know I am.

I am still learning and trying to understand what it is I am fighting against and how am I going to win this war, but here is what I have learnt so far.

I believe this is not an illness or the cause can’t be scientifically explained; I know it is a spiritual battle; a battle that was never mine to fight but was passed on to me by my parents, mostly from my mother; I don’t think it is fully their fault either; I believe it is a generational curse; which I need a deeper understanding of before I go into that topic; I inherited from my mother’s side of the family, as I learn of her child-hood, teenage years and young adult-hood; it has helped me understand why she could not give me what I needed spiritually as a child, she could not plant seeds of confidence in me because she had none to give, not even her own. My father on the other hand, I am not sure why he also carried the same pessimistic and negative outlook towards life as my mother did but as much as I spent many of my days rejecting their perspectives on life and its possibilities, I still could not completely shield myself from the seeds they planted. I inherited lack of confidence as well as so much more.

No matter what was fed to me; I always knew that I was much more than they saw in me; I don’t have low self-esteem like my mother; I know that there is GREATNESS inside me, I know I am a winner and I know what my strengths and my greatest qualities are. I know I am going to change the world around me and I am going to accomplish great things in my life and if I had been given the right opportunities I would have excelled where I previously failed in my past years. I know that this stronghold of fear; which I allow to hold me back from the ROCK STAR I know I am; is not me; I try everyday to shake it but it isn’t easy because it is a deep root I am still trying to reach but I know I will reach it, I will pull it, I will banish it from my life forever.
I know God will restore me to the Woman of Greatness I am and he will make up for those lost years. I will overcome and I will not pass this on to my daughter. She will have high self-esteem, confidence and from a young age she will know of the Greatness inside her.

However; I will overcome this, I will understand it, write about it and help others to understand it as well as defeat it. So if this is you and you are going through something similar, tell me about it. Maybe we can help each other.

To learn more about Panic Attacks, go here:

How Panic Attacks Work ?