I have lived a good half of my life coping with panic attacks or anxiety attacks, or whatever you want to call them, until about 2 years ago and it has been like a huge weight taken off my shoulders!

If you are suffering from this anxiety disorder, you will know what I mean. It encompasses your life and rules it. You find yourself unable to do some of the simplest things in life without thinking twice about whether you'll have an attack, embarrass yourself in front of everyone in the mall, theatre, party, on the bus, in the lineup at the grocery store or wherever you may be.

You won't want to go anywhere or do anything for fear that you'll have a heart attack somewhere that you won't be able to get help and you'll die.

It is the most overwhelming feeling that anyone can ever go through, even once, much less over and over again.

One of the worst feelings that I felt in the first years that I started getting panic attacks was that I was the only one like this and everyone would think I was crazy.

That was back in the early 1980's and, back then it seemed, the whole anxiety attack, panic attack, phobia thing was only first beginning to come to light. At least in my world it was.

Finally, during a driving trip from Vancouver, B.C. to California in 1981, we were forced to stop at a hospital because my husband and I were absolutely certain I was having a heart attack. That was the first time I was told I was having an anxiety attack. I was given Valium and we continued on with our vacation in a somewhat drugged-out state hoping that now they would stop.

But they didn't stop there. I cannot tell you how many attacks I have had throughout the years but certainly way too many to even want to begin counting. It doesn't really matter anyway because even one a year would be way too many in my books. Sometimes I would be grateful if I only had one every other day.

However, through a great deal of different processes, including anti-depressants and hypnotherapy, I am finally free of the physical symptoms of anxiety attacks.

I don't miss the heart palpitations, the sweating palms, the shaking and trembling, the fear of having a heart attack - all those symptoms that went with the anxiety panic attacks or the agoraphobia that always threatened to take over my life.

It is hard to sum up the process of dealing with and treating anxiety attacks in an article such as this. There is so much more that can be said.