It’s been a few weeks since I released Limbical and “revealed” myself publicly as someone who suffers from panic attacks. I always thought it was important for me to come forward and tell my story. I always suspected that there are many others out there who are also suffering in silence, and a big motivator to build Limbical, and especially the community feature, was to allow people to share their experience and see others’ experiences.

I’ve been having panic attacks for about 8 years now, and I never knew how long they lasted. That all changed about a week ago when I went running. I have been limiting physical exertion of any kind for years now, since one of my panic attack symptoms turned into a trigger. Being unable to catch my breath would trigger a panic attack for me like clockwork. So exercise sort of went out the door.

Back in 2008 when I experienced my first anxiety attack, I had no idea what was happening. In fact, for the first few attacks I wasn’t sure what was happening to me. All I knew was that I felt out of control, unable to calm down, and I was freaking out.