When agonising over how to cope with panic attacks, most people fall into a victim mentality.
They see themselves as powerless and vulnerable, and before long, despondency - even depression - can set in.
What about you? Do you see yourself as helpless? Completely at the mercy of a lurking monster that can strike at any moment? Now don't misunderstand me, I'm not suggesting that panic attacks (and other anxiety disorders) are not serious conditions - they are.
But I'd like to propose an alternative - a radical one, in fact - to seeing yourself as so vulnerable.
It is simply this: What if you have a lot more control over your disorder than you realise? What if you didn't have to be a victim? What if, instead, you could be a strong, well-adjusted person? Well, you can.
How? By choosing to be.
Have I gone crazy? Not at all.
I'm simply stating that our ability to choose is vastly more powerful than we realise.
It is in fact our ultimate ability.
It's the great discovery Victor Frankl outlined in his classic book Man's Search for Meaning.
If you're not familiar with this book, it records Fankl's experiences in Nazi concentration camps during World War II.
In it, he describes an enormous, life-changing realisation he had while at the mercy of the Nazis; he realised that whatever they did to him - beatings, starvation, humiliations - they nonetheless could not take away his power to choose.
That whatever they did, he could always choose how he would react.
While many of his comrades succumbed to despair and death, Frankl realised he could make the choice to be strong and not let the Nazis defeat him.
He was eventually liberated by the U.
S Army and died in 1997 aged 92.
Good for him, you may say.
But how does this apply to panic attacks? Frankl's discovery - the liberating power of choice - can be applied to anything.
It means that you have much more choice over how you cope than you realise.
Think about it: are you really so helpless? Must you live your life in the shadow of this disorder? Again, don't get me wrong, I'm not in any way trying to minimise your feelings; you have a serious condition that demands understanding and compassion.
I'm merely suggesting to you that you're nowhere near as powerless as you may think.
When stressing over how to cope with panic attacks, it's easy to be hypnotised by the symptoms and forget how powerful we really are.
Whatever path you decide to take in treating your disorder, understand that you do have strength - a lot of it, we all do.
It's just a case of remembering it and choosing it - again and again.
For your own sake, and for the sake of everyone who cares about you, I say to you: use that strength.
Make the choice to be strong.
And make it today.