How I Survived a Month-Long Panic Attack & Got Stuff Done

Ideas for coping with life

Marcy Pedersen, MBA
4 min readJul 19, 2024
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Four months into a new job I got a text that caused me to panic and spiked my anxiety levels to new heights. Something I didn’t think was possible. I didn’t get more anxious for a while. I jumped into a full-blown panic attack for a month. This is how I survived and got stuff done.

1. I got the help I could.

The help I could get at the time was a life coach at a program at work that was free. I happened to get an email asking for sign-ups so I didn’t have to overcome the obstacle of going to a website, figuring things out, and dealing with various technology problems.

I was intentional about setting up appointments and keeping them. I told myself life coaching appointments were like oxygen and water. You need them to survive so I soaked in every bit of help I could get.

Deep down I wanted some of the perfect therapists or counselors I saw online that my insurance doesn’t cover, but in the end, I decided that I wasn’t going to get through this without help and went with what I had. It paid off.

2. I poured resources into myself.

It was like pouring a stream of sugar into a coffee cup or Will Ferrell pouring milk down his throat in Anchorman. I poured…

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Marcy Pedersen, MBA

Writer, process improvement guru, analyst, life-long learner, and obsessed about improving life and work processes. Connect at marcypedersen@icloud.com