“I kept my anxiety secret for years. Then I opened up at work—and everything changed”

"It was the first time I’d been able to just appreciate where I was. That course of SSRIs saved my life.”

This kicked off a vicious—but very common—cycle. Nicole would take a course of antidepressants, see symptoms improve, stop taking them, feel worse, start taking them again, repeat. 

She couldn’t accept that she was never ‘cured’—that a condition she felt so ashamed of might be part of her life forever.

Then a round of layoffs hit the university, and Nicole lost her job. She’d always felt grounded by work, so unemployment was particularly tough. 

“A lot of people with panic disorders are high-performers at work with perfectionist tendencies. I like the focus work gives me—I’ve always found joy in it.” 

But Nicole eventually found a new job—a dream job, in fact. She’d be working on the planning committee for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

Taking off the mask

Nicole’s career was skyrocketing. She suddenly had a wonderful opportunity and was surrounded by brilliant, highly-motivated people. 

But working on the most important sporting event in the world came with immense pressure—so the panic attacks intensified. She knew she couldn’t get away with calling in sick all the time: this job needed her A-game.

If she was going to stay employed, she had to do something she’d been avoiding all her career: tell her boss about the panic attacks. 

“So many people told me, don't tell your boss you're gonna get fired. But I was like, I have nothing to lose at this point—I don't care anymore.” 

Nicole scheduled a meeting with her manager and—finally—told her what was going on. 

She described how all-consuming the panic attacks were. And how she was starting a new course of SSRIs—which might cause some side effects for the first weeks. 

Nicole braced herself for the reaction. But her boss was incredibly supportive. As it turned out, her ex-husband had also suffered from panic attacks, so she understood how miserable they can be. 

“When I finally told my boss, I felt relief like you can't imagine.” 

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The conversation was nothing short of life-changing. 

Nicole found a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) program a few months later and was given time off to attend. CBT is a kind of talk therapy that helps you change the way you think and act, with the aim of changing how you feel. Sometimes, it’s done in groups—which was a perfect fit for Nicole. 

“I do really well in group therapy because I don’t feel like an outsider. Suddenly I had a group of cool people around me who felt like I did, and the panic wasn't a big deal.” 

Meeting so many other interesting, capable people who also suffered from panic attacks helped Nicole dismantle some of the shame she felt about having them herself. 

A few months later, her boss took her aside to wish her congratulations. She could tell from Nicole’s behaviour that she’d made a lot of progress—the transformation was great to see. 

Uncovering the root causes  

Now Nicole had some strategies to treat her panic attacks effectively, she wanted to understand the issue as fully as possible. CBT gave her some effective coping tools—but to understand the cause of the problem, she needed to dig into her own psychology. 

With the help of a mental health professional, Nicole pulled the pieces together. She’d had a loving childhood—but at the same time, she realised there had also been a lot of trauma and uncertainty. 

When Nicole was three, her mother almost died from a brain aneurysm. She was in and out of hospital for years. Nicole’s father struggled to cope and suffered terrible panic attacks himself—which led to an addiction to prescription tranquillisers. It was the 1970s: mental healthcare just didn’t exist. 

“My dad was given literally handfuls of tranquillisers. When I was young I saw him have a seizure at the table because he stopped taking these tranquillisers all of a sudden.” 

In the end, Nicole’s panic disorder was no mystery—her formative years were full of fear. As a child, she always had a sense of impending disaster, that something terrible might happen to mum or dad any day. And little wonder. It sometimes did. 

Healthy coping techniques, healthy discussions  

Nicole now has a complete toolkit of strategies to reduce the frequency and intensity of her panic attacks. 

When the panic starts to build, she uses mindfulness techniques to ground herself, including exercises like counting the colours she sees around the room, tapping, and alternate nostril breathing. 

She’s also trained herself to accept the panic when it comes.