Slaying the Fear Dragon: Hope for Anxiety and Panic Attacks

I was eight years old when Dragon Fear reared its ugly head in my little life. And ever since then, it has never left my camp though I fight it unwaveringly with every sword I’ve got. Maybe I’m not the only one…

Unfortunately, I experience more than one kind of anxiety, often all at once: general anxiety, panic attacks, and a phobia (only one, thank goodness, but that one is a million times too many already!). In case you aren’t sure what those feel like, here’s what it’s like for me:

1. General anxiety is probably the most common for me. It comes in the form of an unnerving foreboding feeling… something bad is going to happen… and suddenly I’m tense, hyper-sensitive and hyper-aware of everything going on around me. My mom looked out the window – is something wrong? I heard something snap – is the house on fire? My sister left the room – is she going to throw up? General anxiety does not come in waves, as my other kinds of anxiety do. It is constant and unsettling – and most of the time, I can’t even figure out what exactly is its cause.

2. The panic attacks scare me the most. They can strike at any given time, in any given place. My heart rate skyrockets, my breathing shallows, I become tense and cold, and all I can think about is the huge (in my mind) possibility of passing out or, worse, throwing up. Panic attacks are usually over fairly quickly, but when I’m in the middle of it, I cannot see beyond that moment.

3. I take that back. The phobia is the most common for me. I am not actually scared of many things in this world; spiders, snakes, bears, lions, heights, public speaking, angry people – all those are things I can do. But there’s one thing that the simple thought of it is enough to send me into a full-blown panic attack: throwing up. There was a time in my life when I carried a hospital-grade barf bag around in my purse and stored a bucket under my bed, just because of the phobia of throwing up.

Whenever anyone opens up the discussion about mental challenges, especially in Christian circles, it inevitably begs the question: Is this really a medical condition, or really a spiritual problem?

From my experience, I know it could go either way. For me, the general anxiety and panic attacks are really a medical issue; I know that I have a particular condition that causes anxiety, and when I catch up on certain vitamins and minerals, I immediately feel better. The phobia, however, I admit: It’s something that I need to trust Jesus with more. It’s not always this way for everyone; phobias can be medical conditions for some people, and maybe general anxiety and panic attacks are really spiritual problems for others.

So, a word of advice. If you learn that someone you know is struggling with anxiety, don’t jump to the conclusion that they just need to have more faith. Chances are, if you’re saying that, you have probably never experienced clinical anxiety – and therefore, have no idea what you’re even talking about. Usually, telling someone who is in the throes of panic to just have more faith just gets them down even lower.

And if you’re one of those people who deals with anxiety? Well, first make sure that you have all your medical conditions under control. Chances are, once you figure out the right things, your anxiety will be halfway gone anyway.

Dragon Fear still sometimes comes around, even when I’ve taken all my vitamins and done all the things. That’s when I know it’s a spiritual battle. Sometimes I go outside and sit by my altar and pray. Sometimes, just in time, I remember that anxiety is a cycle, and just as soon as the panic rises to the top of me, it will subside to the bottom of me, and I will be fine again. Sometimes Jesus reminds me that this is my thorn in the flesh – and that when I am weak, He is strong. It’s true; there’s something strangely special about focusing, tense; pulling my sword out of its sheath and whispering, over and over again, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind,” (2 Timothy 1:7).

It struck me one day, anxiety can sometimes even be a gift from God to me, to help me focus on what’s really important. (Which is, usually, falling in love with Jesus.) They say that a lot about stage fright, you know. And maybe general anxiety is not so much different.

And when I do feel beaten to my knees and all I can do is fall on my face, eyes closed – is it the dragon that keeps me there, or is it my awe of God’s grace to redeem even the most broken, the most battered and blessed of us all? During group worship one time, a friend started having what I would call a panic attack – but he called it the Holy Spirit, and knew that it was God impressing him to share his testimony. The symptoms of the dragon’s bondage of fear are, after all, pretty similar to the symptoms of being a prisoner of hope, filled with the fullness of God. (That’s the definition of a counterfeit, you know.)

One day I found the lyric of a song stuck in my head… which isn’t such a rare occurrence, but the realization that followed surprised me. The song says, in essence, that the rubble of our lives becomes an altar of hope, a testament to all that God will redeem. And isn’t that precisely what we’re supposed to do with every bit of our life that we don’t understand and don’t call beautiful? Hold it up to God. Build an altar with it. Offer up all your rubble. That is all you can do with it anyway – and then that altar is an altar of hope, saying that you believe: You will see God here. Every stone will sing of what He can redeem. It’s rubble – but the simple act of building it into an altar just might be enough to make it beautiful.