Short pieces on what panic disorder actually feels like — written from inside a 40-year career in emergency medicine. Not clinical guidance. Just honest reflection from someone who has been there.
Most descriptions I've read focus on the symptoms — racing heart, shortness of breath, dizziness. They're accurate, but they miss the thing that makes a panic attack unlike anything else: the absolute, unshakeable certainty that something is catastrophically wrong. Here's what it felt like from the inside.
The relationship between stress, sleep, and the timing of panic attacks — and why the body sometimes picks the moments when you can least afford it.
Forty years of trial and error, from the strategies that made things worse to the ones that eventually made a difference. Including EMDR.
Everyone gets anxious. Not everyone has panic disorder. Here's how I'd explain the distinction — as both a physician and a patient.
The calculus of disclosure. Who to tell, when, and what I learned from the times I stayed silent when I shouldn't have.
I was skeptical. I was also, at 43, finally ready to try something different. A personal account of EMDR therapy and why it worked when other things hadn't.
Scott Elberger practiced emergency medicine on Long Island for over forty years while privately managing panic disorder. Fear Itself is his memoir. This blog is an extension of that story — written for anyone who recognizes themselves in it.