Why are there always such misinformation about panic disorder?

Every time someone hears about my attacks, I get useless and banal “advice” on overcoming them. People with no real psychological education other than reading self help books and watching Dr. Phil. My favorite is “suck it up” and “be a man.” So anyone out there with panic disorder get this often or notice this? Does it bug you? How do you cope? It’s bad enough to have an illness that has you by the throat, but to endure constant ignorance is just salt in the wound.
10 years with panic disorder (agoraphobia on and off) Have been on Paxil, Lexapro, Celexa, Effexor, Xanax, Klonopin, Valium, etc.

Tested for bi-polar and manic depression..hade neither, but was given Depikote “just in case” and it reacted badly.

8 years for constant therapy, psychotherapy, CBT, meditation and relaxation techniques, feedback related techniques and very little progress with most. CBT is still current and on going.

Maybe it helps to know that it’s not just people with panic attacks who get the same advice. Addicts are told that it’s simply their choice to stop anything, even by someone like “Dr.” Laura on the radio. It truly is their choice whether to get help or not, but there’s nothing simple about that, and that’s usually not what the advice-givers mean. They mean to just stop the bad behavior, pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. They don’t understand the obstacles to that.

It’s the same thing with anxiety or mood disorders. People are told to “suck it up” and be normal, as if there isn’t already someone in our heads who guilt trips us this way.

I find it helpful to accept that human nature makes people both ignorant and arrogant in their opinions from politics to religion to anything personal. People are blind to what they don’t know. They don’t know just how much they don’t know. Our brain easily makes up stories to explain what we see, whether that’s about things or about people. If other people try to tell us differently – well, what do they know? If experts try to tell us differently – I’m not clear about that part of our culture that rejects experts so often. I’m not sure about all the details of why people give bad advice about mental health, but I’m sure it comes from human nature, whether one sees that as an illness everyone has or something to be overcome, like the ignorance and self-doubt of being a child.

I do continue to feel frustration when I see or hear advice that knows nothing about the condition at hand. It helps me to remind myself that people who do that don’t know better. Maybe they should, but they don’t, and they’re unlikely to change just because I say they should. All you can do is say what you know, and know that it’s too bad that not everyone sticks to just what they know. I think the truth of people’s experience does get out eventually. It just takes a long time because so many people already have decided to label others in simplistic ways. Such people will die off eventually. I hope I’m over my desire to dance on their grave when they actually do.

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http://healthdiv.com

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