I Had an Anxiety Attack at Work

It happened at the most mundane moment – during our team meeting, in a conference room.

An intense pressure gripped my chest and started building. It caught my breath; it felt like a vise inside, squeezing and pressing down.

My hands got clammy and I started to wonder, “what’s happening to me?”

When my director received a call on his work phone and stepped out of the room I thought, “if I get up now and leave it won’t be too disruptive.” But when I stood up, the pain in my chest felt unbearable and I blurted out, “I think I’m having a heart attack.”

Colleagues rushed into action. Someone called security and the paramedics, and one of my direct reports ushered me into an empty office. Not long after, a rush of rescue personnel came in. They asked me a lot of questions and hooked up leads and monitors and while the pain started to subside a bit, I felt extremely light-headed, and my blood pressure was 175 over 120-something.

The medic told me that aside from my blood pressure, my heart numbers were good but for definitive answers, I should go to the hospital. It could be several things including anxiety – a panic attack. “What?!” I thought. I agreed to go.

I’ve struggled with anxiety for a long time. I’ve had attacks with hyperventilating, clammy hands, racing heart and insomnia, and more extreme moments feeling as if I’m about to die when my plane hits turbulence – but that’s different. This was not a reactive response from my mind. The feeling in my chest came on with seemingly no trigger or reason.

The paramedics took me to the hospital, administered an IV line and gave me aspirin to chew on the way. I suddenly felt embarrassed, wondering if all of this was for “nothing” as I considered the idea of having an anxiety attack.

In the ER, my numbers were good. My blood pressure went down. A chest X-ray showed my lungs and heart were also well. It's likely anxiety, the doctor said. But at the urging of my worried husband, I agreed to a full cardiac workup.

So, I had an echocardiogram.

Another EKG.

A CT scan. Another CT scan.

A nuclear stress test.

After hours of tests, poking and prodding, I learned my heart health is good, minus high cholesterol.

And for the third time that day, medical professionals told me what happened to me was most likely anxiety. That an anxiety/panic attack mimics a heart attack.

I felt shocked, and admittedly, embarrassed and a bit ashamed.

I’d recently been through a lot of organizational changes at work that had a direct impact on my role. Although I earned a promotion a few months after the changes were announced, I struggled through honest periods of fear for my career and the financial security of my family. The year before, I moved to Orlando from southern New Jersey for my opportunity at Lockheed Martin, and my husband still didn’t have a full-time job. He is a real estate agent, and as many who self-start in this sales arena, things are slow to start.

The new, foreign concept of being the primary - and most times sole - breadwinner in my family stressed me out. I put on myself a burden of being everything to everyone in my family.

We moved 1,000 miles away from our friends and family; we didn’t have the access to grandparents who could give us a free day or night off to take a break from parenting our pre-K and toddler daughters.

I realized that everything I’d experienced and managed over the last few months weighed me down much more than I imagined.

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health concern in America, affecting more than 40 million adults according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

Today I want to say that shamelessly, I am one of 40 million adults. And I’m telling you this because you are not alone.

Sure, there’s a message here about heart health: Don’t mess around with chest pain. I don’t regret the care I received and sought, even if the bills that rolled in could incite another heart scare (and due to my anxiety, give me periods of heart racing and worry)! I truly felt I might’ve been having a heart attack and I’m proud and grateful my team jumped into action and got me care so quickly.

But the true lesson here is about self-care and mental health: Don’t ignore how much stress and anxiety you may feel or take on and take care of yourself because it's part of how you take care of others.

And most of all – don’t be ashamed. When I came back to work, so many wonderful colleagues asked me how I felt, and I was honest. I had an anxiety attack, I told them. That honesty connected me to others with anxiety, and it opened the opportunity for me to help. Inside the office and out, I have referred many people to a book that helped me following the hospital called "Rewire Your Anxious Brain. How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic & Worry" by Catherine M. Pittman, PhD and Elizabeth M. Karle, MLIS. (I listened to it on Audible first, but purchased a paperback copy on Amazon later because I wanted to have the exercises easily at hand).

You are not alone. I am a woman. I am a leader. I am a mother. A wife. A daughter. A friend. And I have a mental health disorder.

Anxiety is part of who I am, but it doesn’t define me. I am not alone.