SS 005 My Story of Panic Attacks

Standing Stronger podcast episode numeral five. That's right. It keeps getting better. Welcome back to the Standing Stronger podcast. My name is Shannon. And I'm Shannon. Oh, we have the same names. Imagine that. I think they've caught on. We're in episode five now. They haven't caught on. Well, hey, someone's new. That's right. They're like, hey, they got the same name. We have the same name. Yes. Big Shannon, little Shannon. Whatever you want to call us. You just go right ahead and call us that. So we have an exciting episode today. Today we're going to be getting in to some cool stuff. Yeah.

I don't know if you could call it cool, but another one of my struggles that I have struggled with, and that's panic attacks, anxiety, and I think it's called agoraphobia. Agoraphobia. I don't know how you pronounce it, but basically that's your fear of leaving and going into public places and all that good stuff. So that's kind of what we're going to be getting into today. And I'm going to share with you not only that story, but also how I was able to overcome those challenges and actually pretty much put that all the way behind me. And how I could not understand it whatsoever. Yeah. When it comes to panic attacks and anxiety, she had zero sympathy for me. I had zero understanding. Yeah.

She just did not know. But before we get into that, man, Shannon and I were talking today, and oh, that was our beautiful daughter again. If you did not hear her, she is with us, and she will chime in every once in a while. But we were talking today, and we were just talking about how blessed we actually are and how amazing this has been so far. It's just five podcasts in, and already so many people contacting us telling us, you know, this is really helping. This is making a difference. You know, people leaving reviews on the podcast. It's just, we're blessed.

Yeah, and I just want to say thank you to everybody that is on Facebook and not only likes our episodes but actually shares it because obviously we all have different followings. We don't know everybody. You don't know everybody. But you might know someone that, you know, in all reality, we're not all really friends with everybody we're friends with on Facebook. Right. I don't even know some of the people that are on my Facebook. They've met me through you or thought I was you, and they ended up on my Facebook. But you know what? They just might click that link one day, and that might help them. It might save them. It might be that little bit of encouragement that they need in that day.

So we just encourage you to share those links on Facebook. Again, you know, you never know who it's going to help, and thank you for those that are already doing that. And most people that are suffering with depression, panic, anxiety, you would never know because we hide it so well. People that knew me, you know, my closest friends had no idea what was going on. So you never know. So if you hit that share button, if you hit the like button, it really helps out, and you never know. You might be helping someone that needs a little bit of encouragement.

So we were talking this morning about how getting up last night, going to bed, and, you know, every night for the last, you know, month, it's like I go to bed, and I cannot wait to wake up. It's one of those things where you remember when you were a kid and you just hated going to sleep because the day had to end, and you couldn't wait to get up. And as soon as you got up, bam, you were up and out the door ready to rock and roll because there was so much life. There was so much to do. There was so much to get done. You were just excited. And that's how I've been. It's like I'm an 8-year-old kid again, renewed, and I just cannot wait to get up and do the daily podcast.

Because if you did not know, we have Standing Stronger, which is now going to become a biweekly podcast here in the next couple weeks, which is exciting. We'll announce that soon. And we have Standing Stronger Daily, which is our daily podcast. So it's like, man, I can't wait to get up and start working on all of this. And it's like Shannon was saying, you know, like when they talk about when Jesus said, you know, we should be more like children. It's Matthew 18, 2 through 4, he says, He called a little child to him and placed the child among them. And he said, Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Therefore, whoever takes up the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. You know, we all need to remember that. As we grow older, as we get more responsibility, those burdens of everything we have to do, they start weighing on us. And the burden of our past, the past decisions we've made, the past mistakes we've made, everything weighs on us. And it keeps us from that excitement that we used to have as children. So that's one of the other reasons why we're doing this. Man, just get that excitement back. Yeah, I agree. You know, I feel the same way.

I mean, I'm up a little bit more than you in the night, sometimes feeding Mackenzie or, you know, and my brain will just start going. And so many ideas are the Lord just lay something on my heart. And I just can't quit talking to him, you know, and I agree. I mean, we're just in a really good place right now. It takes a lot to get there. I mean, we worked really hard, and I'm glad we are where we are. But, you know, now that we are, we get to help those who aren't. That's right. And we've dedicated ourselves to what we're calling helping the helpless or bringing hope, not helping the helpless. Where did I get that from? I don't know.

Bringing hope to the hopeless because when I was at my worst, when I was ready to end it all, it wasn't because I didn't want to live. It's because I did not see a light at the end of the tunnel. I had lost all hope. So that's what this is about is bringing that hope back and letting you know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, that there is something to live for, and that you are an amazing person. You're built to do great things. You're built in an amazing image of God, so you are going to do great things. You just got to decide to do those. So that's what it's all about. Yeah, Mackenzie's not hearing it. She's like, I'm not feeling it, Daddy. I am not feeling it.

I think she wants to tell her story. Yeah, so we'll take a break, and we'll be right back once we get her settled down. We brought out the secret weapon once again, and that is the rocker. If you don't have a rocker and you have a baby, go get one. It's this little machine that rocks it and has a carousel that goes around with little kittens on it, and right now she's looking at it like this is amazing. Thank you, Mommy and Daddy. This is great. Yeah, she is excited right now about the little, oh, wait, there's bun. Oh, there's different stuff. It's a bunny, it's a kitty, and a dove that's going around. Are you as excited as she is? Yeah, I know. I can't stop looking at it.

Okay, back to the show. Back to the show. All right, so. We'll talk about ADHD another day. Right, because along with my multiple other crazinesses, we got a little bit of that going on too. So, well, the panic attacks and anxiety. First, I think we should start with the story of my very first panic attack. What do you think? It is a good one. All right, so my first panic attack happened, what was it? It was probably November or so. I believe it was right after Thanksgiving because I was in Jacksonville still with my family. November of 2007, right? Yeah, November of 2007, around that area. And she was in Jacksonville. That's right, because I had come home after Thanksgiving.

That's exactly right. She was in Jacksonville. I came home, which we live down near Tampa. And so I'm at home by myself, and I'm sitting there. And at the time, I was still a smoker as well. I was smoking cigarettes, and I'm like, man, you know, I really can't breathe. I felt like I couldn't breathe. And I was sitting in the living room at the time, so I'm like. I'm glad you clarified what you were smoking. Right. Sorry. Sorry, I didn't mean to. Smoking cigarettes. Smoking cigarettes. Sorry, go ahead. So I go outside. Actually, I can't breathe. So I'm inside. I'm not smoking yet. And I'm like, man, I can't breathe. So I do the sensible thing. I go outside. I'm like, I need a cigarette.

So I go outside, and I smoke a cigarette. And as I'm smoking the cigarette, I'm like, whoa, I'm getting really lightheaded. My hands are getting clammy. I'm short of breath. It feels like I'm having a heart attack. I'm like, what in the heck is going on? I go in, and I sit down. It feels like I'm passing out. My heart is pounding through my chest. I mean, at this point, I think, oh, my gosh, I'm having a heart attack, the door and I open the door because I'm like, I gotta unlock it by the time they get here, I'm gonna be dead on the floor so they need to do CPR as fast as possible. And I go and I sit down. So the guy comes in and he's like, sir, what's going on?

I tell him what's going on, how it's happening. He's like, he does nothing. He looks at me and says, have you had anything, you know, traumatic happen in the last, you know, couple weeks or so? And I'm like, yeah, my dad just died about three weeks ago or two months ago, but I'm dying now. And he looks at me, he's like, you're not dying, son. You're having a panic attack. I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm dying. I'm dying. I know it. So they put me on the stretcher and haul me in into the back of the ambulance. So I grab my cell phone out of my pocket and with my knuckles, because my hands are all crinkled up and everything, I dial my wife's phone number and my wife gets on the phone.

No, no, no, I did not answer. No, that's right. Who answered the phone? The voicemail. Oh yeah, the voicemail. She got the voicemail and I left her a message. I'm like, babe, I just want to let you know that I love you because I'm dying. I'm dying. I'm never going to talk to you again. And what, did you call me back? Yeah, it was a great message at like 2.25 in the morning, you know, and that was the one thing that I get to hear of I'm dying. I have no idea what's going on. Right. So she calls me back and I'm like, baby, you got to get here fast because I'm dying. And the guy's in the background. He's like, sir, you are not dying. Ma'am, he's not dying. And I'm like, I'm dying, babe.

It's bad. And so I get to the hospital and they do what I think the best thing they possibly could have done for me at that point is they put me in a wheelchair and they wheel me into the waiting room. So I'm in the waiting room. And at this time, my stomach's cramping now. I'm in like a ball in this wheelchair. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm dying. So I pull out my phone and I dial 911. They're like, hello, sir. What's your emergency? I'm like, I'm dying. They're like, sir, where are you? I'm like, I'm in the waiting room. Of the hospital. Yeah. The lady goes, sir, you cannot call 911 while you're in the hospital. I'm like, nobody's helping me and I'm dying. So my wife is driving.

No, I'm not driving. She's not driving because she can't drive at this point because of her brain surgery and seizure. So her dad and brother, her dad and brother get up and drive her three hours. 2.30 in the morning. Three hours to Spring Hills, where we live, down by Tampa. And they're pulling into the emergency room parking lot and I'm walking out of the emergency room. She's like, what is going on? I'm like, well, I guess I had a panic attack. She's like, what's wrong? I'm like, nothing, I feel fine now. What they did is they loaded me up with volume. Is it called volume? Volume. Volume, whatever it is. They loaded me up with volume and all of a sudden I was fine.

So all of this happened. I could have swore I was dying. They finally get me in there. They give me volume. I calm down. Everything's good. And from that moment on, man, my life took a crazy, crazy ride. Now I had dealt with depression and anxiety and what I thought... Well, you hadn't dealt with it. I hadn't dealt with it. I lived with it. And I never really had a panic attack though before. So that drove me... Oh, man, that drove me over the edge. It was no good from there. Yeah, I think it kind of drove me over the edge at that point too. For me, not having the compassion that a lot of people have, getting up at 2.30 in the morning with a... How old was Jordan? Not two?

Yeah, he was barely two. Just two years old. Just turned two. Driving... And I wasn't the one driving. My dad and brother swapped out. Driving all the way there, scared out of my mind because now I'm losing my husband. And to see him just walking out of the emergency room, we're like, what? I'm like, yeah, I'm good. Now anybody that knows my husband knows that there can be some drama sometimes. I do not have drama. There can be a little dramatic scene sometimes. Sometimes. I have no clue what you're talking about. Sometimes. So with that being said, I was like, are you kidding me right now? I was not a happy camper.

So for me, not knowing what panic attacks were, not understanding it, it was just, I don't know what's going on with him, but he needs to get his stuff together and let's move forward. Yeah, and the crazy thing, from that point on, I would have three to as many as ten panic attacks a day. I mean, it was bad. One time, we tried to go out to eat. And we were in the restaurant. We were waiting to be seated. Were we waiting to be seated? Yeah, we were waiting to be seated. So we didn't even get into the restaurant. I'm like, I got to go. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I'm having a heart attack. That was my thing. Here's kind of a rundown of how my panic attacks would come on.

First, I would get clammy hands, and I would start getting a little bit lightheaded, and it would feel like I was getting dizzy. And from there, my chest would tighten up, and it would feel like I couldn't breathe, and my heart would start pounding. My heart would race and just go, go, go, go, go, go. Then I would start hyperventilating, and once I started hyperventilating, I would cramp up real bad. It would start with my hands, and then my stomach, and my legs, and the muscles in my arms, and everything else, and it would pretty much just debilitate me. So we're at the restaurant, and I'm like, I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I need to go outside and smoke a cigarette.

Yeah, that was always the solution. It's not help. You cannot breathe. If you can't breathe, why are you going to smoke a cigarette? It's the only thing that helps me. You know, when we go to church, I couldn't go to church. There was a point where I didn't leave my house for almost 30 days straight, and I was still, at that point, I was building my business. My business was pretty much supporting us. However, I was still at a job. So I didn't go to work, and I did outside sales. So I didn't go to work for almost a month straight. I would write orders from home and, you know, crazy stuff. Well, and just a little bit of background, too.

I mean, now knowing, you know, in 2007, in March of 2007, I had fallen down with my first grandma seizure ever and had to have brain surgery, and that was a very traumatic time, you know, because then, you know, we'll tell that story another time, but you pretty much had to become husband, dad, mom, all these things in one person. And at the same time, your dad was sick and was dying. And so then you took on the role of taking care of your mom and your sister. So now you had me, your son, your mom, and your sister.

They didn't necessarily need to be taken care of, but that was the role you took on because obviously they're your family and your dad was sick, and, you know, you wanted to do everything to help them. And then in September, your dad unfortunately had passed away. And now looking back on it and understanding that all of that and all these emotions and all these things that were never dealt with started to consume you. You know, all that stuff just kept getting buried because you had to just keep going. And I don't know if it was adrenaline that kept me going every day or what it was, but you got through what you needed to get through, and then the breakdown happened. Right.

And to my understanding, that's a lot of times when I've talked to other people that have panic attacks, you know, that something has happened, and it might not have happened right then, but it's something that's not dealt with, and then it just resonates and it just sits on you and, you know, you just keep going with it. I mean, am I right on that? Oh, yeah. I mean, and I was dealing with my past from, you know, the child abuse and, well, not abuse from my dad or anything like that, but, you know, sexual abuse from outside of the family. And I was dealing with all that stuff on top of everything else.

I never told anyone about what happened when I was a kid, and, you know, I was depressed from that, and, you know, I mean, man, it was a lot. And, you know, at the time, I looked at it like this is stop making excuses, suck it up and drive on, soldier. You know, don't be a little girl. Get up and take care of your family. And I did that for a long ever. That's okay because now I've gotten it off my chest so I can say it and I'm not ashamed of it anymore. When I say I'm embarrassed of it, I'm not embarrassed of it anymore. My subconscious tries to tell me that it's embarrassing, but it's not. It's simply something that I dealt with that I've now overcame.

When I was going through it, it is something that I was struggling with and I was fighting to overcome. We've learned it's definitely you got to get it off your chest. You can't hold all of that in. Even when you get it off your chest, you're still going to struggle with it. Just saying it one time doesn't fix it all. Like I said before, everybody's got a story. Everybody's got a past. You know what? Everybody has a future. It's very important to change that path if you're dealing with the anxiety and depression and panic attacks. Right now, if you're living it, you know it's no way to continue to live. You want to change that path and move forward in a positive direction. What do you say?

You will not let it define who you are? It's not going to define me. It might be something I'm struggling with, but it's not going to define me. My willing to overcome is what's going to define me. My willing to fight through this is what's going to define me. I'm not going to let it beat me. I even had that attitude when I was going through it. It just took me a while to get everything lined up. Like I said, there for a while, I didn't leave the house. I almost lost my job. I refused to go into public places because as soon as I would get into public, I would freak. I would just freak out. I thought I was dying.

Whenever these would happen, I would be like, babe, take my blood pressure because obviously if my blood pressure is okay, I'm not dying is my thought. I had gone through EMT school. I had a blood pressure cuff and all that stuff. I'm like, babe, take my blood pressure. For a while, she would take it. Then she got fed up and she's like, I am not taking your blood pressure, you crazy fool. Get up and stop being a girl. I think that was said at one point. You did say that. You're like, get up off the couch and quit being a girl. I'm like, I'm dying. Don't tell this to me. I don't think it really went like that. There was a lot of yelling at that time.

You don't understand what I'm going through. I'd scream, I don't know what you're going through. Again, if you're not going through it and you've never gone through it, you've never been around it, it was completely new for me too. I'm the first one to admit that I do not have the compassion that a lot of people have. I'm just not built that way. You were there in the right ways. The only thing I can compare it to is because I did have a seizure disorder, in the sense of what you went through, I can say the same thing. People that have seizures, after my brain surgery, having the petite mal seizures, you remember that. You're there. You remember it. You just can't control it.

That's for me, I think, after learning that end of it, kind of saying, okay, well, I can compare the two. I still had a problem because for me, I couldn't control that, but I felt like you could control the panic attacks. Basically, what's causing the panic attack is this, is you have a flight or flight mechanism in your body. A what? A fight or flight mechanism in your body. When that fight or flight mechanism activates, it shoots your body full of adrenaline and everything you need, gets your heart pumping. In extreme cases, it draws oxygen away from your huge muscles and limits it to your vital organs to keep you alive in that fight or flight instance.

What's happening is you're getting this huge burst of adrenaline. That's what you're feeling. You're feeling that your hands are sweaty, your heart's pumping. Those are the things that's going on. How did I overcome the panic and the anxiety and everything of that nature? Now, the anxiety, I still deal with. The panic attacks, I can stop them instantly if one starts coming. I can get rid of it 99% of the time. Now, first thing I want to talk about is what I call the cycle of fear, and that's what panic is from my experience. I've talked to psychologists about this, and the ones I've talked to have agreed. Basically, you get in this fear cycle.

What happens is you have your first panic attack. You have anxiety, you have your first panic attack, and then boom, you know that feeling. You know what it feels like to have that panic. You know how scary it is. Then you start to worry, not about other things. You start to worry, well, what if I'm going to have another panic attack? You start getting into situations that would normally make you anxious, and now all of a sudden that anxiety is amplified because now not only are you scared of that situation, but you're terrified that you're going to die from a panic attack. As far as I know, no one has ever, ever died of a panic attack. Hasn't happened. You're not going to die from it.

However, you're terrified. I'm going to die if I go into this situation. You're in this cycle of fear. Now you have a panic attack, and you're fearful of the next panic attack, which brings on the next panic attack. You're in this huge cycle now. Now you got to break that cycle. You got to get out of that cycle of fear, as I call it. How do you do that? This is what I've done. I'm going to tell you the story of the first time I beat one of my panic attacks. Now Shannon has an amazing family, a beautiful family, and she would go up there and visit all the time. Well, I was working really hard and supporting the family, and I couldn't go.

What would happen is I would drive her halfway, her brother, sister, mom, or dad would pick her and Jordan up, and they would go to Jacksonville, and I would stay home and work and do whatever I had to do. Well, in the midst of all of this, I was terrified, absolutely terrified to stay by myself because I thought if I was by myself and I had one of my panic attacks and I was dying, no one would be there to help me. So I'm talking to Shannon, and she's packing up everything. She's like, all right, I'm going and everything else, and I'm like, all right, well, I'm going to not stay at the house, I'm going to stay at my mom's house. You know, I'm going to stay the night with her.

And she's like, why? And I'm like, I can't do it, you know, I just, I can't, what happens if I have a panic attack? What happens if I need help? You know, and I'll never forget it because this led me on the path of getting over the panic attacks. I'll never forget it. She gave me a look and this look, and she didn't say this, I don't know if that's what she meant, but the way I took it, it was a look of disgust. Like, really, you're going to go stay the night with your mommy? You're going to go stay the night with your mommy, you pitiful little child. You know, and like I said, she didn't say this to me. I just, I could see it in her face, you know, something, and that's what I read from it.

And I was like, I don't want my wife to look at me like that. Like I'm this injured little doe, you know, that's just pitiful and weak. And I said, screw it. I'm going to go home and I'm going to do what I got to do. I'm going to, I'm going to fight through the panic attack. Let it come, you know, let it come. And sure enough, that night I'm laying in our bed and the panic comes, you know, and I feel it and everything's overwhelming me. And, you know, the first thing I did is I start repeating scripture to myself. And I always get the numbers wrong because of my dyslexia, but it's, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything through prayer and petition, submit your request to God.

And, you know, I said, God, just, I know it's coming. Just take it away. And I said, you know what? I'm going to stand up. But I'm not going to let this beat me anymore. I'm not going to have it. And I'm laying in my bed and I stand up on top of my bed and I start screaming. I'm like, bring it! Do whatever you have to do to me. I don't care what happens. I don't care if I die right now. I am not submitting to you anymore. And man, I'll tell you right now, it's crazy. It's like, it makes me want to cry right now. Because I'm standing there screaming at the top of my lungs. And then I realize, I'm okay. I'm okay. And from that moment I said, I can beat it. I can beat this thing.

And from that moment on, whenever it would come, I took these steps and I'm going to walk you through it. Number one, I understood the cycle of fear. I knew what was coming. I knew that my fear is what perpetrated, is that the right word? My fear is what led me to the next panic attack. So I took that understanding and I said, okay, let me recognize this for what it is and what it's not. Let me recognize this and realize that I'm not dying. This is a panic attack. And like I said, I did research. People don't die from panic attacks. They don't do it. So what am I scared of? There's no reason to be scared. And then I said, you know what? I expect this to happen. Okay.

You want the panic to come? Expect it to happen. If you're scared of bridges, you're going over a bridge, okay, here comes that bridge. Yep, the hands are getting sweaty. I'm starting to get a little bit dizzy. Yep, that's the next one. I bet now it's going to be like I can't breathe. Yep, can't breathe. I knew it. Here comes the heart rate. Yep, there it is. You expect it. You know what's coming. You know it's there. And then when it comes, you stand up to it. You say, yep, I knew you were here. However, you're not going to beat me. You're not going to win. I am in control of this moment right now. You are not in control of me. I am in control of me. And you stand up to it.

And it's not easy to get there. But once you get to that point, you can overcome that panic attack. You can prevent that panic attack to happen. And the way I kind of relate it is have you ever had someone with hiccups, babe? You know, you got the hiccups. Yeah. And I'm actually able to overcome hiccups the same way I overcome panic attacks. Tell me if it's true or if it's false. Yeah, it's true, and it's funny because he tries to teach the baby how to do it. She hasn't learned yet. Our baby gets the hiccups. I'm like, all right, babe, let me tell you, little pretty girl, I'll tell you exactly how to do it. She doesn't listen.

However, but listen, if you have the hiccups, you do the same thing. The hiccups go away. But no, what I relate it to is this, is have you ever had someone, you had the hiccups, you're trying to get rid of it, they scare you, it doesn't work. You know, they say put the spoon in it, it doesn't work. And then they pull out a $100 bill, and they say, you hiccup right now, this second, I will hand you that $100 bill. And all of a sudden, you can't hiccup. That's right, because you're trying to force it. You know, it's like just with panic attacks, it's the same way. If you try to force that panic attack onto yourself, guess what? That panic attack is not coming.

And the way, I guess the best way to put it is like this. If you want to overcome your panic, put yourself into places where you usually panic and dare it to come. Yeah. I mean, I can remember being, we couldn't go anywhere. You know, I couldn't drive. I couldn't go out and celebrate people's birthdays with them or, you know, go wherever everybody else was going to be because you couldn't handle the social anxiety, you know, and as difficult as that was, you know. I can remember, though, you know, you say, like, talking yourself through it. You would remove yourself when those feelings started coming on and literally talk your way through it. I can remember that.

And pretty much like meditation, you know, and just the breathing, you know, would overcome. You would have to sit there and close your eyes, you know, whatever you were saying in your own head or, you know, whatever to get through it. But I can remember removing yourself from the situation, putting yourself in a new area, and almost like clarity to come over you. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes sense. And really, that's exactly what I would do is I would go to the place where I was basically daring myself to overcome the panic attacks, daring myself to overcome or for those panic attacks to come.

All right, so we had to take a quick pause there because my son just got home from church with my mom and her husband. So the point of all of this is simply this, is that you can overcome the panic attack. The panic attack can be controlled by you if you learn how to overcome that panic attack. And the biggest thing you need to understand is the cycle of fear and that if you can break that cycle, if you can get out of that cycle where you're perpetually, you know, pulling yourself into another panic attack, you can start to move in a direction to where you can overcome it.

So that realization right there is going to help you, realizing that your next panic attack is usually fueled by the last panic attack and the fear of the next panic attack. So just real quick, I want to recap those steps that I took. Number one, I understood the fear cycle. Number two, I recognized what the panic attack was and what it was not. What it was was simply a chemical thing. I don't know the word. A chemical process. There you go. Happening inside of my body. It was not me dying. Number two is I expected it to happen any time I got into a situation where I would normally have a panic attack, and I dared it to come. Therefore, I expected it to happen. I dared it to come.

The fear of it actually coming never came, so it broke that cycle. And then when it would come, I would stand up to it. I would stand up to it and realize and dare that next symptom. All right, you got me there. Let's see if you're going to get me short of breath. Let's see if you're going to get my heart pounding. All right, we're there. Let's see if the next symptom is going to happen. And I dared it to come. So that's what I use. And basically what I do is I step away, and I get inside of myself, and I just allow myself to consume myself with that panic. I consume myself with that fear, and I remove myself from pretty much everything.

Go into myself and just beg my body, bring on the next symptom because I know it's coming, and you're not going to hurt me. So there we go. That's how I overcome it. That's how you can overcome it. Well, I guess I can't say you can do it because I'm not a doctor or anything, but that's how I did it. And you can try it out. Let me know how it works. Yeah, I think for sure understanding that fear and where it comes from is obviously the first step. And the person that's there with you, you're going through it with that person, just know that, again, this is something, this is their battle. You're there to help.

And I can't even give you the words on how to help because everybody's got a different anxiety level. Everybody's got a different, you know, not everybody's panic attacks come exactly the same or, you know, from the same issues. But we know that you can overcome your fear. Yeah, so let's do this. I'm going to smash this button right here. Oh, yeah, we got some cool music going. So we got cool music going. I'm going to talk about something real quick. We have a contest that we're going to do, and we're going to do it for the next 60 days. And we're going to give away five free Standing Stronger t-shirts. What do you need to do to enter that contest?

Well, all you need to do is go to standingstronger.com forward slash contest. That's standingstronger.com forward slash contest. And what you need to do once you get there is go to iTunes, subscribe to the iTunes, leave a star rating, and write a review. Now, we would love for you to give us five stars. Five stars would really help us out. We would love for you to go there and write a review that just sings our praises. That would help us out more than you could know, helping us achieve our goal. Because what we're trying to do is we're trying to get to the top of iTunes. And the way we're doing that is letting other people know that we're a good show.

Now, if you think we deserve four stars or three stars or two stars or one star, you know, give it to us. We want those reviews. We want those ratings. But I'm asking you, please, if you can give us five stars and a great review, please do that. So subscribe. Give us so many stars you think we deserve. Write a review. You'll be entered into that contest. And then we're going to draw five names out of a hat and give... Live on the air. Yeah, live Same email address that you used when you registered with iTunes and we will send you out that free shirt. Now, one other thing I want to mention is we have a sponsor. We do? We do. We have a sponsor. And that sponsor is you. Woohoo!

That's right, the listener. You guys make this show happen. So if it wasn't for you, we could not do this. And if you would like to support the show, go to standingstronger.com forward slash support. Or just go to Standing Stronger and you can hit the support button. And that's going to take you to a place called Patreon. And at Patreon, you can become a patron of ours. And anywhere from three bucks a month all the way up to a hundred bucks a month, whatever you feel you could spare to help us keep doing this to help other people. So that is that. Yeah, and just thank you to those that are already supporting us. That is amazing. We are very, very thankful for that.

Like you said, it takes money to run our show. So, you know, we want to keep doing it and we know from the feedback we've already received that we're touching a lot of people and we're very thankful for those supporters already. And just know when you do put in your information, it does remind you, but your card will not be charged until when? The beginning of every month. There you go. Yeah. All right, guys. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being a part of this show. What we want to do real quick is what we do all the time. And we are going to end with a prayer and then we'll get out of here. So, dealer, we just thank you for this day and all the blessings you've given us.

We thank you for this show and the resources that you've given us to produce this show. We just ask, Lord, that if there's anyone out there struggling, anyone out there hurting, that you wrap your arms around them. You already are wrapping your arms around them. I pray that they realize that they're not standing there alone, that your everlasting grace is right there with them. And, you know, in the times that are the hardest, when they think they're alone, they're not alone. And not only are you walking beside them, but you are carrying them. Lord, we just pray for those that are too scared to come out and let people know that they're struggling.

We pray that you give them strength, that they know, that they can talk to someone, that they can get help. And we pray that they take the first step to go out there and get that help. We love you, Lord, and it's in your name we pray. Amen. All right, theme song time. Theme song time. That's right. Have a fantastic day and hopefully we'll see you on the beaches of the world. Walk through life. Every day is a new beginning. Shine your light. It's your day and the world is waiting. Move along to the song singing in your soul. Feel the beat, clap your hands, let it take control. All you need, all you want, are you ready to find your way? Cause every day is a new day.

And everything's going your way. And you want to make it last forever. We'll keep it together cause it keeps getting better.