Health Care For All

Anxiety disorders are among the most common disorders found in today’s society. Problems such as panic disorder have often been the topic of many books, like “Perfectly Panic Free”, which attempt to explain what it is and how it can be helped. Despite the availability of helpful text, however, many people are still left confused over what is happening to them. Panic and phobia are two the most misconstrued types of anxiety disorders because not many people who are not psychologists or psychiatrists have been sufficiently trained to diagnose and understand the exact difference between the two. People often wonder: Does panic cause phobia or is it the other way around? Let us take a closer look at what at panic and phobia.

What is Panic Disorder?

People with panic disorder truly believe that they are physically ill or that they are at risk of dying because of what they feel during an attack. Sometimes, they believe that what they are feeling is because they have a deadly undiagnosed sickness. Many of the felt symptoms will have a corresponding sickness feared by the person who has panic disorder. For example, a severe headache is construed as a brain tumor, muscle spasms are interpreted as muscular dystrophy and an erratic heartbeat is due to an incurable heart disease.

The point is that people with panic disorder have fears of sickness or medical diseases triggered by the first attack, which they believe can only be explained by the existence of a fatal sickness. Although this can be disputed by a thorough and complete checkup, a person with panic disorder will often times be in a hospital emergency room or their doctor’s clinic because they cannot acknowledge that what they are experiencing is only anxiety and that there is nothing physically or medically wrong with them.

Due to the frequency and diversity of panic attacks, the person usually starts to feel restricted and unsafe anywhere he goes and limits himself to a place where he feels safe or his “safety zone”. Due to this fear and self imposed limitations the person goes on to having agoraphobia.

What is Phobia?

Social phobia, also known as social anxiety disorder happens when a person feels he/she is the center of attention in a social situation. A person with social phobia becomes anxious when they are put into a situation wherein they have to interrelate with other people or talk with strangers. The socially anxious person has fears of being embarrassed, criticized, humiliated, demeaned, mocked, laughed at, ridiculed or singled out in a social situation. They usually stay away from any kind of public presentation, office party or outing and from any situation wherein they will have to interact with different people whether they are complete strangers or not.

A person with social phobia anticipates and dreads being in front of people and being laughed at or of making a mistake. So they become shy and quiet, loners or introvert. They tend to stick to themselves and their fear makes them isolate themselves. Much to the detriment of their career and social life. Sometimes this fear and isolation makes them escape from everything by going into substance abuse such as alcohol and drugs which make them forget their fears.

The Differences between Panic and Phobia

People with panic disorder are very social and enjoy the company of people and they fear their attacks more than the people they socialize with. This is unlike people with social phobia who tend to shy away from interacting with people. People with social phobia do not develop agoraphobia or the fear of panic attacks because they do not fear panicking in a social situation.

Panic disorder can cause specific phobias. However, it is unlikely that social phobia can cause panic disorder.