The Pill That Stays After the Panic Ends

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The first time I had a panic attack, I thought I was dying.

Not in a poetic sense. Literally.

There was vomiting. Diarrhea. Trembling. Dizziness so intense I couldn’t stand.

I remember lying on the cold bathroom floor of a hotel room in China, soaked in sweat, barely conscious, my heart beating like a war drum in my chest. I was alone. On a business trip. And I was terrified.

Black and white illustration, charcoal style, a man curled up on the bathroom floor in the dark

It wasn’t food poisoning. I knew that.

It wasn’t a virus.

It was something else—something deeper. Something I couldn’t explain.

All night I lay there in a kind of chaos I didn’t yet have a name for. And I remember thinking, with a kind

of horrifying clarity:

If someone gave me poison right now to make this stop, I’d drink it.

That’s what a panic attack can do.

It takes over your entire system.

It convinces you that death might be better than whatever is happening inside your body.

I’m a combat veteran. I’ve been in life-threatening situations. I’ve seen death,

But nothing prepared me for this.

Because panic doesn’t come from outside.

It comes from the inside—and it’s harder to outrun.

After that first attack, the anxiety didn’t leave. It followed me home. It crept into meetings, into dinners, into moments of silence. It took up residence in my nervous system.

Eventually, a psychiatrist prescribed Clonazepam.

He told me it was for emergencies only.

But “emergencies” have a way of expanding when you’re living in constant fear.

Clonazepam worked.

The first time I took it, I felt something I hadn’t felt in years: relief.

The noise quieted. My body softened. I could breathe.

It didn’t feel like medication.

It felt like mercy.

But here’s the truth: what brings you back to life once can end up taking over that life completely.

Within weeks, the pill that was meant for “occasional use” became routine.

Not because I abused it. Not because I wanted to escape.

But because it worked—until it didn’t.

That’s the danger no one really talks about:

These medications are meant to interrupt an emergency.

But when you start taking them every day, they begin to create one.

I wasn’t just taking Clonazepam to stop panic.

I was taking it to avoid the panic I’d feel when the drug wore off.

My brain had been trained to depend on it.

And I’m not alone in this.

Many psychiatrists know the risks. They warn you: “This drug is addictive.”

But then they normalize the habit.

They say:

“It’s okay for now.”

“We’ll taper later.”

“You’re going through a lot.”

And they’re not wrong.

We are going through a lot.

But the pill doesn’t treat the trauma.

It just makes it quieter.

Until it doesn’t.

In time, my dosage increased.

And when I tried to cut back, the anxiety was worse than ever.

It wasn’t just a return of symptoms—it was withdrawal.

My body had stopped knowing how to self-regulate.

And here’s the paradox:

Clonazepam worked perfectly in the short term.

But long-term, it made me more anxious, more fragile, more dependent.

I wasn’t healing.

I was surviving.

Barely.

It wasn’t until I finally entered real trauma therapy—and later, began writing my novel Dog—that things started to shift.

The therapy gave me insight.

The writing gave me voice.

Together, they gave me back a sense of authorship over my own story.

Because that’s the thing about trauma: it doesn’t just injure your mind.

It steals your narrative.

And healing, I’ve come to believe, is about reclaiming that narrative—word by word, memory by memory.

There are moments when medication is necessary.

When panic hits like a tidal wave, when your whole system is hijacked, a pill can save your life.

But we need to stop pretending that what helps in an emergency should become a lifestyle.

We need to stop confusing sedation with healing.

And we need to stop expecting pills to do the work that only truth, connection, and expression can do.

Because I’ve lived both.

The silence that medication brings.

And the clarity that comes after the silence fades.

And I can tell you this:

Relief is not the same as recovery.

Control is not the same as healing.

And the pill that stays after the panic ends…

might be the one thing standing in your way.

***

Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.

26 COMMENTS

  1. Yishay,

    Thank you for having the courage to channel your trauma into writing. It takes immense strength to turn pain into something that speak, not just for yourself, but for so many who carry similar wounds.

    Through your words, you are doing something powerful: helping others understand what PTSD truly feels like from the inside. That kind of honesty fosters empathy, awareness, and healing—not only for those who live with PTSD, but also for those who care about them.

    Your story is a gift. Please keep writing.

    Ann Marie Sabath, Founder/Publisher
    Soncata Press

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    • Dear Ann Marie,

      Thank you so much for your kind and thoughtful words. I’m deeply honored that my writing resonates with you, and I’m incredibly grateful for your encouragement. It’s never easy to share something so personal, but hearing that it’s able to foster understanding and empathy makes it feel worthwhile.

      I truly believe in the power of storytelling to create connections, and I’m thrilled to know that my experience can help others in some way. Your support means a great deal to me, and I’ll certainly continue to write, knowing that it might make a difference for someone else out there.

      Thank you again for your generosity and belief in my work.

      Warmly,

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    • Contrary to psychiatric lore, post-traumatic stress is not a “disorder”. It is a coherent response to overwhelming events—whether massive or barely perceptible.

      P.S. Dropping the word “disorder” restores human dignity.

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  2. This really hit home.
    I’ve been on Clonazepam too, and what started as help slowly became a habit. You described that shift perfectly.
    Thank you for being honest, makes the rest of us feel less alone.

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    • Hi Hila,

      I’m so glad my words resonated with you. It’s so easy to fall into that trap where something that starts as helpful turns into something else entirely, and I’m glad I was able to express that shift in a way that felt familiar.

      Thank you for your openness, too. It’s a comfort to know that sharing our experiences can help others feel less isolated in their struggles.

      Take care,

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  3. I’ve never read someone describe a panic attack so accurately. The part about being willing to drink poison just to make it stop, that hit me hard. People don’t understand how terrifying it is unless they’ve been there. This was more than an article, it was a mirror.

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    • Hi Marcus,

      Thank you so much for your kind words. I can’t tell you how much it means to hear that the piece resonated with you in such a powerful way. Panic attacks are one of those experiences that are incredibly hard to put into words, so it’s really validating to know it hit home for you.

      You’re absolutely right—unless someone has been through it, it’s hard to truly grasp how terrifying those moments can be. I’m glad my writing could reflect that for you, and I appreciate your thoughtful feedback more than you know.

      Take care,

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  8. “…for we have heard recently that it is true that it’s not only accidents that cause physical states of shock, but it is when the messages we receive from the exterior, from the outer journey are too terrible for us to bear and the only way we can bear them, interpret them and maintain our humanity is to come back to this personal world which was made by women a long time ago.”

    Anais Nin at Hampshire College in 1972, Youtube

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  9. Hello Yishay, You might have read that survivors of the holocost had wonderful dreams of food and friends when they were imprisoned. Only when they were freed and safe did the nightmares begin and went on for many years. Our bodies and minds store the traumatic emotions until they surface later. There is a lack of general knowledge that the brain can process traumatic emotions much more effectively when it is in an REM state. Nightmares are the brain’s attempt to do this work. But because it happens when we are asleep, a person has no control over the process. But, EMDR stimulates the brain into an REM state while you are awake. All trauma can be more easily processed. There are several EMDR self help programs. Mine is downloadable at: Se-REM.com. I encourage you to read the recent reviews on Trustpilot.com. The most recent one stated the program was worth 100 therapy sessions. Anyone with questions can write to me at: [email protected].

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    • Dear David,
      Thank you for taking the time to write such a thoughtful and informative response.

      What you wrote about Holocaust survivors — how nightmares came only after freedom — resonates deeply. Trauma is often patient. It waits until the body is no longer in immediate danger before it reveals itself. I know this from my own experience.

      Your explanation about REM sleep and the brain’s natural attempts to process trauma through nightmares is fascinating — and painfully accurate. There’s something humbling in realizing that even our dreams are trying to save us.

      I appreciate you sharing the information about Se-REM and the potential of EMDR, especially in self-guided formats. It’s important for survivors to have more tools available — and more understanding about what healing can look like.

      With gratitude and respect,
      Yishay (Ishi) Ron

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  10. Yishay, I had patients describe PAs in similar terms, but never so eloquently. Yours is the best I’ve read since Miguel de Unamuno’s description in a commentary on Don Quixote, which Martin Gardner quoted in his lengthy introduction to The Annotated Snark (1962), written decades before the medicalization of the existential terror we now call “panic attacks”:

    “…one of those moments when the soul is blown about by a sudden gust from the wings of the angel of mystery. A moment of anguish. For there are times when, unsuspecting, we are suddenly seized, we know not how nor whence, by a vivid sense of our mortality, which takes us without warning and quite unprepared. When most absorbed in the cares and duties of life, or engrossed and self-forgetful on some festal occasion or engaged in a pleasant chat, suddenly it seems that death is fluttering over me. Not death, something worse, a sensation of annihilation, a supreme anguish. And this anguish, tearing us violently from our perception of appearances, with a single stunning swoop, dashes us away—to recover into an awareness of the substance of things. All creation is something we are some day to lose, and is some day to lose us. For what else is it to vanish from the world but the world vanishing from us? Can you conceive of yourself not existing? Try it. Concentrate your imagination on it. Fancy yourself without vision, hearing, the sense of touch, the ability to perceive anything. Try it. Perhaps you will evoke and bring upon yourself that anguish which visits us when least expected; perhaps you will feel the hangman’s knot choking off your soul’s breath. Like the woodpecker in the oak-tree, an agony is busily pecking at our hearts, to make its nest there.”

    While your description of a panic attack rivals Unamuno’s in its gripping visceral clarity, your description of the insidious addiction process is the best I’ve ever read – an iatrogenic problem not faced by Unamuno. There are literally millions of people in that boat – a quiet public health disaster hiding in plain sight, enriching charlatans and drug developers while enslaving patients to benzodiazepines and SSRIs and thwarting their spiritual and psychological growth.

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  11. Dear MJ
    our words left me genuinely moved.

    To be mentioned alongside Unamuno — in such a context, and with such reverence — is an honor I don’t take lightly. His passage captures, with terrifying lucidity, the vertigo of being alive inside a dissolving self. That fluttering of death “not as death, but something worse” — yes. That is it. That is the place I try to write from. That brief collapse of illusion. That unspeakable knowing.

    You’re absolutely right that Unamuno didn’t have to contend with the iatrogenic trap we now find ourselves in — a pharmaceutically medicated dread. It’s a strange kind of irony: we try to dull the very anguish that, if allowed to pass through us, might open a door. But the door stays shut. The pills keep us just far enough from despair to survive, but not close enough to transmute it.

    There are indeed millions. And silence is part of the disease.

    Thank you — not just for reading, but for responding with such depth, intelligence, and care. Your words made me pause — and that is rare.

    With respect,
    Yishay (Ishi) Ron

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      • Hi Mike,

        Thank you so much for your words — they mean a lot to me. I’m truly moved that the story spoke to you, and I deeply respect the fact that we share that difficult background of combat experience.

        I’d be honored if you followed me on social media — I share updates there, and I’d genuinely love to hear your thoughts after you finish reading DOG. Hearing from readers like you is what keeps this journey meaningful.

        Warmly,
        Ishi

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  15. MJ,

    Thank you for your interest in reading Yishay’s DOG. Its release is October 1, 2025 and will be available as a hardback, paperback, ebook and audiobook.

    Dog is now ebook is available for Preorder on Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, Apple & 10 other sites.

    I can tell you first-hand that it is a very powerful read.

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