Page 17 - Advance Copy: Todd Kaufman, Author

HOW TO MANAGE ANXIETY & END PANIC ATTACKS
I exited the wedding hall and quickly walked diagonally across the massive reception area to a small room off in the far corner which I understood to be the bridal suite. I could hear some commotion on the other side of the door and I knocked gently.
There was no answer.
I knocked again, placed my hand on the door handle, gently opened the door and looked inside.
There, on the floor, in a pile of lace, crinoline and tears, was Dan’s bride. She was surrounded by her bridesmaids, her mom and a whole group of female relatives desperately trying her to help her.
Sarah was in the middle of massively freaking out, and the girls were telling her to calm down. No one in the history of freaking out has ever calmed down by being told to calm down.
Sarah was gasping for breath and through her sobs was asking for an ambulance. She had had these attacks before, but nothing like this. Sarah was quite convinced that this time she was indeed having a heart attack.
My entrance was met with both hope and the concern that a man had just breached the sanctity of the girls-only event. As a therapist and coach who has spent most of his therapeutic career helping others end their panic attacks and manage their anxiety, I had no doubt about what was going on. Sarah was in a flat out, 10-out-of-10, panic attack.
I knew how to solve it, and I needed 10 minutes alone with the bride. “Could everyone please leave the room and just give me a few minutes with Sarah?” I might as well have been asking a mother bear to step away from her cubs. “OK: I really do know how to fix this. I’m a therapist. I understand what’s going on here, and I really want to give Sarah a chance to get married today. I can do this. But I really need to talk to Sarah alone.”
Slowly, the women began to rise, and as they headed for
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