When I was 22 I was given a high dose of a drug without being told. This triggered a severe panic attack for me, during which I believed I was having a heart attack. I think it gave me PTSD. This was five years ago now. I have since struggled deeply with anxiety, mostly surrounding my heart and getting keyed up. I used to think a panic attack might trigger a cardiovascular event. I now know that this is pretty unlikely.

Recently, I’ve been doing better than ever. Exposure therapy has been the tool through which I have coped with my anxiety. I simply allow myself to get anxious and refuse to cave to my anxiety, even when it gets really bad. I don’t engage in any behavior that would soothe it. It’s through exposure therapy that I’ve gotten my life back. But has taken a hellacious amount of work and probably over 15 panic attacks in the course of three months to get here.

Tonight I made a disturbing discovery, and that was that anxiety actually RAISES the risk of a heart attack. That’s great. That’s just fucking great. So my anxiety about having a heart attack will give me one? That’s awesome for my anxiety.

Now I engage in regular exercise, have an ideal blood pressure, and a satisfactory BMI. I also try to watch my intake of processed foods and sugar. I’m a big veggie eater. But some of what I read was so disheartening that I’m starting to wonder if I won’t get cardiovascular disease anyway. Can anyone help me figure this out?