I read this on CNN this morning.

With mental disorders, words matter. Big time. And there’s a great lesson learned from the quote below. If you didn’t read on the news, Air Force One was flying low over Manhattan causing a huge scare, building evacuations, etc. This is one persons account …

Linda Garcia-Rose, a social worker who counsels post-traumatic stress disorder patients in an office three blocks from where the World Trade Center stood, called the flight an “absolute travesty.”

“There was no warning. It looked like the plane was about to come into us,” she said. “I’m a therapist, and I actually had a panic attack.”

Garcia-Rose, who works with nearly two dozen patients ages 15 to 47, said she was inundated with phone calls from patients.

“They’re traumatized. They’re asking ‘How could this happen?’ They’re nervous. Their anxiety levels are high,” she said.

We are designed to go into fight or flight when we feel like we’re in immediate danger. In the scenario above, this person actually perceived real danger. It would be abnormal if she didn’t panic.

Panic is not *bad* for us. It rushes blood to our major muscle groups, it gives us epinephrine for more energy, it prepares us to save ourselves in dangerous circumstances. But you have to perceive immediate danger for it to happen.

If the plane was flying at 30,000 feet and she panicked, then yes, it would probably be considered a panic *attack*. But it wasn’t. Many people considered it a real danger. The panic reaction was a correct reaction. It wasn’t an *attack*. It was her body doing what humans have done from the beginning of time … it’s us saving us when we really need it.

Avoidance Junkie