Panic in Public: My Nervous System’s Favorite Party Trick

Anxiety is a hell of a thing. It sneaks up on you, hijacks your breath, and convinces you this is it—the end. And mine always showed up in public, because apparently my nervous system enjoys an audience. Classic Leo move—if I’m going down, it’s gonna be center stage.

I can’t tell you how many times I thought I was about to drop dead in the middle of a restaurant, or while standing in line somewhere, trying to act normal while my insides were staging a coup. Cute, right? Spoiler: I did not drop dead. Not once.

Here’s what finally landed for me: anxiety isn’t some outside force trying to ruin my life. It’s my own energy, stuck in the system, looking for an exit. Think of a soda bottle that’s been shaken but never opened. The fizz doesn’t disappear—it just builds. That’s anxiety. Not weakness. Not proof you’re broken. Just pressure that never got released.

Your nervous system is still running on caveman software—fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. That ancient wiring kept us alive when saber-toothed tigers were a thing, but in modern life it backfires. You can’t exactly fight the lady in front of you at Walmart, flee from the checkout line, or scream in the middle of Chili’s. So the charge stays stuck in your body. That jittery, restless chaos? It’s just your system saying, “Hey, I didn’t get to finish this loop—can we handle it now?”

And here’s the kicker: you can’t think your way out of anxiety. You have to move it. Shake, stomp, dance in your kitchen, or scream-sing until your throat feels raw. Grab scrap paper and dump every thought onto it, then rip it up or burn it. Breathe like you mean it—longer exhales, humming, sighing—anything that signals to your body that you’re safe. Cool yourself off if you’re overheated, fire yourself up if you’re stuck. Paint with your hands, shred magazines, throw yourself into messy creativity. It doesn’t have to look pretty—it just has to get the energy out.

The biggest shift for me was realizing that the story I tell myself in the middle of an anxiety wave changes everything. If my chest tightened and I told myself, “I’m dying,” the panic doubled. If I told myself, “This sucks balls, but it’s just energy that needs to leave my body,” I still felt it, but I wasn’t feeding it. Over time, that new story stuck. My nervous system learned the storm passes. And now? I haven’t had one of those full-blown “this is it” attacks in a long time.

Real talk—I’m not a therapist or a doctor. I’m just someone who’s had way too many “oh shit, here it comes” moments in the middle of everyday life, and lived through every single one. What got me through wasn’t pretending anxiety didn’t exist. It was changing how I responded when it showed up. I stopped fighting it like an enemy and started giving it a way out. I started telling a new story. And little by little, my body got the message: we’re safe.

I used to think panic attacks were just part of my wiring, like a curse I’d carry forever. Turns out, that wasn’t true. Once I stopped fighting myself and started shifting the story, anxiety lost its grip. It hasn’t even knocked on my door in over a year. And honestly? If my nervous system wants drama, it can watch Netflix like the rest of us.

So no, you don’t have to get cozy with anxiety. I sure as hell didn’t. But you don’t have to fear it either. Shifting from ‘I’m fucking dying!’ to ‘How do I release this energy?’ changed everything for me. I can’t promise it’s the answer for everyone, but it was for me.

Bottom line? Anxiety may have been my uninvited plus-one for years, but I finally sent it packing. Now my biggest existential crisis is whether to binge Bailey Sarian or Schitt’s Creek.

xo,

Jade