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What happens when anxiety has been part of your life for so long that you don't even realize it's anxiety? In the first episode of Real People, Real Stories, Taylor sits down with Peace Over Panic community member Alex to have an honest conversation about what it actually looks like to live with health anxiety and panic, not from a textbook, but from someone who has lived it.
Alex shares how anxiety showed up long before she had a name for it: stomachaches, trouble sleeping, fear around her health, hypervigilance, and constantly feeling like something might be wrong. Then, in her twenties, a terrifying panic attack in a Chick-fil-A drive-thru changed everything.
What followed was the fear of having another panic attack, physical symptoms that felt impossible to believe were anxiety, health anxiety, medication, therapy, avoidance, and the exhausting desire to feel certain and in control.
But this episode isn't only about anxiety.
Alex and Taylor talk about childhood experiences that can shape the way we seek safety as adults, the shame that can come with struggling with mental health, medication and why there isn't one right path for everyone, and what it means to keep living even when anxiety comes with you.
They also have an honest conversation about faith, including struggling with anxiety as a Christian, learning to release control, finding peace in God during the moments that feel impossible, and recognizing that having faith doesn't mean never feeling afraid.
Alex shares how she went from once having to get off a plane because of panic to traveling to Paris, London, Australia, Japan and beyond , sometimes with anxiety still right beside her.
Because healing doesn't always mean you never feel anxious again.
Sometimes it means realizing: I can feel anxious and still live my life.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Alex's first panic attack and the moment she realized what she had experienced for years was anxiety
- Health anxiety and physical symptoms that feel incredibly real
- Becoming afraid of having another panic attack
- How anxiety and hypervigilance can begin early in life
- The need for control and learning to accept uncertainty
- Medication, therapy, exercise and finding what works for you
- Why anxiety can make your world smaller
- The shame and guilt that often accompany mental health struggles
- Faith, fear and what it means to surrender control to God
- The importance of community and talking to people who truly understand
- Doing things afraid instead of waiting for anxiety to disappear
- What choosing Peace Over Panic means to Alex
If you've ever thought, “No one understands what this feels like,” this conversation is for you.
You are not the only one. You are not alone in this experience. And anxiety does not have to become the whole story of your life.
Real People, Real Stories is a Peace Over Panic series sharing honest conversations with everyday people who have lived through anxiety, panic, OCD, health anxiety and other mental health struggles, because sometimes one of the most healing things we can hear is simply: “Me too.”
💛 Follow Peace Over Panic for more real conversations, recovery tools, faith-filled encouragement and reminders that there is life beyond anxiety.
