Panic Disorder Psychiatrist in Southington, CT

Some people with panic disorder go days or even weeks without an actual attack. And yet they're not okay. They're scanning — constantly, quietly — for warning signs. A slightly fast heartbeat. A strange feeling in the chest. A moment of dizziness in the grocery store. They've organized their lives around avoiding whatever they associate with attacks. They've stopped going certain places. They've mapped out exits in every room. The panic attacks themselves might be infrequent. But the anticipatory anxiety between them — that living-in-dread feeling — is constant. And that's what makes panic disorder so disabling, even when the attacks aren't happening. Sindhia Shyras, APRN helps people in Southington and across Connecticut break this cycle.

What Anticipatory Anxiety Actually Is

Anticipatory anxiety is the fear of the fear. It's not panic itself — it's the dread of what might happen if panic strikes. It shows up as hypervigilance about your body, as avoidance of triggers you've identified (or think you've identified), and as mental planning to manage worst-case scenarios that may never happen. The cruel irony is that anticipatory anxiety itself raises your baseline arousal level — which makes you more likely to have a panic attack. The worry about the attack helps produce the conditions for another one. This is the vicious cycle at the center of panic disorder, and it's why treating only the attacks without treating the fear of attacks usually isn't enough.

How Avoidance Makes Everything Worse Over Time

Avoidance is a short-term solution that creates long-term problems. When you avoid a place or situation because you're afraid of panicking there, you get immediate relief — you don't have to face the anxiety. But your brain also registers this: the way to stay safe is to avoid. So the list of safe places shrinks. The things you can do comfortably gets smaller. For some people in Southington, this starts with avoiding the highway and ends with being unable to leave the house comfortably. That's not a failure of character — it's anticipatory anxiety doing what it does, and avoidance feeding it. Treatment reverses this by helping you gradually expand what you can do, rather than continuing to contract.

What Treatment for Anticipatory Anxiety Looks Like

Effective treatment addresses both the panic attacks and the anticipatory anxiety between them. Medication — typically SSRIs or SNRIs — can reduce the frequency and severity of attacks over time, which lowers the overall anxiety load. Understanding the panic cycle helps too: knowing that panic is a false alarm, and that the sensations — though awful — are not dangerous, changes how you relate to them when they start. Cognitive behavioral therapy specifically targets the thinking patterns and avoidance behaviors that keep anticipatory anxiety alive. Sindhia Shyras will evaluate the full picture and help you figure out what combination of supports is right for where you are now.

You're Not Fragile — You're Responding to a Real Problem

People with panic disorder are often embarrassed by how much it's affecting them — especially when the attacks themselves aren't frequent. It can feel like overreacting to something invisible. But anticipatory anxiety is real. The avoidance is real. The exhaustion of constantly monitoring your own body is real. And it's treatable. You don't have to keep organizing your Southington life around fear of the next attack. Getting help isn't about being weak — it's about having access to tools your nervous system genuinely needs right now.