It feels awesome to know that a lot of people have gone through what I have.

Yeah, that is one of the big realizations I had going through this. And it was strange. And more, at first I was actually mad! I was so upset that before I could walk through life without having to acknowledge that sometimes other people's problems are more complicated than they seem. While before everything seemed to have an easy solution, now every problem seemed much more complicated, now I had to factor in people's personalities and anxieties, their motives and their point of view. Of course, I eventually understood that, while maybe simpler, what I saw before wasn't the truth. It was a gross oversimplification of other's life's and that it was arrogant of me to think I could find easy solutions to everybody's problems. Of course, it was just the shock at first, but I learned to deal with it. And hopefully I'm wiser for it.

Seriously, the best thing I got from this is that these states of mind pass. Maybe today you're feeling a bit down, but the certainty that they'll pass really helps. In the begining it was hard to convince myself that it would pass because I'd never been through it before and didn't want to search for help, and that's the only thing that really scared me -- that I would feel like that forever. It did pass though, and now I have a much easier time dealing with those states of mind.

Hell, during my last two panic attacks one of the things that helped me through them was thinking that if I was having one today I (hopefully) wouldn't have another for a good month or so.