I had these really bad anxiety attacks and it came in these waves where I would just be completely

debilitated by this experience.

And there was really no explanation.

I was on medication at that point,

and it didn't help.

Like the medication didn't really do anything.

It didn't stop me from, because when you have anxiety

or you have panic attacks,

you become so hyper-vigilant and hyper-aware

of what's happening to your body because you have this weird thing happen where your heart is beating your palms and you have cotton mouth and you feel like you're going to pass out or throw up or die you know you become

really hyper aware of anytime anything remotely close to that experience.

Any movement, any irregular heart palpitation,

you go straight into panic.

And so I was just having these moments of panic and then they would randomly happen.

I'd be at school and then I'd get into that agoraphobic state of not wanting to leave the room I was in because I thought something terrible was going to happen and obviously years later

we diagnosed it with PTSD and obviously like growing up in an environment where there was violence and there was drive-by shootings and people were getting stabbed and this sort of traumatic environment that everybody else is in the same space so you don't really know any better, any different, and it starts to manifest itself in different ways for different people.

And for me, it was having these sporadic moments of panic attacks.

Hello friends and welcome back to the Light Watkins show where I interview ordinary folks

just like you and me who've taken extraordinary leaps of

faith in the direction of their path, their purpose, or what they've identified

with as their mission and in doing so they've been able to positively impact and inspire the lives of many other people who've either heard about their story or who've witnessed them in action or who've directly benefited from their work.

This week I'm in conversation with a dear friend of mine.

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