As chief of medicine at the Manhattan Psychiatric Center, Dr. Bharat Shah suffered from his own elusive psychiatric condition.
Predawn hours saw him wake with chest pain in his Great Neck home. Driving was a challenge. Normally content with his own company, solitude turned into loneliness. Then the suicidal thoughts started.
“You are running as if there is a tiger, but there is no tiger,” he said. “It’s literally all in your mind.”
Panic-attack free for four years, the retired pulmonary internist shares his story in “My Life With Panic Disorder,” his ninth self-published work.
Shah, who retired four years ago, has lived in Great Neck for more than 30 years.
There was a lot on Shah’s mind when the panic attacks started in 1997.
The sole income earner, Shah had been laid off twice from his job, suffered a stroke and had to cope with his wife’s illness, which would eventually required a liver transplant. When he woke up at 4:13 every morning with chest pain, he learned to ignore the feeling.
“That’s a pretty risky thing to do, but you can’t call 911 every day,” he said.
Still, Shah does not blame his disorder on stress.
“When my wife got a liver transplant I did not have panic attacks,” he said.
Easily confused with a heart attack, panic attacks are anxiety without reason. Marked by the sudden onset of symptoms such as sweating, chest pain, shortness of breath and fear of dying, recurrent episodes can signal panic disorder.
Panic disorder is easily diagnosed and treated, according to Shah, but like him, many patients only end up receiving psychiatric care by process of elimination.
Despite a battery of tests by a variety of specialists, it was Bharat’s sister-in-law and her colleague at the Great Neck Public Library who suggested panic disorder. The diagnosis came after a year of chronic anxiety attacks.
Lack of awareness can have fatal consequences: one-third of people with panic disorder develop depression and one-fourth commit suicide, said Shah.
Born in the Indian state of Gujarat, Shah immigrated to the United States in 1967, after graduating from medical school. He met and married his wife Usha in India two years later.
“You’d be surprised,”he said. “We met and decided to marry in 15-20 minutes.”
There is a lot of confusion in the West about arranged marriage, which Shah described as arranged date that can end in marriage if things click.
“Things are different now,” he said. “Practically within three weeks we met, got engaged, got married and arranged for her visa.”
Describing himself as an observer of life, the Renaissance man has written how-to books on learning Sanskrit, Gujarati, English for Gujarati speakers and an introduction to his native religion of Jainism.
“Gujarati is the mother tongue, Sanskrit is the language of scripture,” he said.
Book sales do not pay the bills, but they pay for themselves.
“My Life With Panic Disorder” is available for $10 plus shipping on amazon.com.
