How I Healed from Crippling Social Anxiety After 15 Years — My Story

Before I tell you how I healed, I need to tell you how bad it got. Because if you're in the grip of social anxiety or panic attacks right now, I want you to understand something: I was worse. Much worse. And I got out.

This is my story.

I Wasn't Born Anxious

I joined the New Zealand Police at 20 years old. Before that, I was your average fun-loving, outgoing young man — probably a little bit cocky, if I'm honest. Growing up, I thought I was ten feet tall and bulletproof.

Then life started happening.

A career in the police exposes you to things most people never see. On my very first nightshift, I was called alone to a motorcycle accident. The rider had lost his helmet and hit a palm tree. He was already dead when I arrived. At 20 years old, I had to deal with the whole thing by myself. I could tell you hundreds of stories like that one — physical attacks, life-threatening situations, child abuse cases, homicides, suicides. You get the picture.

How did I deal with it? Not well. Counselling and therapy weren't really "how we rolled" back then. Instead, I drowned my sorrows in alcohol and kept moving forward. I laughed off any suggestion that I seek professional help.

My anxiety levels just kept creeping up — quietly, invisibly — until they couldn't be ignored anymore.

The First Panic Attack

It was 1993. I was 23 years old, a constable talking to a classroom full of children. Without warning, my heart started hammering out of control. My hands were shaking. I felt dizzy, sweaty, unable to talk properly. My throat closed up. My body went numb. I had this overwhelming, desperate urge to escape — but I was standing in front of a room full of kids and I couldn't leave.

I had absolutely no idea what was happening to me.

I white-knuckled my way through it. Eventually — quite quickly, actually — the horrible sensations vanished and I was fine again. I completed my talk, walked out, and thought: "What the hell just happened?"

Then I shrugged my shoulders and soldiered on.

That was a mistake.

The Years It Got Worse

Over the years that followed, my panic attacks became more frequent and more unpredictable. They started happening most often in social settings — meetings, gatherings, anywhere I felt observed or trapped.

I remember one incident in 1997. I was a Detective Constable, made officer in charge of a crime scene at a victim's bedroom. As soon as I walked in, that horrible anxious feeling started building. My heart raced. My chest tightened. A massive spotlight of self-consciousness hit me. I fumbled through my questions while planning my escape route, eventually making up some excuse to rush outside and pace the yard trying to calm myself down.

Nobody noticed. Nobody said a word.

That's one of the cruel tricks anxiety plays on you — the internal experience is catastrophic, but to the outside world, nothing is happening. I would learn that lesson later. Back then, I just shrugged my shoulders and boxed on.

That became my strategy: escape. Cope. Avoid. Repeat.

When It Started Destroying Everything

I left the police in 2000 and moved into leadership roles — exactly the kind of work that put me in social situations constantly. I could perform when I needed to, but the social component became unbearable. I developed full social phobia and agoraphobia.

During the mid-2000s, going out and socialising was, as I put it, "about as much fun as drinking from a fire hose."

I became a different person. Argumentative. Aggressive. Controlling. A high-functioning narcissist, if I'm being completely honest. That wasn't who I was — it was what anxiety had made me into.

I sabotaged sporting, business, music, and social opportunities. I left jobs. I burned bridges. I went bankrupt in 2008. My relationship with the mother of my two oldest children, Finn and Paige-Huia, broke down. She had endured the worst years of my life. I don't blame her.

The lowest point came while I was working as a team leader at Toyota New Zealand in 2008. I was spending my lunch breaks in the sick bay, locking myself in toilet cubicles during panic attacks, unable to attend meetings or functions. After nine months, I resigned. My panic attacks had reached the stage where I found it almost physically impossible to leave the house.

That was the last straw.

The Turning Point

I was desperate. And for the first time, that desperation wasn't just about me — it was about my kids. If I didn't fix this, I would jeopardise their wellbeing. That realisation gave me the strength to finally commit to doing whatever it would take.

I'd already spent years researching anxiety conditions. I knew the theory. I understood the mechanics of panic. I knew logically that everything I feared had no basis in reality, that I needed to face my fears rather than run from them.

But knowing it and doing it are two completely different things.

My breakthrough came when I understood this: it doesn't matter what you know intellectually if you're not willing to commit to recovery.

I had to throw away every coping strategy, every safety crutch, every escape route I'd built up over 15 years — and face my fears completely. Not manage them. Not reduce them. Face them.

That required belief. It required trust. And it required more courage than I thought I had.

Watch My Full Story

I've also shared my journey in full on video — including what I did, step by step, to break the cycle:

What Healing Actually Looks Like

Through committing to expose myself to every anxiety-provoking situation — and practising and persevering with the right attitude and behaviour — I healed myself of social phobia, agoraphobia, and the underlying GAD that had been driving it all.

It wasn't overnight. There were many setbacks. But I had belief in the process, and I moved forward with courage no matter what.

Today, I am at peace. I love and accept myself unconditionally. I am grateful — genuinely grateful — for everything I went through, because it gave me a purpose: to help others find the same way out.

I now have four beautiful children. A wonderful wife. And the ability to look someone suffering in the eye and say: "I've been exactly where you are. And I got out. So can you."

If You're Reading This and You're Struggling

You're not broken. You haven't been shown the right way out yet.

The anxiety you feel is real. The fear is real. But the danger isn't. And the patterns that are keeping you stuck can be unwired — permanently — not managed, not suppressed, but actually removed at the root.

That's what I've spent 17+ years helping people do.

If you're ready to stop coping and start healing, book a free consultation here — or start with the book that started it all.

Your freedom is closer than you think.

— Shaun Grant, attackpanic™

Shaun Grant is an anxiety coach, author, and fully recovered sufferer. He has helped over 3,000 people worldwide break free from panic attacks, social anxiety, agoraphobia, and GAD through his attackpanic™ system.