Calm

It certainly isn't the cacophony of panic, though it may be punctuated by such. Its the before, and often the after, because you're certainly panicking about something. And if you've become prone to such panics, it may well not be because you're facing it, the yelping, screaming mind and the feeling of death. You said you were going to, and that were enough, just an agoraphobic making the declaration that he'll walk outside today. Get his newspaper. All day, then, he has little flashes of the panic around his calm, punctuating and describing it in such a shape that it can be slotted into the word.

Its a calm of rushing feelings, of jitter, that lights upon valleys and spikes into the ether. It drives one to the hiding places, the comfort objects, closets, beds, teddy bears. Things get done late, or not at all, because the only time things are safe is while the blanket covers all parts of the body, bound in a cocoon where the air grows foul, where movement is strictly restricted. This is the calm before the storm, or better, the stillness at the apex of a jump, with the mind swung out over nothing, without foundation, but still for an instant yet, before it lets go. And out there, at the far end of the pendulum swing, the panic roils like an oil slick sea, builds inside. The comforts of closets and covers invite from the other side, if you simply hold on a minute more. You can leap, here, or swing back over, into the embrace of pretending it isn't there.

And perhaps you won't panic, anymore, once you're well away from the stew.
And perhaps you should just have eaten the stew, and been done with it.