‘Home Town’ Star Erin Napier Gets Honest Over Struggle With Panic Attacks

Home Town star Erin Napier seems to have total control over her life alongside husband Ben. While she’s setting out on her own for the first time recently, a post from earlier in the year reveals the decision is bigger than just that. The HGTV star faces struggles and problems like almost everybody, sharing some details about her panic attacks in an Instagram post.

Napier opened up about her struggles with “panic attacks” and “spiraling thoughts” amid other health issues she has faced. “This time of year, I feel the anniversary of illness so acutely. These hospital photos were taken in 2014, at the end of my 10 year illness from (unknowingly) a perforated appendix. I wrote about that decade in our book, Make Something Good Today, and for a long time thought I had put that all to bed with that final surgery,” Napier writes. “My appendix has been gone along with the physical suffering for 8 years now, but I’ve been learning through conversation with my friend who is a therapist that it left some deep ruts in my neuro pathways that have left me with an extreme fear and preoccupation with sickness, nausea in particular, ever since.

“My brain, without my permission, sets off on a fight or flight mission to save my life, when my life is not in any danger at all. Panic attacks and spiraling thoughts come rushing in,” Napier continued. “I’m relieved at least to have connected all these dots in recent months, brought to the surface by the constant upheaval and dread that came with living in a pandemic.”

As she continues, Napier comes to grips with her situation being publicized. It’s a new addition to her life that she is fine with fans knowing and understanding. “It’s not bad or good, it’s just part of my weird brain and I’m trying to untangle it every day, even as you may see happy news and posts from me. That’s everyone though, isn’t it?” Napier closed out the caption. “We’ve all got our personal struggles. But isn’t it so nice to have this place for editing the hard parts out? Like seeing the people you love most gathered around your hospital bed, there’s always a light in the darkness.”

The HGTV star’s post garnered some quick praise from the likes of The Pioneer Woman and Drew Barrymore, with both thanking Napier for sharing and praising her decision to speak up.