17 year old Panic Attacks and boyfriend

[TryingMyBest]

Once again I find myself searching your forum at 3AM to hear a voice of reason. I am riding out my daughter's troubled adolescence. She had anxiety issues that made her barely make it through high school. She did graduate and get accepted to colleges, so she and I both expected going away to college would be the next step.
That was a mistake. A week or so at college started up full fledged panic attacks so she came home. She agreed to live with my ex-husband for the first time because she and I had stopped getting along very well. She is taking one class at a local community college and agreed to look for part time work.
She discovered that being with her boyfriend made her feel better. Now she finds various crises that convince her that the best thing to do is to stop going to the one class and stay in another state in her boyfriend's dorm. She thinks my request for her to get on with her life is unreasonable during a time of emotional upheaval caused by whatever the latest crisis is.
She has a counseling appointment next week after a long hiatus. She refuses psychiatric medication, but agreed to see a psychiatrist once as well. I am worried about what I see as depression. She says the panic attacks (feeling of fever, fainting, vomiting) are really bad, and she often calls me during them. Luckily, when I ask, she says she doesn't want to kill herself.
I want to do what will help her, but I don't know what that is. I have been letting her know what I expect her to do, but I haven't yelled or been really forceful because it seems that this is her decision to escape from life, and I just think it is a really bad one.
From your book, I am guessing I am supposed to stay steady. Staying steady would involve not writing this posting at 3AM but rather finding some way to take a wider view of each crisis and just going back to sleep after each call. What should I do to help her? How can I not let her frequent crises effect me so much, so that I can instead be supportive? What could I possibly say to this teen that might reach her?

[Mike Bradley]

Dear Parent,
The drill here is to simply take each problem one at a time. Your first goal is to get your kid back into treatment in order to stabilize the panic attacks. Until that is done, nothing else should be addressed, including her living situation choices, as bad as they might be. After she's feeling better (and we have lots of success in treating anxiety) will be the time to speak about her choices. But for right now she's likely feeling so awful and so scared that you'll accomplish little in talking about life choices. Let her heal up a tad before taking that issue on.
For yourself, view her anxiety disorder as a bad flu. Yes, it can be debilitating but the odds are good that it will pass. If you can maintain that perspective it will be less frightening to get her calls, and then perhaps you can offer that support (not advice) that can help so much.
Take care.