For over a decade, Mike McNally lived with a fear so overwhelming that one July morning in 2003, during his daily commute between Brixton and London’s South Bank, he attempted to climb out of a tube carriage while it was still in motion. Other passengers intervened, holding him back until the train reached the next platform. It was a terrifying moment that forced him to confront a problem he could no longer dismiss.
Now, McNally is sharing his remarkable story in the hope that it might help others struggling with unexplained anxiety or panic.
The Escalating Nightmare
McNally had moved to London from Surrey in the late 1980s, settling in Brixton after spending his formative years in the countryside where open spaces were plentiful. For the first few years in the capital, life carried on normally. But gradually, he noticed something alarming: an increasing sense of anxiety and claustrophobia, particularly when using public transport.
The problem worsened steadily. Panic attacks became a regular occurrence, each one leaving him feeling as though the world was collapsing around him. The underground, with its cramped carriages and lack of escape routes, became his personal nightmare.
“That moment when I tried to get out of the tube carriage – that’s when I knew I couldn’t keep pretending this would go away on its own,” McNally recalls.
His GP referred him to a hypnotherapist the following year, hoping that talking therapy might offer some relief.
The Regression That Changed Everything
During regression hypnotherapy sessions, McNally would sit comfortably, close his eyes, and allow himself to drift back through different periods of his life. After three months of retracing memories, his therapist asked him a seemingly simple question: had he ever been involved in a train crash?
“I was completely taken aback. ‘No, I’d surely know if I’d been in a train crash,’ I told her.”
Despite his certainty, the therapist suggested he verify this with his parents, just in case he had been too young to form lasting memories.
When McNally visited his family home the following weekend, he posed the question to his mother and father. What happened next would reshape his understanding of himself entirely. His parents exchanged a brief, knowing glance before revealing the truth: their son had indeed been involved in a railway accident as a child.
The Accident That Time Forgot
On 4 September 1965, four-year-old Mike had been returning home from a summer trip to Ireland with his grandmother. The pair had travelled by ferry from Dublin to Holyhead, Wales, and boarded a train bound for London. As they sat waiting in the station, another passenger train travelling along the platform crashed into their stationary carriage.
The impact was violent. Their train was thrown backwards, lifting the carriage clean off its framework. McNally and his grandmother were trapped inside, squashed together in the September heat while panic spread through the carriage. Other passengers suffered serious injuries. Miraculously, neither the young boy nor his grandmother sustained physical harm.
Yet the psychological damage was profound. McNally’s parents attempted to discuss the incident with him afterwards, but each time they raised the subject, he would scream and run away. Wanting to spare him further distress, they simply stopped talking about it entirely.
The secret remained buried for almost four decades.
Finding Freedom
That conversation with his parents transformed everything. For the first time, McNally understood the source of his decade-long battle with fear and panic. It explained his struggles boarding trains, planes, and sometimes even cars. Whenever he found himself in a confined or inescapable situation, his subconscious mind had been transporting him back to that September day in 1965, even though he had no conscious recollection of the crash.
With this knowledge, McNally could finally work with his therapist to develop coping strategies and process the suppressed trauma properly.
In 2006, a work trip to Vancouver provided the perfect opportunity to test his progress. His team had a meeting at the summit of Whistler Mountain, accessible only by a thirty-minute cable car ride. Colleagues informed the cable car operators about McNally’s claustrophobia, and staff reassured him there would be a midway point where he could exit if necessary.
As the journey commenced, McNally braced himself for the familiar terror. Instead, he felt an unexpected calm wash over him.
When the cable car reached the halfway station, he noticed venue staff had come outside to applaud him. He realised in that moment he didn’t need to get off. Instead, he chose to continue to the top and immediately called his hypnotherapist to share the news: “You’ll never guess where I am – halfway up Whistler Mountain!”
A Life Reclaimed
Freedom from constant fear meant McNally could finally live the life he had always wanted. This newfound peace became even more precious when his daughter was born six years later. He was determined to be the best possible version of himself for her – something that simply would not have been possible when anxiety ruled his existence.
Now 14, father and daughter share a passion for music, regularly travelling across London by train and tube to attend packed concerts together. These journeys, once sources of terror, have become opportunities for connection.
Why it Matters
McNally’s story illuminates a crucial truth about mental health: sometimes our deepest fears have roots we cannot consciously access. His experience demonstrates the remarkable healing that becomes possible when suppressed memories are brought into the light and processed with professional support. For the countless individuals battling unexplained anxiety or panic attacks, his journey offers both hope and a compelling argument for exploring all avenues of psychological therapy. What happened on that September day in 1965 could so easily have remained a secret forever, condemning one man to a lifetime of fear. Instead, through courage and therapeutic intervention, McNally reclaimed his freedom – and his ability to fully embrace life with his daughter by his side.