The anatomy of a 2AM mental breakdown

Every external service you integrate is adding a small, non-zero, compounding probability of finding yourself in exactly this situation.

Working as a SRE for a year in a large global company broke me out of this "panic" mode described in this post. To a business, every problem seems like a world-ending event. It's very easy to give in to panic in those situations. However, in reality, it's rarely that bad, and even if it is, you'll probably survive without harm. The key in these situations, and what I try to do (totally relate to breaking out in a sweat, that still happens to me, just happened yesterday) is to take 5-10 minutes before doing any action to try to fix it and sketch it out, think about it as clearly as you can. Fear interferes with your ability to reason rationally. Mashing buttons in a panic can make your problems spiral even worse (seen that happen). Disrupting that fear circuit any way you can is important. Splashing my face and hands with extremely cold water is my trick.

Then after you go through a few of these, you'll realize it really isn't too bad and you've dealt with bad situations before and you'll gain the confidence to know you can deal with it, even when there's no one you can reach out to for help.

Not to mention the performance hit to your actual customers when it all "works."

I don't think that's the right TL;DR here. The point is the FUD we sell ourselves is often just not true. Take a breath and face life's challenges without telling yourself "it's over" along the way.