Anxiety Support Group
Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...
I flat out do not get it. I have done every single flipping thing that was advice given to me or what my therapist asked me to do, and nothing has had even the slightest benefit to me at all. Deep breathing, muscle relaxation, exercising regularly, eating healthy, getting a sleep study done, not reacting to the sensations that panic attacks give me, drinking tea, seeing a therapist, getting enough sleep, positive thinking, etc, you name it, I've done it. Still, after more than a year of panic attacks and night terrors, I am at my breaking point. I will not be able to function much longer if I keep going at this rate. I'm actually losing my voice because I have been screaming so often because my panic attacks are increasing in frequency and severity. I am a complete and utter wreck.
There has got to be something else for me to do, something I'm missing. I refuse to just give up and go to the insane asylum and throw away everything I've worked for, like my job, school, etc. I don't mean to sound short I'm just so frustrated with all this because it's ruining my life.
I will try anything that people suggest, I am all ears.
There has got to be something else for me to do, something I'm missing. I refuse to just give up and go to the insane asylum and throw away everything I've worked for, like my job, school, etc. I don't mean to sound short I'm just so frustrated with all this because it's ruining my life.
I will try anything that people suggest, I am all ears.
I highly recommend the book, "Mind Over Mood" - Change How You Feel by Changing the Way You Think - by Dr. Greenberger and Dr. Padesky.
Free Podcasts of Guided Meditations by Mary Maddux at her website Meditation Oasis.
What meds are you on? I find that when I have my serious stress out panic time I have to go on Buspar for about 6 months to a year then I taper off and I'm good until the next time.
To be honest positive thinking sometimes makes me feel worse. I try to indulge in my feeling sorry for myself times for a bit, THEN go back to positive thinking. Life isn't all roses and it can be annoying and counter productive to try to be smiley all the time. At least that's how it is for me. I need to be down for a minute before I can get back up.
OK - In case you haven't tried these here is what I do and sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt:
-Yoga (I like hatha yoga)
-A good cardio session - short and intense
-swimming
-Being by a water fixture and hearing water flow helps me for some reason. It is almost like it drowns out my panic sometimes (a pond, or something like a fountain or waves crashing).
-I have a CD of ocean sounds if I can't be by water
-Run real fast down the street - but pretend like you're jogging but really in a way to run away from your feeling quite literally
-Xanax
-Buspar
-Long hot shower and listen to the water sound and watch the droplets
-Watch a stupid TV show that I can get lost in
-Walk in nature - like a local park or something
-Look at animal pictures online
-Talk it out with therapist (It has been 9 months since I've been so I need to go)
-Clean the apartment, it gets your mind off things and you have to focus on something else.
-Eat some junk food that is tasty - but don't make it a habit - I have gained a LOT of weight.
-Go to a spa and get a massage and use their jacuzzi
That's all I can remember for now, I'll post back if I remember other things I've tried.
Hugs.
From what I understand you have constant panic attacks without knowing why. This indicates to me that you're going to have to create more neural pathways before you can get a result, which means more anxiety attacks. Releasing those attacks by shouting etc is going to waste them. You need them to perform the task that they are created for in nature: to actually force you to evolve.
I liken it to a plant in a pot. Think little shop of horrors. That plant has to break the pot it is in, and to do that, it has to become more, and more, and more. It has to increase from within, and endure greater and greater and greater pressure.
It can't release that pressure. It has to force that pressure, use that pressure. If it releases it, it wastes it.
If you want to break the pot you are in, you have to increase your ability to withstand the panic attacks without doing anything about them. Without distracting yourself, without releasing stress. You have to endure them stoically. I put it to you that if you can withstand one, just one, without allowing yourself any sort of release (including internet) then you will smash the pot and although you may get them again in future, they will not be able to be so bad, so controlling. You will be able to look at them from more of a distance.
I quit smoking years ago, and panic attacks are actually a side effect of nicotine withdrawal. Stands to reason when you think about it: nicotine relaxes you.
But I had to learn at the time, that no matter my physical or emotional discomfort, they were merely a chemical side-effect of something else that I had to simply ignore. I must not take them seriously: they were not real.
If you are having panic attacks either some part of your unconscious brain is right and you are in severe danger, in which case pay attention, shut up and listen, sit still and quiet and try to hear what you are being told; or you are not in any danger at all, but to ascertain this you still have to sit still and listen.
Either way, shut your eyes and move towards the thing you fear, not away. Don't waste your time on behavioural games, they obviously don't fool you. next attack you get: welcome it. Say 'yay'! and try and find out what it is saying. Pay it some attention. Give it some credit. Ask it what it has to teach you, and learn that thing.
:)
Thanks for the long list of tips, redvelvet. I also find that water sounds calm me down a lot, although not when I'm in the middle of a panic attack, but just when I feel anxious. I've seen two therapists over the months, both Cognitive Behavioral therapists. Neither of them did me any good and I'm just sick of wasting my time and money and getting no results at all. I'm not on any meds right now. My therapists tried a whole slew of them but none of them worked, actually its hard to remember them all because there were just that many lol Zoloft, Celexa, Xanax, Cymbalta, Ativan, Klonopin, Valium, Elavil, Prozac, yeah I think that's all the ones they had me try, one at a time, to see if it did anything.
Hi Bridgie, yes I remember our conversation about that from several weeks ago. I have tried to do what you've suggested, to not distract myself when I'm having a panic attack, to not scream or cry. Unfortunately they just keep building and building in intensity and anguish as I ignore it, and they end with me throwing up and/or passing out. The next one I would get after that would not have any lesser of a hold over me even though I ignored everything. I do not know how to get any insight from this. The only thing I "hear" from my body is "This freaking sucks so much, I can't take it any longer, please make it stop."
Sufferer since 1990.