Hi Katalina, I am sorry to hear about your attacks. I am happy to hear that you made an appointment with a therapist. They can help give you some coping skills and help you identify why you may be having the attacks. Many times the attacks are fed by anxiety. . Learning relaxation techniques can help with both anxiety and panic. Both are a result of fight or flight instinct so it does help to understand how your body reacts to stresses or situations that are triggering. Deep breathing from the lower belly is a natural way to help. Journaling when you have attacks and the emotions you are feeling can get your emotions out and sometimes identify trends that lead to why you may be having an attack. Below please find so techniques that may help. Wishing you serenity and peace.

https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/fight-or-flight-response/

https://www.therapistaid.com/worksheets/grounding-techniques.pdf

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/prescriptions-life/201709/7-ways-calm-your-worried-mind-and-reduce-anxiety

Thank you for commenting I am going to try a few of these out. I have been journaling already and also I started drawing to try to help when I feel like I may have one or just randomly throughout the day

Thank you for sharing, I am so sorry you struggle with anxiety. I am also sorry to hear about your car accident. I am glad you have your first therapy appt on Monday. Seeking help is the first step to feeling better. Congratulations on your pregnancy. You are going to get the help you need so you can be ready when your little on comes.

I have struggled with anxiety so I understand. Besides therapy, I had a few tools and techniques that really helped me.

One is getting control of my thoughts. I did this through writing my anxious thoughts down, acknowledging them, then letting them go and replacing them with a non-anxious encouraging thought, that I repeated until I no longer was feeling anxious. I made a list of those encouraging thoughts to replace those anxious ones so I was prepared when I started struggling.

The next one that helped me was doing deep conscious breathing. Wherever I was when feeling anxious, I would stop what I was doing, find a comfortable place to sit, close my eyes and do 557 breathing. 5 deep breaths in breathing all the good things I want to feel. Hold it for the count of 5 to have those feeling get rooted in me and breath out to the count of 7 letting go anything that was making me anxious. I would repeat this three times. I was amazed how relaxed I felt after really focusing on my breaths and nothing else.

Lastly, there is a app called CBT-icoach. It has some wonderful relaxation techniques.

I will be praying for you. Take one moment at a time. I know you will feel better. Just keep working on taking control of your thoughts. For me letting go and giving them to God makes a huge difference too.

Reach out anytime we are here for you.

Hugs and God Bless

Aww thank you your comment really touched me. It’s just honestly comforting to know that I’m not alone in this struggle, and there’s other people who are going through this or have gone through this. It’s also just so good to hear that this will get better because when your in it it’s hard to see a way out. I am going to try those things you recommended and hopefully I can finally get some peace. Sometimes it’s hard to do my grounding techniques because I’m just so focus on the panic attack or anxiety I can’t turn my attention away from it.
I am really excited for the baby and can not wait until he/she gets here and I also have my 11 year old who I’ve just been trying to focus all my energy on spending time with him and enjoying this time while we have it since school starts here soon. But sometimes I feel bad because we are playing a simple game of checkers and I start having a panic attack and he will never know it as I don’t show it but inside I’m freaking out and end up not focusing so much on the game.
I am so so waiting for Monday i just wish it was Monday already it feels so far away. I’m ready to start working on my issues and working through them, finding the cause for them and facing them head on until they can’t bother me anymore.
The car accident was scary but my husband and I survived and that’s what I tell myself. I feel like since the accident my anxiety got worse before the accident I had it but it wasn’t as severe and definitely not as many panic attacks. But I just have to remind myself I’m fine I made it out of it. I have to see a doctor because I have a neck & back sprain but that’s all that happened and I’m feeling much better. It’s been a little over a week since it happened now.

Thank you for your response. I will be praying for your appointment today and I would love to hear how you are doing, so please keep in touch. Also, anyone that has gone through a car accident gets traumatized and it will take time to heal from that. So don't be hard on yourself, give yourself a break.

Two things that have really helped me and it sounds like you are working on it is reminding myself the depression and anxiety is not my fault, it is a chemical imbalance. It is not who I am, it is something I go through from time to time. The other thing and it does take work for a while, till it becomes the norm or automatic, is to constantly be redirecting those anxious thoughts and not allowing myself to continue them. Have a good replacement ready for when those anxious thoughts come by, helps me be prepared to change my focus. I will continue to be praying for you. Please keep in touch.

My appointment went good it was just her asking a bunch of questions to get background information I guess, and she said that I’ve been through more traumatic events in my lifetime than normal people or most people and the accident was like my trust it’s like a bucket dripping water and my bucket is now full and the water is overflowing aka why I’m all of a sudden having panic attacks which I never had before. She recommended for my amount of trauma hypnotherapy so this will be interesting

I am glad to hear your appointment went well. For me it really helps to have someone to open up to and guide our conversation to help me. I have never been through hypnotherapy so I don't know what that is like. For me just realizing that I have been through some traumatic and high stress experiences in my life is reason enough for my body to be reacting with depression and anxiety. When I gave myself permission to feel bad and that it is ok that I need to heal from those experiences. I began to feel better. So I pray you realize you are on a healing journey and will recover overtime. I have learned to journal my feelings and emotions and make them prayers. That also brings me peace. A big thing for me was learning to let go of the past, stop allowing myself to relive the past, and look to moving forward with a healthy and peaceful future. I will continue to be praying for you and I am here for you anytime you want to chat. You are welcome to pm me anytime. Hugs and God Bless

Your awesome I appreciate you so much!! For me I don’t really dwell on the past at all I kind of block it out if that makes sense, I’m realizing there’s apparently things I haven’t fully dealt with that is causing this. I know not every session will be hypnotherapy some will be just the regular talking through things and working through stuff, I have taken up journaling as well which helps me a lot because when I start to have a panic attack I go back through my journal and realize oooo I’ve felt this exact same way many of times before and it never hurt me which honestly does help. My uncle tells me I need to rely on god he’s a preacher and feed the faith not the fear so I’ve been trying so hard to do that but it is hard at times when my mind is like “but your in danger omg your gonna die” lol I’ve started calling my anxiety the anxiety monster which makes it seem less scary

It is good you are finding ways to cope. I also have a strong faith background. I pray often and focus my thoughts to God. I remind myself that He is in charge and with me all the time. Knowing I am not in charge and God knows everything really helps me have faith and learn to let go of my anxious thoughts. I often just have to give myself a break and not push myself when I am struggling. Two of my favorite poems are The Difference and Footprints in the Sand (check them out on google). Both show that with God we can get through anything in life, even the struggles with anxiety. I also am reading a great book right now called "The Noticer." It helps with seeing life through others perspectives and provides really encouragement. I will continue to be praying for you. pm me anytime. Hugs

I’ll google them and check out the book as well. Yesterday was a way better day for me I didn’t really struggle with anxiety or panic attacks I was able to do my makeup for the first time in forever. It’s a everyday learning process but I know it will get better. My husband just told me as well I need to just give it to go and let him take the reigns so to speak on my life and my anxiety and I will see a difference so that’s what I plan on doing

I’m so sorry to hear about your accident, I’ve also have been in pretty bad car accidents that have left me in a panic. I’m also very sorry that you have a fear of choking. I also have an extreme fear of choking and it takes hours to eat anything so your definitely not alone.

I am really glad to hear that I am not alone. I wish I could eat but I literally blend everything up it’s the only way I can right now. But I’ve made a lot of progress since the post with my panic attacks I started therapy which does seem to help. I’m down to 1 panic attack a week now instead of multiple in a day

There’s a new app I came across called DARE. It’s really good quality and have helped me calm down during an attack. Also when I feel the anxiety/panic heightening I play a game on my phone. For me it’s Candy Crush or Minesweeper. Ordinarily I never play these games but for some reason it helps me to calm down a lot of the time.

Grey I am going to have to give that app a try. My anxiety has gotten a lot better these past 3 months but I still have days where it just gets very overwhelming and gets to me and then I have a panic attack but I do play games which does help a bit, I also read and I started painting. But I am excited to give that app a try. Thanks so much

Greysombr I have given dare a try I got the app first and now I have the book and the workbook absolutely love it thank you it has helped me tremendously