Panic Attacks Support Group
A panic attack is a period of intense fear or discomfort, typically with an abrupt onset and usually lasting no more than thirty minutes. Symptoms include trembling, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, sweating, nausea, dizziness, hyperventilation, and sensations of choking or smothering. Panic attacks can be very sudden, appear to be unprovoked, and are often...
Yesterday I was panicking most of the day. If I wasnt having an attack than my heart was racing. My boyfriend doesnt know how to help me and when he tries he usually makes it worse. I worked really hard yesterday and the day before to stay away from him when I feel like that cause I get really angry and wont leave him alone till I feel better. Wel thats not fair to him and I feel bad for my actions. So I did what he asked and controled my anger. I'm hurt that he still couldnt be there for me and when we did finally talk he said he didnt sign up for this! What does that mean. He gave me a bullshit answer that he didnt sign up to make me upset all the time and trigger the anxiety. Now I feel like I'm a burden to him and he is only with me cause he doesnt wanna hurt me. I dont even know how to talk to him about it cause he wont have a real conversation and if he does most of it is telling me what im doing wrong and I cant hear all that right now.
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grill tonight with charcoal.....turned out good but had some stuff that I had to feed to Belle and Happy because it was grissley. it tasted pretty good and was a perfect mid rare....
My boyfriend makes me nervous sometimes as well. A lot of the times he will ask me "are you ok?" if I sigh or I seem quiet. It got to the point that he was asking me ALL the time if I was 'ok' and it made me feel like I was being observed 24/7 which of course made me more nervous. We sat down and talked about it and things have been getting better. I hope that things work out for you and your guy.
One big thing for us was that he had been burned by people before who tried to "cure" him. Anyone with PD has experienced this and knows how unhelpful and hurtful this is. As a result, he had gotten very irritable about his PD and couldn't have a polite conversation about it without getting frustrated or angry.
What he wasn't realizing was that if he didn't explain to me what he needed during an attack, I was going to do the same things everyone else had done -- coddle him, try to soothe him, make a big fuss. What he wanted, however, was for me to just leave him alone and let him deal with it himself.
Now, when he takes an attack, I don't rush to hug him and say, "are you okay?". I ask, "do you need anything from me?" and don't take offense if he snaps or ignores me, and then just walk away, or let him walk away. He might go into a room and close a door, go for a drive in the car or just need some space for a few minutes. After that, he will come back and we will sit and I will start a conversation about something completely irrelevant (like, "Do you think that dogs wish they could blow their noses?" or, "I wonder if food tastes different at zero gravity") to get his mind off it.
Other times, he will need me to stay with him, and he will want me to just sit quietly or talk to him in a low voice. In either case, I just do what he asks and let him be.
The best thing you can do is, when you are calm and quiet, explain to your boyfriend exactly what you need. When you take an attack, do you want him to hug you? Leave you alone? Make silly jokes? Sing to you? Touch you? Hold your hand?
Explain to him what you need and what he can do to help you. And explain to him that if you get snappy or rude when you're panicking, you do not intend to hurt his feelings and appologize when it's over.
Just communicate with him. We partners don't always understand or know what you need. It takes a lot of effort to not run and hug you a and try to make everything better. The attacks attack us too.