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...
I've had panic attacks for close to 2 years now.
In some ways I've made a ton of progress, but in others I've regressed.
I've become extremely comfortable with some triggers which initially I couldn't stand. I did that by 1) avoiding those situations/places 2) Becoming calm (exercise, meditation, visualization, changing my thoughts, stopping obsessing about panic attacks, etc). 3) Returning to those places in (very) small doses. 4) Increasing the doses of time I spent there 5) The trigger just evaporated/vanished.
However, under times of intense stress, I found new triggers occurred which in the past hadn't been issues. I was very saddened to have to leave a place today which really disrupted my life. It felt like a failure, but I also could see it's just pointing out a problem I DO need to deal with, and I WILL overcome it.
What started the problem?
My codependent mom visited for a week. I love her a ton, and we're "close" but sshe's extremely anxious and doesn't realize she is. I lost it -- her anxiety, control of me, trying to make/keep me dependent on her financially/emotionally (by destroying my progress with small comments, such as saying a self-help book I was reading was "clearly a scam," giving me pity in a condescending way as if I'm a loser who is helpless, panicking me about problems by exaggerating them, not giving me empathy, ignoring my problems by changing the subject or saying "I just don't understand" to things that were quite understandable, etc...and her toxic anxiety where she riles me up by fussing and making a huge deal about tiny details. Even walking down the street she yelled, "WAIT! Stop!! Stop! Stop!!" and I thought something was seriously wrong, and she said, "Did you want to buy something from this store?" I almost panicked just from that.
I ended up eating huge amounts of unhealthy food/sugar, when before I had been keeping a healthy diet and exercising daily, reading self-help books etc. I stopped exercising and got lost in her web of manipulation, and lost myself for a whole week. I pointed out the problems and asked her to stop, but she just can't control herself. I ended up being very angry and anxious with her visiting, and found myself distracted away from what was improving my life.
With her gone, I had a panic attack, but now I'm more determined than ever to improve my life.
I'm curious what has WORKED for any of you. I've read about 10 books and am still looking for my own solution.
Some things I've read that I've found true for me. I'm sharing in case it can help any of you:
*Childhood emotional neglect/abuse can create feelings of an unsafe world and feeling either detached and cold or anxious and insecure (Parents who did things like -- being too involved/not letting child learn or do things for themselves, adult making child a "little friend" by relying on them for emotional support or telling child adult problems, not supervising child enough, not spending time together playing or doing fun things, bullying, not caring about child's feelings or needs/even needs for fun, activities, love).
I always thought I had a perfect childhood, because my family told me I did. I had nothing to compare it to. But it was actually very abusive.
For me, I grew up alone in a house where I hadn't met another child until kindergarden. My dad was a depressed narcissist who didn't think we had a right to exist as separate humans, ignored my feelings and let non-cable TV raise me, or let me play in the yard alone (where twice I had to go to the ER from falling off of things w/o supervision). he fed me like I was a prisoner and stayed locked in his room. My mom was also depressed and angry, and only worked and then stayed in her room. Neither parent ever played with me. Somehow I was still made to be "the favorite" and my sister despised me for that and hated and rejected me, did cruel things to me, ignored me. When my parents were around they took over my tasks and didn't let me do anything for myself. I wasn't allowed to try new things or have friends. They made me worship them in return for their "help" with things, while scaring me about how terrifying the world was. Even sending a package at the post office was a huge ordeal. Everything was "too hard for dumb me," etc, so they made me rely on them so I wouldn't escape. But still, I was the "good child" so I thought it was all fine.
Working through those kinds of things in therapy helps. As do self-help books. My favorites are "toxic parents" and "healing your emotional self" They teach you the abuse wasn't your fault and you aren't horrible for existing.
*Diet is important. I'm working on giving up sugar, caffeine, and refined carbs. I've read when yeast overgrows in your body it can lead to blood sugar problems which spike adrenalin and an lead to panic.
*Exercise/meditation are important -- 90 mins of exercise boost seratonin. 30 minutes of meditation (still working on adding these amounts)
*Healthy relationships -- a lot of us w/ panic attacks don't know what healthy relationships are, and many of us have "insecure attachment" where we grew up being either clingy or avoidant due to our parents, which means we fear letting people know us on some level due to toxic shame (shame for existing and having normal needs). These are all good things to learn about.
*Oxytocin -- more of this , which we get from healthy relationships, helps sooth and calm our brain. It quells the panic response. Hugging, good relationships, love, or even thinking of love all help.
*Exposure technique -- you can immerse yourself in a place that scares you until panic goes away, or gradually increase your exposure. I felt that immersing myself only was linking the place w/ panic in my mind, so instead I worked to become calm first and gradually step up the exposure.
*Changing thoughts - thinking things like "this is a good way to practice working on my problem with this" helped. I wrote a list of tasks to build up to exposure, and enjoyed checking them off.
*Not hiding the panic attacks from others -- Instead of lying, I admit I have been having a problem with panic attacks when turning down social events. I've found some very caring and non judgmental people, and also some uncaring ones. It's good to find this out about people up front, and also know who is caring/empathetic and who isn't.
*Attachment styles -- I became an "insecure attached" due to my childhood (see the wiki on this), and attracted "avoidantly attached" as is common. Dating an avoidant put me in a horrible spiral of anxiety which worsened the attacks. So now I'm seeking "healthy attached" people who are called "secures." Simply no longer dating the avoidant and being put into a spiral of not knowing if he'll text me for days has relieved a lot of anxiety. The book "attached" is great.
It's still a huge frustrating struggle, but I feel I'm on my way to healing! As we all are. Let's stay positive and do all we can to resolve our issues.
In some ways I've made a ton of progress, but in others I've regressed.
I've become extremely comfortable with some triggers which initially I couldn't stand. I did that by 1) avoiding those situations/places 2) Becoming calm (exercise, meditation, visualization, changing my thoughts, stopping obsessing about panic attacks, etc). 3) Returning to those places in (very) small doses. 4) Increasing the doses of time I spent there 5) The trigger just evaporated/vanished.
However, under times of intense stress, I found new triggers occurred which in the past hadn't been issues. I was very saddened to have to leave a place today which really disrupted my life. It felt like a failure, but I also could see it's just pointing out a problem I DO need to deal with, and I WILL overcome it.
What started the problem?
My codependent mom visited for a week. I love her a ton, and we're "close" but sshe's extremely anxious and doesn't realize she is. I lost it -- her anxiety, control of me, trying to make/keep me dependent on her financially/emotionally (by destroying my progress with small comments, such as saying a self-help book I was reading was "clearly a scam," giving me pity in a condescending way as if I'm a loser who is helpless, panicking me about problems by exaggerating them, not giving me empathy, ignoring my problems by changing the subject or saying "I just don't understand" to things that were quite understandable, etc...and her toxic anxiety where she riles me up by fussing and making a huge deal about tiny details. Even walking down the street she yelled, "WAIT! Stop!! Stop! Stop!!" and I thought something was seriously wrong, and she said, "Did you want to buy something from this store?" I almost panicked just from that.
I ended up eating huge amounts of unhealthy food/sugar, when before I had been keeping a healthy diet and exercising daily, reading self-help books etc. I stopped exercising and got lost in her web of manipulation, and lost myself for a whole week. I pointed out the problems and asked her to stop, but she just can't control herself. I ended up being very angry and anxious with her visiting, and found myself distracted away from what was improving my life.
With her gone, I had a panic attack, but now I'm more determined than ever to improve my life.
I'm curious what has WORKED for any of you. I've read about 10 books and am still looking for my own solution.
Some things I've read that I've found true for me. I'm sharing in case it can help any of you:
*Childhood emotional neglect/abuse can create feelings of an unsafe world and feeling either detached and cold or anxious and insecure (Parents who did things like -- being too involved/not letting child learn or do things for themselves, adult making child a "little friend" by relying on them for emotional support or telling child adult problems, not supervising child enough, not spending time together playing or doing fun things, bullying, not caring about child's feelings or needs/even needs for fun, activities, love).
I always thought I had a perfect childhood, because my family told me I did. I had nothing to compare it to. But it was actually very abusive.
For me, I grew up alone in a house where I hadn't met another child until kindergarden. My dad was a depressed narcissist who didn't think we had a right to exist as separate humans, ignored my feelings and let non-cable TV raise me, or let me play in the yard alone (where twice I had to go to the ER from falling off of things w/o supervision). he fed me like I was a prisoner and stayed locked in his room. My mom was also depressed and angry, and only worked and then stayed in her room. Neither parent ever played with me. Somehow I was still made to be "the favorite" and my sister despised me for that and hated and rejected me, did cruel things to me, ignored me. When my parents were around they took over my tasks and didn't let me do anything for myself. I wasn't allowed to try new things or have friends. They made me worship them in return for their "help" with things, while scaring me about how terrifying the world was. Even sending a package at the post office was a huge ordeal. Everything was "too hard for dumb me," etc, so they made me rely on them so I wouldn't escape. But still, I was the "good child" so I thought it was all fine.
Working through those kinds of things in therapy helps. As do self-help books. My favorites are "toxic parents" and "healing your emotional self" They teach you the abuse wasn't your fault and you aren't horrible for existing.
*Diet is important. I'm working on giving up sugar, caffeine, and refined carbs. I've read when yeast overgrows in your body it can lead to blood sugar problems which spike adrenalin and an lead to panic.
*Exercise/meditation are important -- 90 mins of exercise boost seratonin. 30 minutes of meditation (still working on adding these amounts)
*Healthy relationships -- a lot of us w/ panic attacks don't know what healthy relationships are, and many of us have "insecure attachment" where we grew up being either clingy or avoidant due to our parents, which means we fear letting people know us on some level due to toxic shame (shame for existing and having normal needs). These are all good things to learn about.
*Oxytocin -- more of this , which we get from healthy relationships, helps sooth and calm our brain. It quells the panic response. Hugging, good relationships, love, or even thinking of love all help.
*Exposure technique -- you can immerse yourself in a place that scares you until panic goes away, or gradually increase your exposure. I felt that immersing myself only was linking the place w/ panic in my mind, so instead I worked to become calm first and gradually step up the exposure.
*Changing thoughts - thinking things like "this is a good way to practice working on my problem with this" helped. I wrote a list of tasks to build up to exposure, and enjoyed checking them off.
*Not hiding the panic attacks from others -- Instead of lying, I admit I have been having a problem with panic attacks when turning down social events. I've found some very caring and non judgmental people, and also some uncaring ones. It's good to find this out about people up front, and also know who is caring/empathetic and who isn't.
*Attachment styles -- I became an "insecure attached" due to my childhood (see the wiki on this), and attracted "avoidantly attached" as is common. Dating an avoidant put me in a horrible spiral of anxiety which worsened the attacks. So now I'm seeking "healthy attached" people who are called "secures." Simply no longer dating the avoidant and being put into a spiral of not knowing if he'll text me for days has relieved a lot of anxiety. The book "attached" is great.
It's still a huge frustrating struggle, but I feel I'm on my way to healing! As we all are. Let's stay positive and do all we can to resolve our issues.
release2find
Glad for your progress and your continuing understanding of yourself and how to help you move past the panic. Keep moving in that direction! Keep feeling better...Congrats.
nmsu2000
Really good post. I enjoyed reading it. You are obviously well educated on the subject. I enjoyed the part about exposure technique. I would like to learn more about that . Do you have any more info on that topic?
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