The chest squeezing...it is anxiety...been checked. It is just so hard for me to calm. I don't understand why this is happening. I just realized that this used to happen when I was a kid.

An exercise I use to calm myself. See 5 things, say them out loud and describe out loud. Touch 5 things say out loud and describe how they feel out loud. Listen for 5 different sounds and do the same as before. Then go to fidge and tast 5 different things and describe also.
Here's a video that may help and there are many more to choose from
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkh2qe6-t_4
Sending Prayers for you and your dad and Comforting Calming Hugszz Blaine

Thank you Walking Buffalo. I tried the 5 things (except tasting) and it seemed to calm me a bit.

hi Cecil. I am sorry you are going through this. I had a simular feeling of cross anxiety. Confused is lightly put. Regardless of what is going on your mind is still fighting the past, now with his condition being in a drastic condition. The past anxiety tends to tangle up in a ball, multiplying the effect. You have been through a lot, a lot still unresolved , now the worry/fear and to an extent...guilt. A powerful combo. The chest is aching because your brain is telling it to drop everything, be the warm caring daughter of old, but your heart is still scarred in that area.
No one wants to be cold hearted when this happens, but not many understand all that was hidden either.

My heart. Do some calming exercises, jounrnal the confusion.
When my mother had cancer in 1998 I went through this..too run to her side and care for her?or to run away, because of what she did to me, just by not hearing me when I cried as a girl. I finally set the burden down of my anger for the past...there was no way to resolve it, not that fast. But to set it down, walk around it and go help her. Because that is me. You are good too, but it may be a war of wills inside you, doing this. Put the past in the box, leave it by the door, then do what you in your heart wants to do. Be decided in it. That should take one of the players out of the game for a bit.
Don't worry the box will not go anywhere, You maybe the only one that remembers or even cares what is in it.


My heart, we are here.
J.

I got to where I couldn't breathe for panic attacks, too, and finally pushed my cynical part aside enough to go to a bookstore and buy a book on meditation. I chose the one by a psychologist and not a religious writers--I have that cynic in me, remember? But I went to another store and bought incense and chimes and a meditation pillow to really commit to doing it, even if just psychologically and not religiously.

I did it every single day for five years. I had a panic attack at work today in front of colleagues in the faculty lunch room, and I was able to breathe using those meditation exercises I learned sitting on that pillow. They just thought I had a coughing fit.

To each their own. I'm not a Buddhist or a Hindu in the end, I'm just a moderate Christian type religiously still. But I went on to read more meditation books by more Buddhists, Hindus, whatever, and they gave me smart tools and techniques for getting my breath back--and my mind, too, when PTSD intrudes on me.

There are calming spoken meditations for sale as songs on iTunes and Amazon.com, too. Whatever. They just help us get our breath back and stop having our chests cave in from anxiety.

Thank you all.
Muji I do need to teach myself something that can calm me when I have this happen in public.

I am so embarrassed. I seem to be regressing to my young years lately. I have my moments, yes but the past few weeks I have just been a mess. The situation with my dad added to it. I am mostly calm now. Just very tired. I like some of those calming videos and meditations. Maybe I will get a sleep mask and que some up on my computer. I need to follow through on that. I have lousy follow through skills.
When I was a kid I lived in my own world because it was safe. It happens now and I don't want it to. Then I get more anxious. Snowballs. I feel like i have nothing to hold on to and whoops..down I go.

I flail around like i am drowning. I act like a lunatic. No one knows this happens. When i was a kid it got me hospitalized. I hide it. I tell no one except you guys. I'm glad you are all here.

Lilly...you didn't over react. The way I wrote it made it sound more alarming than it was. I am used to the feeling and when it first started happening i thought it was my heart too. EKG proved otherwise. I would say the same thing to anyone else...better be safe than sorry.

If you make a youtube account you can set up choices to play back to back. Not sure if you can do it without an account.

sorry you feel so bad

gentle classical music, sounds of nature music, lots of brisk walking, therapeutic screaming, watching some comedy, spring cleaning-I do this a lot- break something-like a few dishes, howl at the moon, I do exercises I learned in drama like the one I call speaking in tongues :),
sing, sing your hear out to the heavens, have a venting conversation with the woods-they do understand.

my prayers and warmest thoughts for you and your dad.,

rafie

Rafyel just mentioned singing...guess what it does work, even if you sound like Rodney Dangerfield doing it. It accesses left brain thinking, shutting down the right side for a bit. Left-creative, Right analytical.
So sing out loud!
I hope you are better today.
Jewells.