New around here, my story.

[Haloes]

Hello,

So I am new on No More Panic and decided to tell my story. I am 24 (as of Friday) and a Masters student studying Business Taxation. I have a job lined up for after school, I have a loving family and the best boyfriend a woman could ever ask for. I also have a genetic heritage on my mom's side of panic attacks, agoraphobia, social anxiety, and depression along with a bunch of physical genetic problems from my dad's side. As of Fall last year, with the start of my masters and the final break up with my abusive and manipulative ex-boyfriend, I have begun my story with the family heritage with anxiety and panic attacks.

My sister developed them at the same age in a similar situation, after she moved away from all her family to go to school. I watched it progress for her and did not know it was happening until it was too late to truly help. She unfortunately developed agoraphobia and depression as well. I do not know if she ever became suicidal but I do not believe it was far off. Thank goodness we have an amazing family and my parents got her out of that bad situation and brought her home. It is now nearly three years later and she is still recovering. Once I realized I was having the same problems that she did I knew I wanted to be very proactive about getting help and support because I see her struggle, daily.

I started out simply feeling worried about exams, and being very bad at taking jokes. It got to the point where I could not tell if someone was serious or not because I was so on edge, constantly. Right before winter break things came to a head. I went to Las Vegas with some people from my program and the second night I was sitting on our couch watching a movie and I stood up to grab some food, and nearly fell over. I was having trouble breathing, I felt like my mind was not properly connected to my body (I had not had any form of intoxicant that day, had a proper day's sleep, and had eaten well), and my heart was pounding out of my chest. Obviously, I went to Emergency services just to be told that nothing was wrong with me. They did full blood work, EKG, even pregnancy tests. Nothing was physically wrong but I could not make myself feel better. That is probably the most terrified I have ever been in my life.

After that trip I went home for break, slept for about 3 weeks straight, re-met my current boyfriend who I have know since I was 17 but we had been out of touch for 3 years after a huge fight. I still have flares of panic attacks and irrational thoughts happen daily but I am working to control the terror-urges and hypochondriac-urges that come from regular physical aches/pains/warmth/tingles. I generally use exercise, healthy eating, and meditation to calm down as well as ridiculous amounts of talking, I am considering finding a therapist to provide relief to my boyfriend, parents, and sister . I have panic attack pills but I find that the thought of taking them scares me into a panic attack almost every time so I have opted for different methods. Any hints, tips, or helpful thoughts are very much appreciated. I wanted to introduce myself, this is my anxiety-start story and I swear I am not a crazy.

Haloes

[MyNameIsTerry]

First off Haloes, you are definately not crazy!

Second, happy birthday and well done for taking the steps you have. You seem to have so many positive aspects to your life and thats a great help in preventing you from sinking into depression over the anxiety. The fact you can talk to them is a definate bonus as you won't feel as isolated.

There are different types of anti depressants out there so yo can always discuss trying such as SSRI/SRNI's that are taken daily to stabilise you whilst you keep working your way through to the other side. There are side effects at first and it can be very unpleasant, we shouldn't sugar coat this one as you need to know why you could feel worse for a few weeks at first, but after you get through them many people find them useful. So, don't be afraid of that if you don't feel you can beat it without meds.

I'm glad you are using the methods you have mentioned. General fitness and weight can play a part in anxiety & depression as well as how you view yourself. Lacking in these areas can make you feel worse and start to develop issues with your confidence, self esteem and self worth. Exercise can also help habituate you to the sensations since it can make you feel similar to your anxious state.

Do you practice Mindfulness meditation? If you are new to it, it will take time to sink in but you won't even notice some of the changes, things just change and over time it can be a great help.

Volunteering or helping others can be useful in improving self worth and self esteem. Or even just helping your family.

Is your sister further along in her recovery than you are? I attended self help groups and it can be useful to have something to aspire to or for others to view you that way.

It's hard on family members, they can't fully appreciate it - no one can, not even the doctors. Is is possible to provide them with some form of education so they can understand it more? All this is so irrational so reading about other peoples experiences can help? We have a campaign running in the UK called 'Time For Change' to educate people and remove stigma. Perhaps reading something like this can help?

Sometimes in the self help groups, a parnter would join to just listen and talk to others in the breaks. If you have this option, it may help them understand that it's very common and very diverse but you & they are not alone in the roles you are in.

Aside from that, if you had therapy such as CBT, the therapist might allow them to attend some of the sessions. Mine offered this but it was restricted to certain sessions so it didn't stop her aims in treatment and I recall the option of a session to discuss issues impacting on partners.