Free at last

[Davit]

A few words about me. I've had anxiety all my life but only panic attacks for ten years progressively getting worse till they were happening every night for a whole year. SSRIs did not help and I was dependent on Ativan. It took a year to get off the Ativan. CBT worked and does about 99% of the time that other one percent I have a very small dose of valium for. CBT would work for this too but some times I just am too lazy to work at it. No other reason.
I'm honestly too old, tired and sore to be bothered some times. I just want to put the day behind and start again come morning. Dealing with anxiety is so much harder if you have a physical disability also. Mine is Arthritis. Severe.
I still Garden and do some wood work but find day to day chores occupy my time. Interests are good food good movies and good friends. In that order, yes I am an introvert.
Oh and I have been panic attack free for five years according to the rules for being free. Actually exceeding them. Worst I ever get now is the odd nightmare.

[venusbluejeans]

Hiya Davit and welcome to NMP

Why not take a look at our articles on our home page, they contain a wealth of information and are a great starting place for your time on the forum.

I hope you find the as site helpful and informative as I have and that you get the help and support you need here and hope that you meet a few friends along the way

[Davit]

I'm amazed, Why are you English so far ahead of us? There is a wealth of information here that echo's what I know. Difference is it took me five years to collect it and check it's authenticity. And it is accurate.
I do have to say that a lot of it is going to sound strange and foreign to the new person trying to deal with a scary new condition. But if you study it closely it makes sense. Every thing has a reason even panic attacks. No Voodoo here just simple step by step guiding your mind back to doing what it is supposed to do. But it will take time, how much time depends on how much you need to change. One very important note, the change will be to how you think, not who you are, you will not become a clone or a robot. You will become however free.
As you might have gathered I'm not here because I need help. I am still learning and will do so for all my life. The latest information I'm studying is the possibility that the connection between memory and past experience may be the cause for such physical ailments as Irritable bowel syndrome, Ulcers and other things that are affected by the action of glands controlled by the pituitary gland working off information from the hypothalamus. In other words your body is doing what it thinks it is supposed to do not what it should. Not that much different than panic attacks

Davit

[MyNameIsTerry]

Welcome to NMP

Well done for getting to that stage. I'm sure when you get 99% free its a million miles away from the constant issues and it must feel much more liveable.

Do you feel that by being able to embrace CBT's techniques that it will prevent any future relapse?

The past experience and memory relationship sounds fascinating. I'm sure I've heard this somewhere and it makes sense in terms of reaction since we know that the fear centre, the right Amygdala, makes associations between neurons hence we get our feelings coupled with certain places or certain things. Panic attacks are known to reoccur in places where they have been experienced before regardless of anxiety leading up to them and I know I have places where my anxiety symptoms are more intense due to the association with that location from when I was at my worst e.g. side effects periods of starting medication and where I spent most of my days at that point in my house avoiding any further possible triggers until the side effects passed. I've read that the right Amydala is not the only part that is connected to fear & memory storage and that the hippocampus is involved in that process. Would they have any impact on the conditions you are researching?

Its all interesting because whilst there can be a gene involved, anxiety is learnt behaviour afterall as we see as our anxiety disorders worsen over time. We can "unlearn" them via learning healthy behaviours to create new neural pathways, via neuroplasticity in the same way we learnt our unhealthy ones, which are used instead of the old unhealthy ones and then they start to be broken down over time and binned. You have obviously relearnt healthy behaviours in conquering your panic attacks.

[Davit]

It isn't so much embracing CBT as what CBT did.
All thought passes through controls before it becomes action. The first control and a usually subconscious one is survival. "is this thought or action I'm observing dangerous." " how dangerous." Not, then ignore it, possibly, then what did I do in the past (memory) New perceived thought with no answer from previous memory., go to semsntic memory. (associated) find something close. Semantic memory is connected to episodic memory in the Hypothalamus area Episodic memory puts together a thought or idea to form the action. The thought or action cycles back to Memory and is stored as an up date for future reference. It also cycles back to the original thought or trigger to stimulate the next thought or action (as in putting one foot in front of the other. Or, thats not just a red car, is it a porche.) This is called a thought triangle and is drawn with three sides and connecting arrows. It is on the internet. But I got it from my therapist. Every action forms a chemical code that opens a sequence of memories when it is triggered. The code will not allow a different memory. CBT blocks the code and replaces it with a different one. Episodic memory controls the hypothalamus which controls the pituitary gland which controls other glands.
So the question is if in past a thought based on a food caused IBS could a thought in memory do it again just from eating that food. Say instructing the kidneys to not salvage water from the large bowel or salvage too much.
Interesting but no way to prove it except to use CBT to change the memory.
Memories do deteriorate in pieces from lack of use but it takes a very long time. Memory is not stored as episodes but as pieces put together. those pieces can be part of many episodes. This is why we can store so much information

two in the morning here in Canada.

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If you can visualize the triangle you can see how panic cycles around and around to become an attack till built in limiting controls finally let go. That limiting ontrol can be anywhere from minutes to hours in different people. And it can be shortened with CBT.
CBT works between memory and action to stop the cycling. And this is why CBT works.

[MyNameIsTerry]

CBT works by making use of conscious thought, as in the prefrontal cortex, in responding to data driven by the subconscious. The subconscious, afterall, cannot make decisions but send data to the conscious brain for a decision hence fight or flight. Then its all about changing how the subconscious responds to stimuli which can take much longer as it needs to relearn its response, hence why behavioural therapy works. Its interesting how whilst the learning process is the same, it doesn't flag up other processes e.g. how do I drive, it just performs it so there must be an element of indecisiveness involved or a flag or something so that it bounces all anxiety to the conscious mind for a decision.

I also find the concept of distraction and intrusive thoughts interesting. Some say to use distraction however there is also thought that by ignoring instead of not judging, you reinforce the thought by telling the subconscious that your reaction is sufficient to justify the thought as a valid process. So, its difficult finding what works given the different views.

Don't sell yourself short, the one thing about CBT is that it only works if you work hard at changing how you respond. CBT can't make changes to the subconscious alone, (the response has already occurred prior to the data being gathered and pushed to the prefrontal cortext) it needs a push to make those changes and it doesn't always work as CBT is not a guaranteed method, other forms of psychotherapy seem to work as well.

[Davit]

CBT seems to be a catch all phrase for a lot of things that are only partially. Coping skills are only part of CBT unfortunately a lot of people never get past them into the cognitive part. I did. But it took a lot of research.
I will never have another panic attack even though I have the same potential to have one as everyone else. The closest I will get will be a claustrophobic night mare and that will depend on what I eat late and what medication I'm on.

99% cured would be one panic attack every hundred days. Anxiety, panic and worry are almost non existent. Concern yes, worry and anxiety and it's partner panic, no, gone. Five or more years panic attack free. It is not coming back. Technically only I can bring it back and why would I.

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In the case of distractions. The object is not to distract but to move the thought away from the panic thought to something else and this is done by having more thoughts at one time than the mind can juggle. This can be anywhere from 5 to 9 with the average being six before a person starts to lose them. If the six (or more) are related then the earliest will be dropped unless you are so determined to keep it active that you keep bringing it to the front. Otherwise technically if done right distractions work. It is up to you to learn how or your Therapist to explain it. Eg, stare at the pattern on the floor, think about your shoe colour, are your socks mismatched, are my laces done up, keep going, you need at least six. Looking out the window works better, more unrelated things to think about. A good one and one that is popular is thinking of people as different types of dogs. But you need six or more.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I think thats because when you have CBT, you don't really have CBT...you have a bespoke needs based treatment otherwise you would end up usng tools & techniques that are irrevelent to your case. Its for the therapist to conduct the right line of questioning and determine what is the best way forward. For some, this may mean more behavioural techniques, some require more ERP aqnd others need to work more on thoughts hence getting more into the cognitive side.

For me, behavioural works better as my mind is very analytical so its hard to change my logical views which can easily say "this is just wordfs, this can't change physical processes in the brain". This becomes easier as you recover but at first I think you can be very resistant to changing cognitive distortions if you have this type of mindset.

In terms of distarction, I was doing counting backwards from 100 (often multiple times) and staring at an object intently for several minutes. I would have issues with using a thought based method as I had various forms of OCD so can do that and become more anxious with the neverending internal monologue but if it works for some, great.

Maybe a varation would be to take the elements of the exercise and apply then in a Mindfulness way by really noticing how the subjects look, sound, feel, etc.

Distractions are more of panic too. When you get into GAD with 24/7 anxiety, they don't work or only work for a very short time. I think thats when distractions become more about healthy behaviours e.g. hobbies so that you can emerse yourself in a longer activity.

[Davit]

I'm not autistic but do see thoughts in pictures, often multiple choices and three dimensional. Standing on the left side of my tractor I can see the right side very clearly. Building something I can see all the components and if there are two many I clump them into pages like folders that I open as I need them. I do this building anything. House, garden, garage, landscaping, anything that would normally be on paper I carry in my mind. In the case of house. Plumbing and wiring were different from framing and I could overlay them. There were no mistakes. I am probably on the high end of being able to hold multiple thoughts, but not as high I think as the high score game players here. To be really good at that you have to be able to subconsciously hold a lot of possibilities in your head. You need interest too and I lack that with games.
Chess bores me.
I agree that CBT is person specific and it takes a therapist to sort out what you need best most of the time. I feel though that you need good behavioural skills before attempting cognitive because the stress of changing core beliefs can bring on panic and you need skills to counter it while doing it. That might just be me because I have good imagination. (associated/semantic memory) Being good at problem solving makes you good at problem creating.

I forgot to mention in stacking the more you can add to the thought the better. such as with the horse, smell, colour, stance and anything else to flood your thoughts, as panicgurl does by sorting by size. It is called stacking because you are stacking thoughts on top of the panic thought to make it irrelevant. The important points are what you use has to be neutral, it can not be related to the panic thought and it can not have negative possibilities. Do not use horses or dogs if you are scared of them or boats if you have a water phobia. Mindfulness would strengthen it.
I think if people stay within the framework how they do it isn't important, what is, is the stacking.

[Davit]

I've been playing Bubble shooter. I'm going to see how quickly I can clean the board instead of looking for a high score. To do that as soon as you get to the top row you leave nothing there but one or two colour. Not as easy as it sounds. Much like changing thought patterns. And I did that so I should be able to control my thoughts enough to do this.