The way to start to over come panic anxiety agoraphobia

[jude uk]

over coming anxiety panic attacks agoraphobia is never going to be easy but it can be done.

There are a couple of things that I believe will support us to move forward are.

1. There are no magic pills or cures(medication can help but it is not the answer.) Some may have to take it for a long time but if it helps then keep with it
2. knowledge is power. Understand what it is you are going through and how to combat it
3. accept that you will have good and bad days but dont dwell on the bad days



As I have said in some of my post I have suffered from agoraphobia/panic attacks for sometime and at one point in my life I could not leave the house for about a year.

Here I am now going out, on buses, trains every week, shopping driving and thankfully in a gtrat relationship.

So how did I get to this stage?

I started with small goals

1. just walking out my house a few yards and doing that until I felt able to move on.
2. I had a goal of reaching a coffee shop less than 10 mins walk from me, so that gave me a reachable target....AIM FOR A REACHABLE TARGET.
3. Every day no matter how I felt I would keep going the same few yards or more...it may not sound a lot but it is a fab feeling just to do it
4.I accepted that sometimes I would feel terrible but would push for an extra yard or so
5.I Understood that nothing bad would happen to me.
6. Stand and face that fear because you will get the fear but remember you have a goal and keep telling yourself you will do it
7. Get support from family and accept that support.
8. keep the mobile phone with you to call someone if you feel really bad but 96% of the time you wont even need to use it, just knowing you have it does help you cope
9. When you reach your goal keep doing it everyday...yes you may have the odd blip but that is not a failure, its just a blip
10. Keep doing it until you are bored with it and then start with another small goal.


When I wanted to get further I asked a friend or family member to support me with it.
My next step was just going to the park and walking around it. This worked in two ways...A new goal and it was excercise.

Its all baby steps but they work. If I had not tried I could still be in my house wasting away my whole life and lets face it we are wasting away our whole life...This is not a slur on anyone because I know how difficult it is just to take that first step.


As I look back its strange to think of myself the way I was. Tied in knots with fear. Crippled with panic and anxiety and unable to go anywhere.


Getting better hurts I wont pretend it doesnt but its worth it.


I have a 10 year old son that I take to the park and this would not have been possible if I had not faced the fear and taken the baby steps



Do set yourself a goal because this is the key.

it could be going shopping, taking the kids to school, walking in the park.


I am not special nor do I boast. I know that we can all get better


hugs

[Vixxy]

Great ideas. I usually forget to keep trying something until i feel ok doing it and try and push myself onto the next milestone. So from today onwards Im going to just stick to attempting one thing until I feel just fine doing it.
For now Im going to go to Tescos which is about a 15 min drive away every day and Im going to write myself a list so that I dont just run in and run back out and drive home. Ill only leave once Ive completed the list of items. Going to end up with a lot of food coming home LOL
I actually went to Tescos again today after reading this post (I went yesterday), so Ive already put it in motion!

[Bill]

I quite agree with everything you've said and I think it's Brilliant what you've achieved because I can appreciate how very difficult it must have been for you. In a way, I guess you must have had a great incentive to be able to take your son out. I'm sure that must give you a great deal of satifaction.

Just a little extra thought if I may...."preparation". This doesn't just apply to agoraphobia but whatever fear we're trying to overcome.

People often say we must face our fears if we want to overcome them but often I feel they don't tell you how so you try to confront your fear head on thinking you've got to put yourself in a terrifying place to confront it but that isn't true.

Supposing you're sitting at home thinking you really want to get out but as soon as you think about it, you're filled with terror so as soon as you step outside the door your legs turn to jelly, you feel you can't breathe and everything is spinning so you retreat back indoors feeling a failure.

This is where "preparation" comes in. We can either prepare ourselves "knowing" we're going to panic or we can prepare ourselves to think "we're Not" going to panic.

Often when we're already feeling terrified we cause ourselves to panic because we focus so much on our fear and anxious feelings. However, if you learn how to keep relaxed Before you attempt to go out and tell yourself "there's nothing to worry about", if you convince yourself enough, you'll actually find the panic won't consume you.

Our minds create our panics IF we keep thinking about our fear. If you can learn to focus on keeping calm and how to keep relaxed before you attempt facing your fear, you'll find that once you're confronting it, the fear won't cause you severe panics because you won't be focusing on it.

We can either focus on our fear so that we freeze with panic or we can focus on how how to remain calm and what we want to achieve (outward thinking) so that we prevent thinking about our fear ("inward" thinking) and panics. It takes training, practise, determination and experience but never give up on hope as Jude has proved.

Hope you didn't mind me adding that Jude.

[Ronny]

Thankyou Jude and Bill for 2 great posts to add to my collection.I print them out and put them in a folder to read when I am feeling like i am today (shite).
Rhonda xx

[chrissc]

I was house bound too at one point. Got better and now its back full force. Very sad and very unsure I will be able to accept and control it again...

[jude uk]

Preperation is always wise Bill and thats a great point you have made We can prepare to fail or we can prepare for success. We have all had times of failure and success. Sometimes the failure over-comes us and we feel defeated. We become tired and battle worn by fighting the fear and I understand how that feels. Thats why I always suggest having small reachable goals. Dont just get up one day and say " Today I will just go to the shops, book a flight etc" because we are then running before we walk.

Chrissc I should have also said in my post that I also had overcome everything and was back at square one at one point (this was brought on my two family deaths) I would suggest that the knowledge you had, you still have. You still have all the tools to over-come the fear.

Often when we're already feeling terrified we cause ourselves to panic because we focus so much on our fear and anxious feelings. However, if you learn how to keep relaxed Before you attempt to go out and tell yourself "there's nothing to worry about", if you convince yourself enough, you'll actually find the panic won't consume you. (quote from Bill)

One step at a time

[JulieL]

Thanks for that post, i completely agree. It can be very difficult to face our fears but we should celebrate when we do it cos we have acheived something.

[Jabz]

just a few things to add to this.

1. Reaction !
2. Stress management
3. Excersize
4. Positive thinking
5. Overthinking

1. Reaction - try not to react to your thoughts, this will take a lot of practice and probably a lot of anxiety and panic attacks. but everytime you have an attack, try to monitor it rather then think about it. try to monitor your symptoms and notice that nothing actually happens to you, remember this and get used to not being afraid of certain bodily sensations. if you have OCD thoughts, don't react to them...they are neither present or absent. let them swim around, but don't make anything of them and they will pass. so key thing here is, treat it with apathy...don't overreact on thoughts that you know don't make sense. its easier said than done, but this is why you should practice. achieve and attitude of acceptance toward your anxiety and it will vanish.

2.Panic attacks come from high anxiety, if you are anxious the day before you will be more anxious the next day and you will get a panic attack if you're in a highly anxious mood. High anxiety comes from stress and stress in part comes from many things one of which is also how you react. If you tend to overreact and over think, you will in turn increase stress and increase anxiety and increase your chance of a panic attack. Learn how to manage your stress, whether its through excersize, meditation, yoga or simply sitting in the park (as long as you're not thinking about anxiety). Lower your stress and you will lower your general anxiety. If you are worried about your physical state, then please do get yourself checked out with a doctor (so he can tell you nothing is wrong with you) and you will greatly reduce stress just from that alone.

3. Excersize. well this is a no-brainer, if you can..then do excersize. this releases "happy juices" and makes you forget about everything and enjoy life, even if its for a few hours its a great confidence booster. also it gets rid of excessive adrenaline that our bodies produce and naturally calms you down. you WILL feel great afterwords. Sometimes it will also teach you how to not react to your symptoms, as when we are excersizing we experience a lot of the same symptoms as during a panic attack.

4. Positive thinking - this is a very large topic. Most of our anxiety comes from imagining scenarios that are NOT EVEN REAL, but the problem is we are scaring ourselves into what if thinking that may or may not occur (usually doesn't). It's hard to stop imagining things, so you need to practice thinking positively. Whenever you're in a calm state, start thinking positive thoughts. Feed your subconscious with positive thoughts and it will benefit you. When starting to panic, block your negative thoughts and visualizations with many different techniques, but as long as you are talking to yourself about something it will always be better than thinking negative thoughts during a panic attack.

5. Overthinking - i am sure most of us come home and play our panic attacks in our minds almost every minute till we go to bed. I know i do and its very hard not to, but this is a problem as our focus is constantly on anxiety and panic. If you had a panic attack, fine. it felt uncomfortable, but you are alive and home and free to do anything else, DO NOT think about the attack you had and how you might have to deal with it again..etc etc. Don't start visualizing negative things (as you can see all of these points are related), you will make yourself anxious and anxious and....well you get the idea. Let it go,deal with another panic attack when it comes...deal with it in the present and thats it. Don't think about the future and don't over analyze the past. ACCEPT your panic attacks and let them be.

What i like to do is treat my panic attacks like a headache, when you have a headache you know you are uncomfortable, you know you might not want to do some things...but you are not worried about having a headache tomorrow...even though you might or might not. but most of us don't care about that, we care about it right now at this moment. it doesn't scare us, its just annoying, but thats all. This is what a panic attack is, but even shorter as real high panic only lasts for a few minutes. Treat it as such. Almost like you are recovering from some injury and these are some symptoms, but they will get better as you go along.

I know these are all easier said than done, this is why practice is VERY VERY important. I can't stress that enough. Practice makes perfect, its true. Your mind is very smart and very powerful and it's only trying to protect you and all you do is keep fighting it. Don't. Stop fighting it and it will stop fighting you. When you get a panic attack, try to remember everything you've learned about them. Many times, we, myself included, forget everything we know about panic attacks and just start to freak. Slow down, stop and try to remember (this takes practice as well). Don't try to control it. Don't try to break the cycle of fear, try to morph it into a cycle of non-fear.

If you don't react, you wont start thinking what if thoughts, if you don't think what if thoughts you don't think negatively, if you're not thinking negatively you may in turn start thinking positively, if you think positively you will not be afraid and if you're not afraid you don't react.

If i can think of some more things to add i will post another post, but for now practice, practice, practice.


Stan.