Letting it happen or fighting it?

[SickofIt]

What do you do when you feel yourself start to panic?

I've got some morning anxiety going on today. Has anyone else ever experienced this - earlier this morning (around 4am) I had to get up to take my husband to meet a ride into work. I came home and went back to sleep and now I feel anxious. WHY???

[PUGLETMUM]

OKAY, FOR ME THE ONLY WAY IS TO MENTALLY FIGHT IT, BUT TO LET THE PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS EXIST!!! DON'T BE AFRAID OF YOUR SYMPTOMS - THEY CANNOT HARM YOU!!! BUT THEY WILL CONTINUE AS YOU CONTINUE TO FRIGHTEN YOURSELF - SO EVERYTIME YOU SAY SOMETHING NEGATIVE AND FRIGHTENING TO YOURSELF, REPLACE IT WITH SOMETHING POSITIVE AND RATIONAL, IT IS VERY HARD BUT IF YOU KEEP DOING IT AND KEEP ON ACCEPTING YOUR PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS YOU WILL GET BACK IN CONTROL GOOD LUCK EMMAS

[hayles]

good advice emmas.
May try that myself

Hay x

[Wannabeloved85]

hmm hard in actually. cos u want to fight it straight away. i guess it depends how strong you feel at the time, which, when it comes to panic, isnt strong enough! the easy way i guess is to just go with the flow.

[PUGLETMUM]

TOTALLY, I FEEL LIKE CRAP AT THE MOMENT AND I DON'T KNOW WHY/ ALSO BEING NEW ON HERE CREATES ANXIETYFOR ME BECAUSE I WANT TO MAKE LOADS OF FRIENDS AND CHAT LOADS, BUT SOMETIMES WE SAY THE WRONG THING OR SOMEBODY TAKES SOMETHING THE WRONG WAY, AND ALSO MY HUSBAND HAS TAKEN THE DAY OFF WORK BECAUSE OUR DAUGHTERS OFF SCHOOL SICK AND MY SUPPORT PERSON WHO DOES'NT GO ANYWHERE HAS HAD TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL, SO I'M FEELING TOTALLY CRAP HERE, BUT THE WAY I DEAL WITH THIS IS THE KEY TO WHETHER I FEEL BETTER OR WORSE!!! SO I JUST ACCEPT EVERYTHING I'M FEELING, KNOW THAT IT WILL PASS AND KEEP REPLACING ANY NEGATIVE IRRATIONAL STATEMENTS WITH POSITIVE RATIONAL ONES AND LATER TODAY I WILL FEEL BETTER!!!! I CAN GUARANTEE IT. ALSO LAST NIGHT AFTER A CLEANING JOB I DO IN AN OFFICE UP THE ROAD FROM MY HOUSE, I DECIDED TO DRIVE TO MORRISONS( I HAVE'NT BEEN ON MY OWN FOR ABOUT 3 YEARS AND THEN IT WAS UNDER THE COVER OF DARKNESS AND I WAS HOLDING ALL MY TENSION IN AND JUST KEEPING TENSE SO AS NOT TO LET IT ALL SPILL OUT!)WHICH OKAY IS A 2 MINUTE DRIVE AWAY BUT I LIVE IN A REALLY BUSY PLACE AND I HATE THERE BEING PEOPLE AND QUEUES EVERYWHERE - ANYWAY I WANTED SOME FLOWERS TO TREAT MYSELF FOR BEING A CLEANER AND TO GET SOME SWEETS FOR MY FATHER-IN-LAW WHO STAYED OFF WORK YESTERDAY TO HAVE MY DAUGHTER BECAUSE HIS WIFE WAS TAKEN UP YESTERDAY AS WELL WITH HER DAD - I COULD'NT BELIEVE THAT MY DAUGHTER HAD TO BE OFF SCHOOL WHEN HER GRAN WAS TIED UP!!! ANYWAY THIS IS TURNING INTO A RAMBLE THE POINT I'M TRYING TO MAKE IS I AM SUCCEEDING VERY SLOWLY AND IN SMALL WAYS BECAUSE I'M NOT BEATING MYSELF UP AND I'M NOT BEING NEGATIVE AND I'M LETTING THE ANXIETY/PANIC OCCUR SLOWLY SLOWLY TILL I GET MY CONFIDENCE BACK, BUT I STILL FEEL LIKE S*** ANYWAY - WHICH REALLY IS THE ONLY POINT I'M TRYING TO MAKE, IT'S THE CHANGE IN ATTITUDE THAT HAS GOT ME BETTER THANKS IF YOU STICK WITH THIS POST!! HA HA EMMAS

[PurpleRain]

Emmas,have you read a claire weekes book? This is pretty much what she recommends,to accept any symptoms and relax as much as possible (know how hard this can be though!!)without fighting.
This has helped me so much. I no longer fear my symptoms which has also helped,having the knowledge about how anxiety affects us physically takes some fear away.
Take care xx

Also(Emmas) what the hell is it with morrisons!!??..the morrisons near me has nightmare queues,but well done for facing it,you done really well!!!! :D

[Daisybun]

Yep I agree let it flow, try not fight it as that just fuels it. I am trying hard to replace negative thoughts with positive too. i had a good week last week this week not as good so trying to accept that as it is natural. Clare Weeks book has helped me loads.

Take care
Daisybun

'This too will pass'

[jill]

Hi there :D

I agree with what the others say, don't fight it, just let it be there.

What I found helped was scoring my anixety, which was from a thread off the forums.
1 being normal 10 beining full blown panic. If I hit a 10 I new full well it could not get any worse. I would reasure myself on that becasue it was a 10, if I had anxiety, lets just say, 2, 3 or 5. I would praise myself, just let the symptoms be there, not fear them, as it has aready been said, whats happening to your body and understanding things helps.

Hiting a full 10, its dame hard to change thoughts, but not impossible, if it was impossible you would be a full 10 all time time, so you must be doing something right to bring yourself back down.

Changing thought patterns are not easy, its dame hard work, we try all the time and always feel its not working, when really it is. You have to do what emmas says, KEEP changing the thoughts to positive, its only Mrs anxiety who says it not working. small steps is the key, changing your thoughts little by little, it does work in the end, BUT dame hard work. Hay, WELL DONE emmas, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK. your doing great. [^]:D

Sometimes when we wake up feeling anxieous, what keeps it there is because we ask why, intead of focuing on the postive's we try and find the answers, finding the answere will NOT come easy when you feel anxious, because Mrs anxiety will be there with her negative. I know its hard but just let the symptom be there, tell yourself it will pass, keep yourself busy. When you feel ok and the anxiety has passed, then you can look more deeply into why it happend.

How are you feeling now? hope you are feeling a little better.

TAKE CARE

LOVE JILLXX

[SickofIt]

The panic eventually subsided, but I can see now that there were some definite physical factors affecting it. Lack of sleep and hormones being the two main culprits.

[chucklehound]

If I have a nap in the afternoon, there are times hen I wake up feeling really panicky too and it scares me to death.

Glad the panic subsided for you [^]

Take care

Chuckle

xxxx

[PUGLETMUM]

hi all, thanks to purplerain for kind words re going to morrisons, and i have had claire weekes book when i was 14. then iv'e had a us book by a us doc which follows on from claire weekes, by which i mean he quotes her as being the pioneer in treating all of this stuff, plus also endorsed by this really famous guy( can't rememger the name but if we do tests for our anxiety with mental health proffs then these are his tests). it is aslo going into why we actually have panic not just how to deal with it, because if it has been a part of you for many many years and if it is coulpled with low self-esteem and maybe not so good relationships and also then agoraphobia your in trouble and i think you need to understand a bit more about yourself. this book i have is modern and current - not saying anything negative about claire weekes though just happened that my husband found a us site by accident. anyway i'm still feeling anxious, but not sure why and even though i know all of this stuff i am still the person that i am, but the more i just accept it the better it will get! oh also thanks jill, for me really nothing beats being supported and helped along the way by people who TRULY KNOW how you feel. also update: went to morrisons again last night!!! and am looking for lots of little things i can do to increase my confidence, like i want to drive to sainsbury's, but that is say 10 min drive, maybe quicker at 7.30pm, and then also want to go to borders for a starbuck's frappachino, but am worried it's too much because if i panic it is quite a long drive home feeling wobbly, plus also have to wait for the frappachino which is when i could panic!!!!! but what i could do first is just drive to both of these places and just get used to being out and about on my own, which is the key no matter what your prob, taking it in little steps, even if that is only applied to getting through the day, about 12 weeks ago that was my life, so you can get better and move on if your crippled with this beast!!! will let you know how i get on, best wishes to all emmas