Annaruth
02-01-13, 23:44
I started getting panic attacks after an extremely upsetting episode last Christmas. A couple of things happened around this time, which I found partly after reading your site.
a) What my CBT therapist calls social anxiety was stirred up. I've always been shy and unconfident socially for my age, despite a teaching career and fair social skills but my mum has 'bullied' or certainly excessively picked on me and criticised me. We had a major episode last year and I avoided seeing or speaking to her for about 6 months following a very close relationship (despite problems with her since my childhood) I feared her emails, texts and calls. I felt less nervous for her health/life problems but found being independent of her challenging (as my counsellor predicted I wasn't necessarily strong enough I wasn't surprised)
b) My insomnia worsened and I stated getting desperate to cut down on sleeping pills. So I started using marijuana which bought on a few panic attacks.
C) Alcohol has seemed to worsen it. I get it sometimes after taking diazepam.
d) fear of losing control of my breathing again, and not being able to get to sleep (trying to control my sleep excessively and internalise a lot) have both bought on panic attacks, sometimes within seconds of putting my book down and trying to get to sleep.
Are there any breathing exercises, or may this make it worse (see last paragraph)? Support groups..
Citalopram hasn't worked but reducing it from 40mg to 30mg may have helped slightly.
a) What my CBT therapist calls social anxiety was stirred up. I've always been shy and unconfident socially for my age, despite a teaching career and fair social skills but my mum has 'bullied' or certainly excessively picked on me and criticised me. We had a major episode last year and I avoided seeing or speaking to her for about 6 months following a very close relationship (despite problems with her since my childhood) I feared her emails, texts and calls. I felt less nervous for her health/life problems but found being independent of her challenging (as my counsellor predicted I wasn't necessarily strong enough I wasn't surprised)
b) My insomnia worsened and I stated getting desperate to cut down on sleeping pills. So I started using marijuana which bought on a few panic attacks.
C) Alcohol has seemed to worsen it. I get it sometimes after taking diazepam.
d) fear of losing control of my breathing again, and not being able to get to sleep (trying to control my sleep excessively and internalise a lot) have both bought on panic attacks, sometimes within seconds of putting my book down and trying to get to sleep.
Are there any breathing exercises, or may this make it worse (see last paragraph)? Support groups..
Citalopram hasn't worked but reducing it from 40mg to 30mg may have helped slightly.