Hey All :)

[Finn The Human]

Hey, so where to begin. Well, I don't suffer from panic attacks myself, but my girlfriend has for a while. I try to comfort her and do the best I can to relax her when she is experiencing one, but she almost always has them when I am not around to comfort her personally, and so all I can do is talk to her over the phone. I know that she appreciates that I'm there for her, but sometimes I feel useless when she is struggling to even breathe and all I can do is try to calm her down by basically asking her to.

I really want to be there for her and be a part of this to try and help her get through this, but I just don't know what to do when she is experiencing one. Which is why I signed up to this forum, as there seems to be a lot of people with experience on the matter in the hopes somebody could give me some advice? Even if it's just a simple technique to keep her breathing stable it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you to anyone who replies :)

[Jeo]

Hi,

I find that doing something that is distracting helps. Ask her to read you an article from a magazine or talk to her about something unrelated, something positive. Try not to focus on the attack. I know that can be hard but the more attention you pay to it the worse it will probably make it.

[Lianysmami]

That is so sweet.. I wish my boyfriend understand my panic attacks.. He tries to but he tells me to dance around and sing and stuff but they are so bad:(

[sophieunderscore]

Aww how lovely of you :) When I would panic in front of my ex, we would play the alphabet game which is where you choose a subject and take it in turns to name something from that category whch starts with each letter of the alphabet, you could do animals, something from a tv show you both like (Adventure Time maybe? :P), foods, countries etc. As for the breathing, try getting her to breath in through her nose and count to 7, and imagine a calming colour coming into her body, then out for 11 breaths (doesn't have to be exactly those numbers, just breath out for longer) and imagine a stressful colour coming out. Hope this helps x

[Finn The Human]

Thanks for the replies guys :)

So doing something generally distracting and off-topic is the way to go? I guess that explains why I haven't been much help then :') I think the alphabet game sounds like a good option to use even if it's just over the phone, that could really help since that's the major problem that comes up. We both love reading so reading a particular part from favourite books could be good. I appreciate the advice from everyone, online guides can sometimes be misleading, it's nice to get some good tested answers :)