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damianjmcgrath
24-10-16, 09:44
I'm doing pretty well with my anxieties recently, started another individual session of CBT, and the new counsellor seems pretty cool and has given some good advice.

However, the panic feelings sneak up every now and then, and one of those triggers is reading about other people. I was on Reddit earlier in their anxiety forum and someone posted that they were 39, had anxiety for 22 years, no family history, no pre-existing conditions, no warning signs except anxiety-induced chest pains, loads of previous EKGs that were fine, etc, and then had a heart attack one morning.

Reading things like that freak me out and really put me back 2 steps. I don't even mean to read them, but I read the first few lines thinking it's an anxiety story and maybe I'll get some advice from it, and I'm halfway through before I realise and then I have to read on!

I get the random chest pains, the pounding heart beats, pins and needles very quickly in arms and hands, the slight feeling of dizziness or imbalance, and I'm out of breath while walking and talking very easily. I had put all that down to anxiety and was kind of coping with it, but reading stories makes me think that maybe it is a real problem, and that gets me stuck in the loop again.

How do people cope with stories like that, because it kind of removes all of my internal rationalisations, about "I'm too young", "I've been checked", etc.

SLA
24-10-16, 09:49
Hi Damian!

You have to go into it knowing that you'll be able to cope with reading about other peoples issues if they talk about them.

I've battled with anxiety for years, and if I wasn't managing it, I wouldn't be able to post here.

But since I am in a good place, I feel like I can come here and share my advice, knowing that if someone told me a REALLY bad anxiety story it wouldn't effect me.

So its all about going into it with a posiitve mindset. So my advice would be don't read anxiety stories until you can rationalise it as you are reading it. :D

The guy posting the story about the heart attack isn't doing anyone any favours, and is probably out to make people feel worse.

All of the things you describe are symptoms of your anxiety and panic. Move on!

damianjmcgrath
24-10-16, 10:14
Thanks for your reply. The majority of the time I do accept it's anxiety, have been doing things to combat it, and they have had a lot of positive effect. My plan is to avoid medication and try CBT, and meditation and things like that and it's definitely got a lot better. The chest pain, arm feelings and out of breathe easily are the lingering symptoms though, they seem to be the most difficult to shift, which occasionally makes me frustrated.

I was keeping thought records, and when I was thinking about a heart attack, I'd list out all of the other possible reasons for the pains and give them a likliehood rating, and then after I was feeling better, go back and revisit it, and make some more notes. Over time, I could read this, and see a pattern, and see that a heart attack happened 0% and other things happened instead. It really helped my brain see it written down.

I know the guy was posting the worst case scenario possible - not sure why he did that - but regardless, random heart problems do happen to people, and it's sometimes tough for me to accept that. I can go through all of the reasons why I'm not having heart problems, I can say "too young", "I've had these feelings before", etc etc, but that's not a guarantee.

As I said, I am improving and have improved drastically, but one of the final pieces of the jigsaw for me is learning to accept that stuff can happen, and being OK with that degree of randomness. As with a lot of people, if there was a test that could 100% say "your heart is fine, and you've got at least 10 years before anything could go wrong", I reckon I'd feel completely better. It's just the not knowing for sure that is mentally hard.

SLA
24-10-16, 10:23
Accepting uncertainty is a GREAT way of putting it.

How often do we become "certain" about something, that never actually happens?

I still do it loads.

Embracing change, and impermanence is one thing I have been do a lot lately, and it comes up in my videos a lot.

Trying to hold on to things is futile!