Feeling overwhelmed

[Hypomean]

I got a reply from one of my post that they won’t bother to answer my post since I ignore you guys....


I mentioned it in previous posts:::: I don’t have insurance and I don’t qualify for it either::: I’m not rich to afford a 160$ copay for this initial visit and then go pay that or more for whatever tests need to be done. 60$+ per week for a therapists is not happening either::: free WiFi connection allow me to post.
So you telling me “ you need help”. 😒 no really? I just want to vent. I want to see that holy crap someone else has had a similar experience and yes it’s because of anxiety. This has calmed my fears before.

So you give me that I won’t reply. I know it and I’ve explained it the best I can.

I get moments of panic. I feel something in the left of my chest. And to not be able to get seen.... freaks me out. I am fighting. I have been reading CBT books and using the free site and it’s helped I’m not on here or fighting with my thoughts 24/7 like before now I get these intense bursts of 30 minutes of extreme anxiety. And they don’t pass those 30 mintues. I’m currently in those 30 minutes. I’m wathing a show where someone just died suddenly from heart related incident and I fear. I dread it could happen to me. I work out, hard I hit 170-180 heart rate workouts. I’m able to calm down from them with reasonable rate and I do get heart palps during the increase. Cardiologist had told me once that I heart patient wouldn’t be able to bring down their heart rate at a good time frame. Normal people have a 1-15 minute cool down period when a heart patient is struggling after the workout has been done 30 mins before.
I try to explain what I feel and people give me maybe acid reflux other something in my lungs..... :( ugh I just want to get past this episode in my life I just want to be checked out and cleared and on wig my life.

I fear I have damaged my heart with all my panic attacks and stress I’ve gone through. :(
I had asked the cardiologist (this was like 5 years ago) if it is possible. He said only if you raise your heart pressure to scary levels. But generally no. I have one known incident where it did get scary high.

[swajj]

I was the person who said I can’t be bothered responding. I can be bothered now though.

It is just common courtesy to acknowledge the advice you have been given, or answer questions on the threads you start. Having health anxiety doesn’t excuse rudeness and bad manners. You won’t accept the word of a highly trained specialist but somehow you expect a bunch of people with anxiety to convince you that your heart is fine. How does that work.

The best advice anyone here can give you is to get help with your anxiety. You either ignore that advice or you give reasons why you can’t. Make it happen, just as others here in your position have.

[AntsyVee]

Hypomean, people only have so much patience. There are many free options that people have suggested that you haven't tried. When people see that you're not willing to do anything but post for reassurance, they get frustrated.

There is free online therapy. I think it's CBT4Panic. Give it a try. There are also self help books. I recommend Brain Lock and the Anxiety and Phobia Workbook by Bourne. There's also lifestyle changes...getting more exercise, eating better, cutting out caffeine and alcohol, etc. You have many things to try before you say you're out of options.

[Hypomean]

Hypomean, people only have so much patience. There are many free options that people have suggested that you haven't tried. When people see that you're not willing to do anything but post for reassurance, they get frustrated.

There is free online therapy. I think it's CBT4Panic. Give it a try. There are also self help books. I recommend Brain Lock and the Anxiety and Phobia Workbook by Bourne. There's also lifestyle changes...getting more exercise, eating better, cutting out caffeine and alcohol, etc. You have many things to try before you say you're out of options.

I am reading Brainswitch by AB Curtis and I am doing the anxiety and phobia workbook and I am doing the cbtpanic. I said in the post “I am reading and I am doing the anxiety website” and like I said I’m not freaking out all day like I was doing a few weeks back I’m working on it. I get the random attacks, and it’s for a few minutes and at the end I’m able to do the steps I’m reading and working through and I can talk myself out but right now it’s this anxiousness in my chest with severe dread that washed over me and I couldn’t help but come on here. Write out my fears. My thoughts. Get some feedback as opposed to if I wrote it down on my journal.

Just stab the knife deeper people. Great job.

And FYI

I have searched in my town and they only offer AA groups and drug addict counseling for free. They have a center an hour away but you have to do in patient and my therapist (back when I had one) was completely against me going there because they put you with the worst psychotic cases and it would not help me.

I’m not doing anything. 😒

[cattia]

I understand how you feel as I also am currently getting random anxiety attacks through the day that seem to come from nowhere although I expect they come from an over sensitized nervous system. I also worry that so much stress has damaged me in some way although my worries are not heart related. I have strategies for thinking differently that I am working on with my therapist but at the moment, once that feeling hits, it's hard to think straight and apply those strategies. In fact I have been finding that trying to use my CBT /mindfulness strategies once the anxiety has taken hold was almost making me feel worse as I was trying so hard to rationalize my thoughts that was making my mind race even more with trying so hard to find those helpful thoughts and struggling to do it! What I'm finding helps instead is to try to use my reframing when I'm calmer but when I start to feel the wave of anxiety symptoms coming out of seemingly nowhere, I try instead to go somewhere quiet if I can and listen to a two or three minute meditation in my phone with headphones on. Usually at work I go to the staff toilets! This doesn't take it away entirely but it calms me down enough to try to be a bit more rational and I feel better., even if only slightly.

[Hypomean]

I understand how you feel as I also am currently getting random anxiety attacks through the day that seem to come from nowhere although I expect they come from an over sensitized nervous system. I also worry that so much stress has damaged me in some way although my worries are not heart related. I have strategies for thinking differently that I am working on with my therapist but at the moment, once that feeling hits, it's hard to think straight and apply those strategies. In fact I have been finding that trying to use my CBT /mindfulness strategies once the anxiety has taken hold was almost making me feel worse as I was trying so hard to rationalize my thoughts that was making my mind race even more with trying so hard to find those helpful thoughts and struggling to do it! What I'm finding helps instead is to try to use my reframing when I'm calmer but when I start to feel the wave of anxiety symptoms coming out of seemingly nowhere, I try instead to go somewhere quiet if I can and listen to a two or three minute meditation in my phone with headphones on. Usually at work I go to the staff toilets! This doesn't take it away entirely but it calms me down enough to try to be a bit more rational and I feel better., even if only slightly.


Yes exactly during the most intense part of the attack nothing really works. I find myself going through the steps and some part of it would just throw me off and I’ll be back to square one. And it’s towards the end of the high that they start making more sense and then you know more how to direct your thoughts. But those intense moments kill me. There’s no reasoning. Thank you for replying.

[ServerError]

You don't need to do anything during those intense moments. Nobody ever died of a panic attack, and you won't either. It's just a surge of energy provided by your body in order to protect you. Try not to react when it happens. Just observe it and everything that comes with it. Whatever you're doing when it happens, keep doing it. You'll eventually teach yourself that there is no need for these attempts at protection.