Almost There, But......

[Meltdown]

After suffering from Panic attacks and palpitations since 2004, I have recently got to the stage where I almost got them beat (I thought) once and for all.

In fact for most of January, I began to feel "normal" for the first time since early 2004. I reache dthis stage by following the advice of the CBT therapistat work, which was rather than fight off panic attacks, or distract myself from them, to "just allow them to happen", and try to keep doing whatever I was doing at the time.

For example, certain places I go to had triggered panic attacks, so one of the things I did was to visit the place repeatedly, walk away, then go back again over and over again. Strange behaviour, I know, but it worked. On the first attempt, I felt shakey and anxious, but with repeated attempts, this gradually went away.

I also told myself to "feel it" whenever I began to feel anxious, and rather than distracting myself, acknowledged the feelings, told myself that they couldn't harm me, and let the feelings pass. After doing this for a while, I found that I felt normal in a way I hadn't felt for years! I think there had been low-level anxiety in the background which I had not acknowledged or recognised.





BUT - now, after a month of feeling better, I am finding that I am begining to feel anxious again, and I have had a few PAs, which I have dealt with with varying degrees of success...


I think what has happened is that after a few weeks of feeling OK, anxiousness has built up as a result of stress, and caught me unawares, my response to it has been the almost instinctive one of fear, aviodance and panic.

What does one have to do to be rid of this for good?

[MikesP]

Meltdown, you are on the right track towards recovery. I think that the backlash, if you can call it that, thats how I refer to it, its just born out of fear. Fear of doing the exact things that you have been doing over the past month. Ive been trying my best to get out and about to the places that Ive been avoiding for the past month or so aswell and yeah, it does get better the more you try. But also I start to find general things a little tougher which for me is a part of the backlash. I think a part of panic attacks is that you only feel normal in certain places, so when you start to stick to only being at those certain safe spots, visiting anywhere else becomes unnatural. Its the same with with drinking and getting hangovers then feeling panicky, because you strive to feel content and not unnatural which then leads to thinking irrational.

In my opinion the very best thing that you could do would be to stick to your guns, find that extra motivation to carry on your good progress from the last month. It is a surefire way to be able to achieve the goal of going where you want to and doing what you want to do. For me it is the only way to get rid of it for good, to confront the situations you are keen to avoid and utterly convince yourself that there is nothing to fear. Thats what you have been doing, the backlash is your anxieties way of just taking a slightly different route towards giving you the same old problems that you want rid of. Id use the progress that youve made so far as motivation, its not easy to get out but you did it, most things in your mind probably told you to look for another way, but you did what you wanted to do.

Keep at it Meltdown, Im going through the exact same things lately and know how tough it can be to carry it on. The motivation to continue gets sapped by the building anxieties but if you carry on you'll only be giving yourself more power over it and freedom from it, because it really is just a case of convincing yourself that what you fear should not be feared. I really hope you will continue your good progress, chances are that nothing is more worth it than what youve been doing (the case for me) so I hope you'll continue doing everything that youve been doing because all of the anxieties will eventually go, they just need a lot of convincing.

[Tom_M]

How we respond to an initial fear determines how it will precede. For example, If the initial fear creates more fear, then a vicious circle begins, which ends in a ful-blown panic attack. We can try and curb that initial fear and stop in developing into a full blown panic attack in various ways. Seeing that it is a mind-body reaction (you get frightened which your body reacts to which causes you more fear), we can either change the thought process that is causing the panic, or we can try and stop the body reacting to it. Ideally, we try and do both. We can use thought blocking, thought switching, or like I said in another post - turn the flight reaction into a fight reaction where we get angry at ourselves, grind our teeth and curse at the damn thing. Calming the body also breaks the cycle, so learn relaxation techniques.

I know my posts are maybe too "matter of fact", but unfortunately I'm no a very confident writer, so I just try and post information that might help people.