PDA

View Full Version : Overcoming Panic Attacks.



RobertFlyde
24-07-03, 14:24
Hi everyone.......

Forgive me for not being on the site for a few months as i have not had access to the internet!!!

Im 25 and had my first panic attack over a year ago. I became agoraphobic for months and would not go out at all. I lived in fear of having an attack whilst out and about and not being able to cope. I seeked medical help straight away. Initially the doctor thought i had a problem with my heart, so i had lots and lots of tests which proved that my heart was fine. The doctor then diagnosed me with suffering from panic attacks and anxiety. i was prescribed Beta Blockers which have helped me for the last 7 months. 40mg once a day. Also changing my lifestyle, stop smoking and drinking helped. Although i do allow myself to have a cigarette and a pint or two at weekends. I also moved to be nearer friends and family, which helped me overcome my panic attacks etc.....

I'm now virtually panic free. Although i do get symptoms of panic attacks. I have not had a full blown panic attack for months. Im driving again. something that i could not do for 7 months. Driven 2500 miles since April. Which is excellent and im proud of myself. I go out regularly to pubs and enjoy socialising again. I go and watch Football regularly(Bradford City). I found this very hard at first, but came through without having a major panic attack!!

I never really knew what panic attacks were until i researched everything for myself. Reading books and finding websites and reading about other peoples stories and how they cope and feel. Without these things i don’t think i would of got through my panic attacks and anxiety problems without doing this research. I also went to see a psychologist who helped me understand what i was going through and gave me techniques for coping.

Im hopefully going to come off the beta blockers slowly as i gain in confidence each week. Im now at the stage where im forgetting to take the tablets in the morning because my mind is not occupied with panic attacks and living in fear etc when i wake up...... Ive often been out driving or shopping and come home and felt fine and realised ive not taken my medication. This is another good thing. But i still take them as its dangerous to come off them without lowering your dosage and speaking to your doctor.


There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Id love to here from anyone who needs advice or just wants a chat.

Take care

Robert

Steph
24-07-03, 14:53
Hi Robert
Well it's good to hear that you have overcome your fear of having a PA, I can't imagine what it is like to not want to go out of your house etc..... Hopefully that won't happen with me...
I have just had my 3rd panic attack (you may have read my topic so you will know my story already) so I am new to all this but I am determined that they will not stop me from doing normal stuff - But I don't know is it easy for me to say this at the moment coz I have only had 3 (within the last month) Anyway I made an appointment with my doctor after the second one and he is putting me forward for counselling... maybe you could tell me what to expect from that? He wanted to put me on some tablets for when I actually have the PA's but I refused them - thought I'd see how the counselling goes.
I really do feel though that I do not have any stress in my life and I don't feel that I am an anxious person, like I said in the other topic I am a very confident person, I am very interested in acting and drama I have been on a few courses for this and appeared on stage so the thing I can't come to terms with is WHY me???? Anyway I suppose I will find out more about myself when I go to the counselling session won't I? - Then probably eat my words hey!!
[V]

SD

Jo
24-07-03, 20:49
Hi Robert/Steph.

Just a quick note to say congratulations to you Robert - you have obviously come along way.

I have attended an 'anxiety managment course' Steph, which I suppose is a type of counselling. I wrote a weekly account of my visits on this site - it might be worth you having a look at this.

Take care both

Jo x

Shelley
25-07-03, 11:28
Steph

Do me favour..dont do the WHY me thing - I did it for ages, got upset when I'd had a few and was in with the girls (this was probably about 6/7 months after the first event) doesnt do you any good, what you need is a SO WHAT it's happended it might happen again but am not thinking about it..dont start to analyse everything - leave that to the experts!!! - hope that didnt sound to harsh. I'm still out going and poeple that dont know about the panic thang! think I'm super confident - panic can consume you're life if you go down the self pitty road, I personally think panic hits very strong people, that's why we find it so hard to come to terms with.

x

Shell

nomorepanic
26-07-03, 17:37
Shell - I agree about it hitting strong people. All my mates say "how come you suffer you are such an outgoing, positive and independant person". Well who knows why but I know that I have had to put all my energy into 'surviving' this illness and if I wasn't so strong then I would have given in a long time ago.

Nicola

Peter
28-07-03, 19:31
Hi all
First post, so bare with me. I’ve had PA for some time now and Acrophobia for the last 3 years, not a complete Agoraphobic but very restricted in my movements. I’ve read some articles about where this comes from and some of the thoughts are,

- As a child we may have suffered some dramatic experience that has the effect of lowering our threshold to stress. The actual experience does not have to be that dramatic but in the Childs mind it is, this makes trying to look back on these things as adults more difficult because they seem insignificant. The panic they say happens as a result of stepping over this lowered threshold. Its like a vicious circle because the longer we stay in this state of overwhelm the lower the threshold becomes, where eventually everything becomes too much and we retreat.

- Another theory I read was that again as children we learn to cope with anything stressful by way of tension. This way of coping with situations through tension becomes an automatic response, we don’t even relies we’re doing it, all perfectly normal to us, tense up hold in. As children we were probably more sensitive to our surroundings and what was going on but unable to relay our observations / fears to our peers for whatever reason. There is only so much a person can hold so later in life when things start to get more complicated and situations get a lot more stressful it all falls apart.

I guess there both saying roughly the same thing, in summary, the baggage does not have to be that severe, it’s the way we coped with it through tension.

I’m not sure what kind of person it affects, if you did a survey on the site I bet sensitive would be a recurring characteristic. I do believe that you have to be strong to endure because if you allow it to persist it follows you everywhere.
Hopes this helps and I apologies if this topic has already been covered, its just a few bits that made sense to me.
Regards
Peter

Meg
28-07-03, 23:00
Hi Peter,

Really interesting points you raise. Thank you.

More and more mental health professionals are supportive of the school of thought that perfect mental health is the ability to cope admirably with whatever life throws at you at any given time and thus allowing everyone to be sub perfect at some point in their lives as we all have wobbles and dilemmas. Us anxious ones just allow those wobbles and dilemmas to gain more control of us and our thoughts at this time point

I'm not sure that it all has to come from childhood. I think that at any point in our lives if your whole set of circumstances change enormously and rapidly it makes us more vunerable,wheras if it is constant small changes then it's easier to adapt. Thus going to college, moving house,multiple bereavements, being made redundant etc are all huge changes that give vunerability a look in.

If as a child you have been exposed to constant change you learn to cope and thus for some people it makes them more able to cope later in life, for others as you so rightly say it may mean overload. I think there are fab examples of both.
A child caled IT and Colin Powell certainly learnt to cope with adversity but so many others did not.

Steph
29-07-03, 13:59
Peter/Radar
Yeah I would say I am a sensitive person - and very emotional too.... But like I said earlier I am confident....
Your points on PA's are very interesting...both of you.


SD

Kaz
29-07-03, 17:20
I can agree with almost everything that has been said here. I didn't have a brilliant childhood but it was a lot better than some. I've always been a bit sensitive and quite emotional at times and sometimes a drama queen also! I have had three periods of anxiety related attacks in my life, the first when I first started work and was bullied, the second when my marriage was going wrong, and now this third set which has been by far the worse stemming from constant court battles over my son. I've always considered myself to be a strong, optimistic person who dusts herself down and gets on with life so I've been so shocked to find how much I am now being affected. I find myself looking for excuses not to go out and get shopping - the fridge is almost bare so it is a good job that my older children can shop for me at times. I'm forcing myself to keep driving but I find it very difficult at times. I do know that I won't let it beat me. I tried beta-blockers but I have taken a reaction to them and don't want to start on the anti-depressants the doc gave me. I have chosen to look after my body, mind and spirit with good food, rest and relaxation and hopefully I'll come through the other end looking and feeling all the better for it. If this thing thinks it's gonna beat me, it's got another thing coming!!

love'n'stuff
Karen

Peter
29-07-03, 19:22
Hi Radar
I know I was a bit heavy on the child theory.
You see for me I believe it was a build up over a lifetime of anxiety (nothing major, just small bits) but it was the way I handled or didn’t handle it. Then exams, house marriage kids all came within a couple of years which for the majority they take in there stride, a bit tired maybe for a while but they bounce back. I had been pushing myself up to this point and this was too big a step and I fell. There are four others in my family that are untouched, so maybe they read things differently when we were growing up or maybe their personalities allows them to sit back and let things happen, or maybe they haven’t pushed themselves hard enough, or a combination of all and others. I appreciate that for some / most? that life can be sweet and then wham out of the blue your hit with all kinds of situations. There is an infinite amount of reasons why we ended up here, and probably an infinite amount of solutions or combinations to get us out, we just have to find the one the best fits us individually. The end result is the same, you step over your line and your lost. The world doesn’t stop while your taking a breather, and all the time new stuff keeps coming at you while your still trying to make sense of the old stuff.

The question is how do you get back, do you spend your life avoiding situation that you know will bring anxiety or do you face your fears as the experts suggest. This is where it gets very confusing for the Agoraphobic person. What do we fear, we fear everything, leaving the house to go for a walk, a bus journey, a queue in the local supermarket, the pub. We look at these things and consciously we know its silly, it doesn’t make sense, you rationalise and rationalise and then try to do it and it falls apart. I can’t get my head around it, I don’t even know where its coming from and at this stage I don’t care, I just want to be rid of it, will try anything (I draw the line at bungee jumping).
Peter

Meg
29-07-03, 19:46
Hi Peter,

The child theories are all extremely valid and account for a lot of peoples issues. I was pleased you posted them .
As you so rightly say - we're all individuals and have a common trait - each of us have our own triggers and one of the difficulties is that just about anything seems to be a potential trigger to one of us at any given time.

The feel the fear thing is so difficult to do but it does work. I think one of the main reasons why we cope with things differently is how we talk to ourselves internally- how we rationalize risks and potential dangers and how we convince ourselves that one thing is Ok and another is unsafe.

A book that helped me heaps is ' What to say when you talk to yourself ' by Shad Helmsletter. It's a bit OTT in bits but very sound.

Off to Yoga- catch up later.

nomorepanic
30-07-03, 12:47
Hi Peter

My mum and sister do not suffer atall and I seem to be the only one in all the family that is still alive now that does (my dad did suffer but he is dead now) so I cannot find any link to my upbringing.

I know it is hard to imagine why such small things scare us - why do we hate queuing at the supermarket checkout - what is so terrible that it makes us panic? When you analyse what we are afraid of it seems so silly and perhaps if we could analyse these things when we are in the situation then we would talk ourselves round as well. I have never tried this - perhaps i ought to!

As for bungee jumping - no way!!!!

Take care Peter

Nic

Peter
01-08-03, 10:46
Thanks Guys,

Our internal voices where do they start, one thing all professionals seem to be in agreeance on is that we're born with a blank sheet and those first few years are our most informative. Our sheets are filled in mostly by adults around us. For some wrong questions, wrong answers and loads of blanks. Do our voices start then just a whisper, bubbling away. When things start getting difficult and nothing makes sense where do we go, back to our core beliefs, which in some cases are not sound? The whisper surfaces and we know its wrong but its what we believe and we run with it around and around in circles.
Who knows, but your right about not dwelling too much on these things, whats done is done and calming the mind and questioning these beliefs is what's needed, I will certainly give the book your recommending a read.
Thanks again
Peter

Meg
01-08-03, 18:40
I call my internal voice my internal risk management system.

When all these people round me starting dying and I was driving 300 miles a day I now remember that I started looking at A roads - especially the laybys at a potential dangerous place. This all stemmed from finding my neighbour dead in his garden - he'd been there 3 days and as a another neighbour said - he was all alone, so close and none of us knew it.
I guess I looked and pondered this at the laybys and thought that these are not patrolled by the police so if - for any reason - anyone felt unwell and stopped in one of those they could be there for days unnoticed .

I was very emotionally vunerable and physically exhuasted and over a few weeks I thought about this more and more each day until finally -bang Major PA followed by fear of another one so far from home not knowing what it was , then being home alone was an issue and so the fears grew. On the positive point , by the same method the fears also dissipated over time once I figured out what it was and how to go about it ....!!

This is from the girl that travelled in the Canadian arctic alone for work and worked in the Saudi desert and although was scared stiff at times my internal risk management system and I talked nicely and rationally to each other and had a absolute ball.

I know thats an extreme example - but behind most PA's there's something along those lines until the body possibly learns to kick off through adrenal exhaustion .

This is a bit rambly I'm afriad but hope that makes some sort of sense.:D

Take Care....

Joanne
06-08-03, 02:40
quote:Originally posted by nomorepanic

Hi Peter

My mum and sister do not suffer atall and I seem to be the only one in all the family that is still alive now that does (my dad did suffer but he is dead now) so I cannot find any link to my upbringing.

I know it is hard to imagine why such small things scare us - why do we hate queuing at the supermarket checkout - what is so terrible that it makes us panic? When you analyse what we are afraid of it seems so silly and perhaps if we could analyse these things when we are in the situation then we would talk ourselves round as well. I have never tried this - perhaps i ought to!

As for bungee jumping - no way!!!!

Take care Peter

Nic


do u know....I'd rather bungee jump than queue up at my local Co-Op.[V]

bishop
07-08-03, 18:03
hi jo
do bungee jumps give stamps same as the co-op,queue are not that bad
really.

Joanne
11-08-03, 12:06
quote:Originally posted by bishop

hi jo
do bungee jumps give stamps same as the co-op,queue are not that bad
really.

lol- good point. Also I can use my reward card at the co-op.[:I]

tracey
26-08-03, 15:05
My husband suffers terribly at the moment from panic attacks he is nearly 25 and he feels like he is the only person his age who suffers fromthis, it doesn't matter how many times i tell him that he isn't the only one he still feels like he is losing his mind, i don't know what else to do to reassure him that he's not alone. I will always be there for him no matter what but he seldom believes this. you mentioned that you take beta blockers, are these addictive and do you suffer many side affects?

It is great to be able to speak to people the same age group who have or are getting through this.

thanks
tracey

bishop
14-09-03, 18:15
hi tracy
he is not alone,sounds more like little green men,we are not alone,think of it as we are all in the same boat,but some days it sinks,the next day you have no paddles,the next day hey !! .you are on dry land ,but then the island sinks,thats what panic attacks feel like,but you have too keep going what ever,find this site helps us all.
bish

tucklis
22-09-03, 14:51
Hi all,

I've been suffering for about 3 years and have had alot of highs and lows. Certain situations tend to trigger the PA for me and they are often related to places that I can't escape from; if I'm having dinner with someone I feel I'm stuck and also on the crowded tube.

For me it's the fear of being embarrassed by having a panic attack more than anything else. I start sweating profusely and it just looks silly :)

It's kind of ridiculous sometimes as I think my sweat gland is really overactive - so if I feel an attack coming on my face can start sweating in a few seconds!

I've found that reading Zen related material and present moment awareness has really helped. Often I feel much better and confident but then I get lazy with my practice and they return...it's severely wedged in the back of my mind and I think the only way of over-coming them is to break that sub-conscious link. You've got to believe that PA arise from bad memories and are just reactions to thoughts, that's all they are.

Tuck

tucklis
22-09-03, 14:56
quote:Originally posted by tracey

My husband suffers terribly at the moment from panic attacks he is nearly 25 and he feels like he is the only person his age who suffers fromthis, it doesn't matter how many times i tell him that he isn't the only one he still feels like he is losing his mind, i don't know what else to do to reassure him that he's not alone. I will always be there for him no matter what but he seldom believes this. you mentioned that you take beta blockers, are these addictive and do you suffer many side affects?

It is great to be able to speak to people the same age group who have or are getting through this.

thanks
tracey


Hi Tracey,

I'm 23 and have had PA on and off for 3 years now. He is not alone. The trouble is I think people suffering find it hard to talk about because they find it embarrassing - also it's only recently that people have started to take PA seriously - maybe only the last 20 to 30 years as far as I am aware.

I can recommend a good book that has helped my alot - "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. Sounds like a cheesy name and it is :) but it actually is written very simply and makes alot of sense.

Tuck

syers38
07-01-09, 12:34
Shell - I agree about it hitting strong people. All my mates say "how come you suffer you are such an outgoing, positive and independant person". Well who knows why but I know that I have had to put all my energy into 'surviving' this illness and if I wasn't so strong then I would have given in a long time ago.

Nicola
when i tell anyone i suffer with panic attacks they are so gobsmacked, as the same as you i am confident outgoing and lively. But this probably keeps me from going over the edge .:yesyes:

mickc66
05-03-12, 23:41
all your comments are really comforting i am 45 and only started to have PA last and was theee most frightening thing i have ever experienced but it now really nice to know there is some oone out there for people like us please all take care
mick66 xx

Stephblueyes
05-03-15, 01:35
Hello im new here! thankyou for letting me join i found you on facebook! i didnt know where to post first to access chatrooms thankyou xx

ohwell123
05-03-15, 10:09
people who have bad anxiety/panic are usually quite talented good at jobs etc etc if they were to draw an amazing picture then spot a little part they did not do properly and throw the picture away do not mistake this for perfectionism look at it more as a bit of torture for the person involved

the general person in the street would be very proud of there picture and not spot this one mistake

these people have quite creative minds and could probably write a full blockbuster movie however there mind starts filling them with DREAD instead which they believe are real as it may be accompanied by symptoms further installing there belief the thoughts are real and then it fuels the circle