Hi hun :hugs:
I really feel for you and I understand what you are going through, my heart goes out to you :hugs: It is sooo dame hard trying to understand these fearful feelings and thoughts.
As you can see hun, your not alone with these feeling and thoughts, if you take time to read through the sight, not only on threads but ALL info behind the forums there are lots of good advice and great information that will help you understand a little more. Please read Self help (first steps..coping, finding help) this is on the left hand side of your screen.
It would be helpful for others if you can put a little more info about yourself eg symptoms, when things started on the intro thread, this gives members chance to say hello and WELCOME. :welcome:
I read on another thread that you have been put on meds, these take time to work hun :hugs: what has your doctor said? what help and support have you been given ?
It is only natural for you to be fearful of things at this present moment it time, panic, anxiety can be very scary if you don't understand whats going on :hugs:
YOU ARE NOT going mad hun :hugs: I promise, :hugs: you just feel you are at this present moment in time, this WILL pass hun :hugs: the fear or feeling of going mad is all part of anxiety, you are not alone in this thought, there are lots of threads on hear about this. I myself when acute, felt like I was going mad, MMmmm other thought pattens to about going mad, but will not tell you them, they may contain triggers for you at this present moment in time, BUT hun, the MORE I read through this great site, the more I became knowledgeable and I now know, that if you think your going mad, then, YOUR NOT. Anxiety has many, many strange symptoms, when acute with anxiety, you can have many, many strange thoughts too, BUT, with alot of hard work, time and the right support, IT DOES get better.
You say you feel panic all the time, Ohhh hunny, I was like that when acute, but what I came to understand was, although I did have pa's, I was NOT in panic all the time, I felt fearful all the time, but NOT panic, my 10, my worse, what I was feeling was what I learned is to call it my BOO :scared15: Ohhh I know this may sound strange to you right now, but what I found was, you know that feeling when someone jumps out and shouts:scared15: BOO at you and for a split second you feel very fearful ? then as soon as you come to understand its a joke, you coping skills kick in and you calm yourself down, you reassure yourself there is NO danger. WELL I felt felt like this when acute, ALL the blinking time, fearful. I like you used to think and say "I feel panicky all the time" Now I understand that what was happening was I was on alert looking for danger, when in reality, there was NONE. I had to learn how to reassure myself that I was NOT in any danger, Mmmm, I know this is very hard for you right now, but hunny, in time and it does take time, you will start to understand things a little more, please hun, read all you can about panic, anxiety, it DOES help.
Hun, What happens if someone jumped out at you, how would you reassure yourself to calm yourself down? PLEASE hun, READ though the site, your mind and body, at this present moment in time, just for now, NOT FOREVER, is on alert mode, its looking to danger, try and learn how to reassure yourself, Ohhh I know this is hard for you because you are scared right now :hugs: but as I have said and others have said, YOU NOT ALONE, please keep posting and reading through this great site.
As it has already been said, it sound like you have DP, hunny, this is a protection mode our mind puts us in, it puts us in this mode trying to protect us from more stresses, Mmmmm, when I read about this is said, this mode is there to protect you, welcome this feeling, :scared15: how can you welcome this feeling when acute, it frightens the life out of you, YES ? BUT hunny, when you come to understand that this is there to protect you and will NOT harm you, this symptom has done its job and it DOES go away, in time.
I know you are scared and and its OK to be scared :hugs: ALLOW your fears, tell yourself its OK to be scared of something you don't understand YET..but ALSO go on to tell yourself, YOU WILL learn things and in time, YOU WILL learn how to bring this down bit, by bit, by bit,
One of MANY things I learnt very early on when joining this GREAT site many moons ago was to REALLY believe that one day, I would get better, that if I could TRULY believe, my mind would find ways to DO IT, and it did.
I know right now, you feel alone and in a dark place, BUT hunny, your NOT alone, there are many, many people on hear that know what your going through, PLEASE use the forums.
It is true that distraction works with anxiety symptoms, BUT first BEFORE you use distraction, FOR NOW, accept how you feel, USE, some reassuring statements, Mmmm ohh there are lots and lots of things you can say, eg, "its ok, i will be fine, this will pass, its anxiety playing tricks on me, ohhh anything that will reassure you a little then and only then TRY hard to distract yourself form how you feel, this is hard hun and take time and practice, practice practice.
From what I understand for myself, if I went straight into distraction mode and did not acknowledge the symptom and reassure myself first, this was ignoring my own minds normal defenses, our minds have a way of telling us there is something wrong, BUT when acute, its gone a little wacky because we are acute with anxiety, SO, we have to try dame hard to learn how to reassure ourself there is NOTHING WRONG, apart from what we have when acute and thats panic, anxiety. as I said, learning reassuring statement, eg its ok, its just anxiety, anything, as long as its MORE reassuring.
Sorry gone on a bit, Ohh hunny, I do know what your going through :hugs: this is NOT easy for you, BUT PLEASE believe, one day, YOU WILL get better.
I do hope you get out of this forums what I have and that is feeling better.
YOU TAKE CARE
LOVE JILL XXX
***Jill, how and what did you do to work through this?***
Hi jothenurse:D:hugs:
I wish I could answer this with a list of list of things, but its not that easy, say, ohh just do this just do that and its gone, but its not that easy. All my info does mainly come from this great site. This site covers loads of great coping skills which when learnt, over time, they do work, but what I found is, mixing them up and using whatever I learnt at different time,s because sometimes things worked and other times, I thought they never, Mmmm, but they did, I was just finding it hard to see it, looking through panic, anxiety eyes, its sooo dame hard to see a small step forward to recovery, you have to REALLY look DAME hard to see it when acute, showing yourself, that panic/anxiety's, DO change, is showing yourself, YOU CAN DO IT.
This site has priceless info :yesyes: I do feel to really go into things in more detail, its the need to know where you at with your panic/anxiety, knowing the person because we all may have the same symptoms, but what brought us to panic/anxiety and whats keeping it there is different for us all.
I know the first thing I tried to learn was to believe I could get better, this was dame hard when acute, Mr P and Mrs A kept getting in the way, saying I would never get better, but I work DAME hard to prove to MYSELF, that there was a small change in each day, in even a second of the day in the beginning. My anxiety just felt like it was with me all the time.
As I said hun, it depends where your at with panic, anxiety, work on the small things, things you KNOW you can change, are there any pressures in your life apart from anxiety? remember it has to be something SMALL..Mmmmm now I am asking you to look out of the box, move your mind away from panic, anxiety at just look at your life in general.
NOW, the reason for this is, we all have them, little issues (problems) I would rather call them issues than problem because it makes them less of a problem, so they are issues that need to be addressed. We start to address these SMALL issues, if we can't fix them, then we change our attitude towards them, why are we doing these small mundane things, because in the long run our lives will be better for it, we get a little distracted with something we can fix.
When we are acute with panic, anxiety we get sooooo rapped up in trying to fix it, we are feeding the anxiety, so, we find something SMALL we can fix and SHOW ourselves, we can fix things, Mmmm does this make sense???? If your panic, axiety is really bad, like mine in the beginning, we NEED something to work on, so if we are working on the small things in life, it helps us move forward a little..
It does really depend on how much panic,anxiety effects your day to day life.
If you read through the forums, Mm I spent a very long time reading through all threads trying to understand not only my own panic, anxiety, but other people too and I found that really, panic, anxiety effects everyone at different levels. In ALL of there life or with some in part. There was lots of people who I thought at the time, ohhh they don't seem as bad as me, THEN, ohhhhhh blimey, I came to understand that really NO MATTER how bad I felt, there was still alot of people who has panic,anxiety different to mine who were REALLY BAD ,worse than me.
Its like I read, feel the fear and do it anyway or JFDI (just fcuking do it ) BUT, when acute, I could'nt, Mmm why. For myself, I found the more I just did it and panic, I was sooo blink scared, I was proven to myself all the time I was just going to panic anyway, my frame of mind was all wrong. I was 24/7 anxiety and would panic, anytime, anyplace, anywhere, so I began to try and deal with the anxiety, yes you may have guest it, learning that anxiety does not always lead to panic, use my breathing.
I tried dame hard each and every night to go to sleep on a good thought, Mmm not easy, found this REALLY HARD, so would put my portable dvd on with head phones so not to disturb hubby, would watch carry on movies after awhile, I put the lid down and just listened to the carry on movies, just picturing the movie because by this time, I had seen them loads, anything to distract me from how I felt, when acute,I was bloody scared all the time.I just needed to distract myself from how I felt. I new it was high anxiety, Mmmm well not at first, you know, the mind plays but if I could prove to myself I could distract myself, just for a short while, a minute a second, them that would prove to ME it was anxiety, IT DID. BUT, this took a good while, chipping away keep proving to myself I AM NOT 23/7 scared.
It was one of them, when I thought about how I had not felt fear, ohhhh blimey, back it would come, BUT HAY, it went DID'NT IT, I used to tell myself. Ohh it was DAME HARD WORK.
Owning your panic is DAME HARD, we tend to put it out, to a time a place a person ohhh anything really. I read a book, it said, YOU OWN IT, it yours, you may not like it, but its yours to stay, FOR NOW, NOT forever, FOR NOW, blimey, I sh*t myself, I did not want to own this, but I came to understand that if I kept blaming out-would things it was not going to go away. I did have to learn how to own it, BUT took each place, and used different types of coping skill,s depending on what I was doing. Swapping and changing different types of reassuring thought pattens, trying sooo dame hard to find the ones that worked FOR ME.
Just say for instance the shops, HAY NOW I LIKE shopping but it came there too, WHY, MMmm now for me, I came to understand that YES, I do like shopping always have,SO I DID have a good memories to think back on, using words like, "HAY I like shopping" inviting Mr P anyway, (ohhh brave NOT) but when with hubby, he is an in out man, in the shop and out, BEFORE panic, this used annoy, SO, acute with panic, anxiety, blimey the small annoyance was blown all out of proportion, NOW, me understanding this, NOT blaming hubby, but ME, because acute, was just over reacting, FOR NOW, I was just go with someone I like shopping with, BUT, after I learnt that anxiety DOES NOT always lead to panic.
I never went abroad on hols for 2 years because of panic, anxiety. I felt at the time when acute, never again, BUT over time I began exposure therapy on myself. Thats where all mine started, at the airport, Mmmmm still got on the plane BUT, thought I had a pa for 3 hours, ohhh blimey a panic, will NOT last that long, panic is short, its a 10 on your number chart,(your worse) I was feeling high levels of anxiety, NOT panic, for 3 hours. I did have a pa, but then anxiety kicked in and it stayed on a level 9 for a few ours only because I did not understand what was happening to me. Holiday was poo (long story, but you know how it goes ) anxiety levels stayed up high as well as having pa's.
I did exposure therapy regarding the airport, I am lucky enough to live near one, so would go there, first before even going there, I would look up hols net and remember all the good hols I had had, telling myself I would do it again, not just now, but sometime in the future, then started to actually go the airport, go inside, it was dame hard at first, but what I came to understand was, my body was reacting the the memories of the panic, I would use reassuring statement, write them down, ohh you know, when in panic, your forget how to blinkin think don't you. I would have a panic kit, brown paper bag, Kalm spray, note to self, printed stuff of hear. bands on my wrists to snap me out of it, ANYTHING to distract myself from how I felt. I would chant to myself "its ok, it will pass, panic is my protective mode, its just a fails alarm, I am ok I am not in any danger, this fear will pass" ohhh anything to reassure myself. Use the swish method, depending on what thoughts I had, when I had bad thoughts, try and swish them around to a more reassuring thought.
I would watch the planes take off, you can where I live, get up close and personal to the planes, they take off over your head. BEFORE PANIC, this used to give me a rush of excitement anyway. When acute, I would get them mixed up and would panic, BUT, I told myself I was just mixing my feeling up and it would come back, I did this for along time, till one day, I went on hols, ready to take Mr P with me and Mr A, they could come but they where NOT going to spoil my hols LOL I did not go without anxiety, on my first attempt, she was there.
I have been away a few times now, Mr A tried her best awhile ago, BUT again, I did well.
It is soooo dame hard to explain things hun, I did a lot of things at different times. I do have to go now, must go to bed, ohhh its late, it does take me forever when typing LOL
I do hope this has been of some help, even if its just knowing you can get better.
I am not very good at explaining things. Hay, but if you met me, on a good day, I could chat for england about panic, anxiety.
YOU TAKE CARE
LOVE JILL XXX
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