Hi all, been lurking since joining but found reading all the posts on a daily basis very very useful....

I thought I'd share the experiences of the last couple of days with you as they prove an interesting insight into just how psychological this whole thing is... ok, I'll explain!

I've been suffering from panic attacks in general for the last couple of years (I won't ellaborate too much as I covered most of what I'm experiencing in my 'introduction' post) and for the last couple of weeks I have had horrendous toothache which seemed to stem from a dodgy crown! [V] In addition, and completely aside, I started to have a classic car rebuilt last year by a garage (bear with me on this one!) and have had to make regular visits to see it's progress.... so, this week I had two trips to make, one to the dentist to sort my tooth out and the other to the garage to go through the last stage of the car rebuild. Both, as you can imagine caused quite a bit of anxiety in anticipation of the lengthy trips and either the hour in the dentist chair or hour discussing the bodywork of my beloved car!

So, on Monday morning I made the call to the dentist as I really could no longer put up with the pain and was told I could see the dentist that morning as it was an emergency. I was overjoyed(!) and jumped in the car to make the 45 minute journey to the dentist. Once there, I saw him, he informed me it had to come out and to cut a long story short I was there for the best part of two hours before returning home... Not once during my trip or my stay did I have a panic attack or feel any anxiety at all, I was just relieved to be there and relieved to have the pain taken away!

Tuesday was a different story... after weeks of putting them off I had to visit the garage and set off in the morning. The journey there was approximately 30 minutes of typical anxiety hell and on arrival I did the usual sitting in the car composing myself before going in. (I'm sure some of you do this knowing that once you leave the car and go in there's no turning back which makes it all the worse!) I did eventually make it to the door and everything just got worse, while speaking to the mechanic I think I experienced the worse panic attack ever and thought I was going to faint/be sick/have a heartattack/go blind (delete as applicable [:I] ) and this went on for most of the meeting. I'm sure he noticed as I couldn't focus on what he was saying as I was too busy preparing myself for the impending blackout! Eventually it was over and I scurried back to my car to go home....

The two episodes made me realise just how much my mind is playing with me....... I hope it offers some insight into what is going on!?


Dean