General Anxiety and Panic Disorder

reply to post by chisisiCoptos


I'm really weird when it comes to sleep, I'm an EXTREMELY light sleeper and I have very good hearing. I can be asleep in my bedroom on the third floor and if someone steps one foot on the veranda on the first floor, I am up and out of bed and completely awake in the blink of an eye before the person even crosses the whole porch and knocks on the door. I'm just very jumpy and nervous like that. The littlest sounds wake me up and put me on red alert mode. Love and light are the best ways to battle anything negative...just envisioning yourself wrapped in a bubble of God's light and love can be so calming and keep out so much negativity.

It's hard for me to look back and not hate the people who hurt me...simply because one is closely related to me and was never punished (and never will be) and I still have to see him and deal with him regularly and he still talks about what he did to me and still wants to do to me and he attempts to find opportunities to catch me alone and corner me to hurt me again, but I'm a grown up now and I know how to defend myself and have defended myself quite well when faced with that situation before. The other (my ex-husband) I have no hate for...I just feel nothing towards him at all. I used to cry whenever I was little and bad things would happen but by the time I was ten, I couldn't cry anymore...I still can't, I haven't cried (tears, sniffles, etc.) in a year and a half to two years, and it had been over a year the time before that when I had last cried. Whenever most people would cry, I just feel numb. I'm a good and caring person but I still wish I hadn't been damaged so badly...to explain the damage is nearly impossible and while I retained my goodness, I was stitoast destroyed and I still can't figure out how to put the pieces back together correctly because there's so much missing from me because of what happened. I've always been very dedicated to not letting other be hurt like I was...I've worked and done volunteer work for victim's services for many years and I established a very successful 4K in 2008 to raise funds for women/children shelters and rape/incest/child abuse crisis centers. Anything I can give to help others escape abuse and heal...my time, my money, my anything...I will give. Every bit counts.

I really admire you for being strong enough to not hate those who hurt you, and to be so willing to help others who are less fortunate. More people should follow your example...I wish I could follow your example on the "not hating those who've hurt me" issue.

reply to post by jcutler12888


For me it was hard because by the time I was a junior in high school, I was a big guy. Most of it was muscle so I did confront one guy at a party. I did punch him one time in the face for trying to run my sister off the rode and picking on me but then I was hurt.I started to realize that was not making me feel any better. I guess I am to sensitive. As far as the one person trying to catch you out alone, trust me, a nickle plated 9 mm with a 15 round clip might fit in your purse.
I have no right to ever expect you to forgive that one MF'r from your childhood. There is no forgiveness for whom that prey on innocent children. I am sorry but that is where I draw the line. There was one women who tried but I got away more than once. Sorry for misguiding everyone on that sin there is no forgiveness. A child is pure and innocent and can't protect themselves. I am so sorry about your experience.

If a time ever comes when your fear starts to overwhelm you.
Reach out your heart to Jesus and ask him at that time to get you through.
Remember the good times and people who you love.
Just when you are uncertain an Angel will come from above.
Your trust and faith will guide protection to your call.
I can already feel the anxiety and pressure starting to fall.
If all we were to do is just live in fear and distress.
Then I pray that thy Angel holds on to you to love, protect and caress.
Chisisi

reply to post by chisisiCoptos


I see. I've always been a small woman (5'6" and between 110-120 lbs. since I was sixteen) and I had to learn self-defense or else I'd keep getting hurt. Long story short, the last time anything happened, I broke his hand...and I could've hurt him much, much more but I just had to get out of there. Oh, I have my Sig P238 with me at all times, I'm a bit of a gun aficionado...the first time I shot a gun, I was six and shot a little rifle and I grew up learning how to shoot, I took a 12 point buck down on my first and only deer hunt I ever went on when I was ten, and I am an eagle eye, perfect shot...but you don't need to be a crackshot to put one between the eyes of someone who's cornering you in the room, I'm just not about to go to jail and through a trial over it...he can keep getting his bones broken if he wants to continue to attempt to confront me and assault me again. In fact, in retrospect, breaking his bones is quite therapeutic for me so I welcome the chance to break a few more.

I guess I wish I could forgive him because I was raised being told that forgiveness was the Christian way and to forgive was divine...and, as much sense as it doesn't make, for aome inexplicable reason I feel like a bad Christian for not being able to.forgive him...I feel like God will punish me if I don't. Still, I can't...I just can't forgive. Thank you so much...thankfully I'm still alive and fighting, and that's all that counts.

This song has really inspired me. Something I went through last year.
youtu.be...

reply to post by chisisiCoptos


Sorry for such a delayed response. Yes, it changed me profoundly. Sometimes I'm very clear headed and others....well, it seems like I'm early alzheimers. Too many issues for me to casually speak of, but yes, severe physical issues definitely do indeed exacerbate anxiety. Wish you well.

What is recommended for these extreme anxiety and panic attacks. I know you can take a shot of whiskey or a glass of wine but does Xanax help? Would one recommend Xanax or Valium for these attacks. Just wondering for future reference. I have heard that just 1 mg of Xanax is good to avoid panic attacks and such.

Originally posted by chisisiCoptos
What is recommended for these extreme anxiety and panic attacks. I know you can take a shot of whiskey or a glass of wine but does Xanax help? Would one recommend Xanax or Valium for these attacks. Just wondering for future reference. I have heard that just 1 mg of Xanax is good to avoid panic attacks and such.

Did I break some silent code by mentioning the "X" or "V" word...... ....I really had a question here and then all of the sudden it was if I killed the thread. No offense meant in any way. I guess it was stupid to ask something like this in a public forum. I really wanted to know this so if at least I could get an answer feel free to U2U me.
Thank you.

PS: Sorry to drag this thread out!

Hi OP,

I noticed this thread is a month old and I haven't read through the replies but have you tried 'grounding' techniques?

I find them to be very effective.

One technique taught by psychologists is to stand and 'feel your feet'. Try to become as aware of the sensation of your feet on the floor or ground. Wiggle your toes, feel the hardness of the surface you are standing on, etc.

The second is to get outside, ideally in bare feet or leather-soled shoes. Stand either in the dirt or on the grass. Damp is better than dry. Breathe in and out slowly. As you do, visualize the vastness of the earth and the smallness of you on its surface. The try to feel your excess energy going into the ground, and the earth absorbing that energy as you breathe in and out.
If it is sunny, visualize the light energy filling you and pushing out the dark.

Third technique can be done with the first. Recommended by doctors as well. It's called 4-7-8 -inhale for the count of four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. www.drweil.com...

Hope they help. Meds are sometimes necessary but should only be short term.

reply to post by chisisiCoptos


You didn't kill the thread, CC. I think that it just hasn't been revisited by anyone in a while and I think the OP got tired of being unfairly criticized.

reply to post by jcutler12888


Thnx...I just hated to see a good topic come and go so fast... I know we live in a fast past society but at least slow down some time to smell the roses..

reply to post by chisisiCoptos


You're welcome. It is disappointing to see that the thread died out with little to no resolution for the OP...I hope he's okay...

OP, perhaps since the mind, body, and spirit are interrelated, your solution could be found by curing each of those three.

I only noticed this thread last night. I've gone through the first 3 pages and the last page. I usually don't reply without reading an entire thread but it's an important subject to me, so I'll share my story too.

I had no real anxiety issue til 3 years ago. I was 5 months pregnant and suddenly I couldn't leave the house and didn't feel right. One night it got so bad that my husband took me to the hospital, that's when I found out I was having a panic attack. I had derealization and depersonalization, which is what you experienced; which is creepy because it felt like I realized I was in the matrix, and nothing was real, including myself. and if I wasn't so pregnant and my limbs weren't so numb from the panic attack, I would've grabbed something and killed myself because I didn't understand why I should suffer now that nothing looks right and nothing was real.

I continued to have panic attacks 4-6 days per week until I gave birth. I was fine for 2 weeks, then had one long-ass panic attack that lasted for 5 days straight before I called the hospital at 5am for help. Mine was a severe case of postpartum anxiety, but that's due to what I experienced in my childhood and triggered by pregnancy. I had other symptoms due to lack of sleep and inability to eat on top of the drop in hormones, but ultimately I felt that exact feeling you had "I wish I could time travel to before I was born, so that I can make sure I'd never be born."

To make a long story short, I wasn't diagnosed and my history wasn't looked at until 3 months after my child's birth. It was another 6 months before I realized that I've been having flashbacks and was having PTSD (I've always thought a flashback is a full on one, like in movies and TV shows, because I've had one like that when I was 17 y/o). In talking to the therapist and psychiatrist, I'm told that I was physically and emotionally abused by my dad (I refuse to really accept it, but I understand why they consider what I experienced as abuse) and I was also sexually abused by someone else, who was and unfortunately still is very close to me. The sexual abuse took 20 years for me to acknowledge. I actually completely repressed the memory until I was 17 when I had my first flashback. and when that happened, I forced myself out of the flashback when it got to be too much and said "nope, I don't need to know anymore" and walked out the room. From that moment til 3 years ago, it was literally the last thing on my mind.

Anyway, with that story in mind, I have had no choice but to be very proactive in my healing. The psychiatrist wanted me on 2 drugs. I asked if I will be back to my old self after, say, taking them for 1 year. She said in my case, it'll likely be for the rest of my life unless I deal with the issues. I decided to just face it now instead of procrastinating and dealing with withdrawals on top of everything, since I wasn't suicidal by the time I got diagnosed.

Sorry this is so long. Now, onto what I've found helped. 2 things. You need to have a set of coping skills for when panic attacks happen, but ultimately, you need to speak to a therapist to deal with why you have the panic attacks, what the triggers are, etc.

Coping with panic attacks in the moment or skills on to regularly hone:
- You were already doing grounding techniques in your panic attack. grounding is one of the best ways to bring you back in the moment. Personally I find that if you're too far gone, this doesn't work and you just have to ride it out at that point, but once you feel it coming on, grounding can help. Push your feet into the ground. Feel how your body feels against your chair, etc. Some things will work and some won't. For example, I get more anxious if my hands feel rough texture like jeans, even though that's a method they teach.
- When I was pregnant and couldn't use medication except for Gravol when it got really bad, I had a rose quartz and a lapis lazuli on my at all times. When the panic came on in public (I had to go to the synagogue weekly at the time because I was in the process of converting), I held the rose quartz at my heart chakra and the lapis lazuli at my throat (for nausea). I'm sure people thought I was insane, but whatever, it was that or a full blown panic attack ending in blacking out. The group therapy facilitator I spoke to later encouraged it and said it's also a grounding technique.
- Meditation. Mindful meditation works well for some people. For others like me, it's not good. If you've been through trauma, mindful meditation could kinda backfire and make you dissociate. It made me panic if I didn't dissociate when I concentrate on breathing, because all I could think was without that breath, I'd be dead
- CBT works. If you can't get any kind of therapy, there's an iphone app called iCBT that helps you through the process

I'll write another post on the long term helpful things, triggers, etc.

Before I get to the long term methods and such, OP I know everyone had venture a guess as to why you had the panic attack and it's confusing to be bombarded with so many ideas, but based on what you said, I might have to throw another one in. You said your gf was insisting you were twitching when you felt you weren't. When you were little, was your dad the type to insist he's right about something that you were sure he wasn't? Or in other words, what he said goes and what you said didn't matter? I bring that up as a trigger for the panic attack. Not that your gf is wrong or at fault, but given that you are now trying to bring your dad back into your life, having something similar happen can trigger your old physical stuff to come out. So for future reference, when a situation like that happens, it might be a trigger.

Onto the things you do when you're not in the moment:
- oops I already mentioned meditation
- yoga can help, but some positions are not good. the reclining bound angle pose is REALLY bad for me, sends me straight into a panic attack, and from googling I'm not the only one.
- funnily enough, though the reclining bound angle pose is bad, David Bercelli wrote a fabulous book on his method Trauma Release Exercises. There are 6 sets of exercises you do and the last one is ultimately the reclining bound angle pose. I found it really helpful and should probably do it on a daily basis. Here is a video showing how a polar bear naturally releases trauma and demos of people doing the same thing using TRE.
- lots of water, meals at set times, make sure to have lots of carbs and protein.
- if, say, something traumatic happened, your brain works differently during a trauma. An example we often give is say you're in a room with red walls and someone comes at you with a knife while wearing a yellow shirt, your brain will grab random pieces of information and associate them with this trauma. So, if you happen to see someone in a yellow shirt walking down the street, or you go into a restaurant with red walls, it could trigger that anxiety and panic back because your lower brain is saying that this is dangerous. In your world, you'll be like "wtf! why am I suddenly so panicky for no reason?" You don't understand it because on a conscious level, you might not even have noticed the guy in the yellow shirt walking by, nor would you have known that's the trigger unless it happens frequent enough.
- Gratitude meditation can help, Progressive muscle relaxation can help.
- if you have a lot of adrenaline, it might help to just exercise when it happens. Cuz it's your fight or flight being triggered, if you run, it might help to just get it out of your system. If it's a severe panic attack where you are numb and derealization/depersonalization happens, it's actually your freeze mode, which is past the fight or flight mode and is your body preparing yourself for death, at which point, honestly just be kind to yourself and ride it out.

I do agree on getting help. I didn't and now I have adrenal fatigue. I'm convinced it's because I had so many panic attacks that I used up all my cortisol. My cortisol level is now 4 times lower than the minimum it should be in the morning. My sodium and potassium levels are barely there (according to the naturopath I saw, those are the building blocks for cortisol, I'm not sure on that, for the record). My point is to nip it in the bud so it doesn't end up taking over your life for too long.

Before I forget, you probably want to get a physical just in case. Iron deficiency for example will give similar symptoms to general anxiety. Some other deficiencies do too, but I don't remember what they are.

Originally posted by jcutler12888
reply to post by chisisiCoptos

 

You didn't kill the thread, CC. I think that it just hasn't been revisited by anyone in a while and I think the OP got tired of being unfairly criticized.

That's the problem with this sight and probably one of the reasons I'll never make another thread again. There are many kind people here, but then you get the miserable, rude, insulting mongers that ruin it for everyone.

reply to post by miss_sky


Yeah...I haven't even made a thread yet. I'm too nervous. You never know how harsh people will get on here.

I was a lurked for a while before I joined and it took me until just recently to make a thread truly looking for advice. Got alot of kind responses, but some were down right uncalled for. I actually asked the mods to close it.

reply to post by miss_sky


This one seems OK and user friendly. It was going away. I keep on adding to it to keep it going for a bit because it is a good post.

reply to post by jcutler12888


I really made a couple of threads I did not like and apparently no one had even responded. I felt miserable that I wrote about someone breaking the law in Florida. I asked the mods., to remove it. I would not worry jc because all of your replies have been interesting and informative here! I appreciate them!