Panic attacks
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Join Date: May 2011
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Panic attacks
I am noticing that every time I start thinking about the things I have done, job I have lost, rough road ahead, I start getting major panic attacks. I've never had them before. I don't expect a miracle at day 7 but I just don't know how to deal with them. Any suggestions?
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Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Hicktown, PA
Posts: 1,479
There are lots of ways to deal with panic - one of the best ones for me is deep breathing excercises. There are lots of different ways to go about it - google and see which one appeals the most.
Also, if it is really worrisome, talk to your doc., just to get peace of mind.
Good luck!
Jomey
Also, if it is really worrisome, talk to your doc., just to get peace of mind.
Good luck!
Jomey
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Join Date: May 2011
Location: New Orleans
Posts: 58
LPNA:
I get them too, and was very disappointed to have had one this morning. So I did what some people do with misbehaving children: I diverted my focus with another action. For me, breathing exercises are too passive and actually can cause my heart to race! So I got up and moved, prepared coffee, shower. It's the mundane -- but active -- things that shake my mind loose from the grip of panic. I have to do -- not think. Maybe that can help you?
I get them too, and was very disappointed to have had one this morning. So I did what some people do with misbehaving children: I diverted my focus with another action. For me, breathing exercises are too passive and actually can cause my heart to race! So I got up and moved, prepared coffee, shower. It's the mundane -- but active -- things that shake my mind loose from the grip of panic. I have to do -- not think. Maybe that can help you?
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Join Date: Jun 2011
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Hi lpnangel, I started getting panic attacks when I was around 17 or 18. When I was 19, someone turned me onto this: Welcome to Midwest Center for Stress & Anxiety | Free Trial of the AA&D Program | #1 Self Help Program for Overcoming Anxiety & Depression | Free Resources for Stress, Anxiety & Depression. | StressCenter.com
After about 6 months to 1 year of listening and following her course (it was 1995 or 1996... so I had a set of cassette tapes!), I was able to get a grip on the panic attacks and pretty much stop them. I continued to listen to those tapes on and off until I was 27. I listened to them in cycles for over 10 years. It worked!!! The actual panic attacks stopped within about a year. After that, I only listened to a few of the tapes about generalized anxiety and such... I highly recommend them!
Her tapes allowed me to finish college... at one point I wondered if I'd even be able to walk back into a classroom.
After about 6 months to 1 year of listening and following her course (it was 1995 or 1996... so I had a set of cassette tapes!), I was able to get a grip on the panic attacks and pretty much stop them. I continued to listen to those tapes on and off until I was 27. I listened to them in cycles for over 10 years. It worked!!! The actual panic attacks stopped within about a year. After that, I only listened to a few of the tapes about generalized anxiety and such... I highly recommend them!
Her tapes allowed me to finish college... at one point I wondered if I'd even be able to walk back into a classroom.
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Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: South Dakota
Posts: 1,061
I had them often when I quit, and still get one every now and then. Breathing exercises did not work for me either. My best way to cope with them was to go for a walk and just get away from everyone and everything for just a bit. I also made sure to try to eat right, get plenty of sleep and do regular exercises, it seemed the kinder I was to my body and mind the more I was able to avoid them.
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Originally Posted by lpnangel 
I am noticing that every time I start thinking about the things I have done, job I have lost, rough road ahead, I start getting major panic attacks. I've never had them before. I don't expect a miracle at day 7 but I just don't know how to deal with them. Any suggestions?
Mine happened around people... it was social phobia and related panic attacks. So I'd try to focus on anything at all in my immediate surrounds to distract... and it got to where I could laugh at myself and the riduclousness of the fact it was my own mind and thought processes which were panicking over nothing really... I was creating the situation, and once I realized I alone had the complete power to stop the process... it clicked.
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Originally Posted by MycoolFitz
Just be mindful that yesterday never was and tomorrow will never be, there is only this moment and this place endlessly. Be here, now and its all ok.
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Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: great lakes
Posts: 101
Meds can be helpful too. Your brain chemicals may be out of balance from alcohol/detox. Check in with your dr if it continues.
jennie- omg! I also used the MWCSA tapes way back when. Lucinda Bassett is amazing. There wasn't much else out there in the 80s. The med.dir. was my PCP then too. Crazy weird, huh?
jennie- omg! I also used the MWCSA tapes way back when. Lucinda Bassett is amazing. There wasn't much else out there in the 80s. The med.dir. was my PCP then too. Crazy weird, huh?
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Join Date: Jun 2011
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Ceneri 
Yes, she is amazing! I totally loved her... listened to her in my car and everywhere... she was like my only source of hope at one point it seemed. What a comfort... Love her!!! Haven't listened to those tapes in years... but they really helped me!!
Yes, she is amazing! I totally loved her... listened to her in my car and everywhere... she was like my only source of hope at one point it seemed. What a comfort... Love her!!! Haven't listened to those tapes in years... but they really helped me!!
Member
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Edmonton, Alberta.
Posts: 398
I have had plenty of panic attacks - often in withdrawal, though they have persisted for weeks occasionally. Can usually see them coming before they physically manifest, and knowing now that they are just the product of my thinking, can often divert my attention elsewhere. They can be really scary though.
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,313
I think you've been through a lot in a short time lpn. I'm not really surprised to hear you've had panic attacks.
I find deep breathing helps me
It also helps me to accept what I'm feeling may not be necessarily based on anything real, or happening now but simply on a vague general fear...like Max says a product of my thinking....knowing that seems to help me contain the fear and make it more manageable.
Like others have said, a professional opinion may be the way forward if you're worried
D
I find deep breathing helps me
It also helps me to accept what I'm feeling may not be necessarily based on anything real, or happening now but simply on a vague general fear...like Max says a product of my thinking....knowing that seems to help me contain the fear and make it more manageable.
Like others have said, a professional opinion may be the way forward if you're worried
D
Member
Join Date: Jul 2011
Posts: 518
Hello Lpnangel,
I decided to give my opinion on your panic attacks; I deal with them a lot too, I have anxiety disorder so I have quite a bit of knowledge on it and have gone to therapy for it as well.
First of all, it is physiologically impossible for you to have a panic attack when you breathe through your belly. It's the same thing when you're drinking - you'll never have one and the reason being is that you are breathing shallowly - through your belly. So when you drink you are quite calm with yourself.
Other things that have helped me are thinking of my big comfy bed or cuddling with my bf and just knowing that everything is okay.
Another method that works is if you sit there with you're anxiety and say to yourself "Okay anxiety, I feel really crappy right now, do something worse, make me feel A LOT worse!" - usually, the anxiety subsides, all it is is extra adrenaline pumping through your body. And anxiety attacks usually only last between 5 to 20 minutes.
It's definitely a crappy feeling...you feel like you're about to die, I know. I've been through it so many times.
You should also read up on it as much as possible. There are some great books out there! Some by Dr. Claire Weekes, others by David Burns.
There are also work books such as the Stress and Relaxation workbook.
Definitely reading up on it has helped me immensely.
Other options are medication. It's definitely something you may want to look into it if your anxiety is debilitating. I also have been taken Ativan for severe panic attacks which works great for me...but you have to be careful with benzo's, as they are addicting.
Hope I somewhat helped and you feel better soon!
I decided to give my opinion on your panic attacks; I deal with them a lot too, I have anxiety disorder so I have quite a bit of knowledge on it and have gone to therapy for it as well.
First of all, it is physiologically impossible for you to have a panic attack when you breathe through your belly. It's the same thing when you're drinking - you'll never have one and the reason being is that you are breathing shallowly - through your belly. So when you drink you are quite calm with yourself.
Other things that have helped me are thinking of my big comfy bed or cuddling with my bf and just knowing that everything is okay.
Another method that works is if you sit there with you're anxiety and say to yourself "Okay anxiety, I feel really crappy right now, do something worse, make me feel A LOT worse!" - usually, the anxiety subsides, all it is is extra adrenaline pumping through your body. And anxiety attacks usually only last between 5 to 20 minutes.
It's definitely a crappy feeling...you feel like you're about to die, I know. I've been through it so many times.
You should also read up on it as much as possible. There are some great books out there! Some by Dr. Claire Weekes, others by David Burns.
There are also work books such as the Stress and Relaxation workbook.
Definitely reading up on it has helped me immensely.
Other options are medication. It's definitely something you may want to look into it if your anxiety is debilitating. I also have been taken Ativan for severe panic attacks which works great for me...but you have to be careful with benzo's, as they are addicting.
Hope I somewhat helped and you feel better soon!
Member
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: The "beltway"
Posts: 785
Hi lpnangel,
I've been there too. Not a good place to be. A couple things help me: exercise and thinking about the days ahead but taking each one at a time.
When I dwell on things I am ashamed of (and there are many), this tends to set things off. I pull away from that world by confirming to myself that I will be a better person, that I will try best I can to live a life I can be proud of. Then I breath and try to come back.
And this awesome community helps too!...there is always a light on at SR for you.
I've been there too. Not a good place to be. A couple things help me: exercise and thinking about the days ahead but taking each one at a time.
When I dwell on things I am ashamed of (and there are many), this tends to set things off. I pull away from that world by confirming to myself that I will be a better person, that I will try best I can to live a life I can be proud of. Then I breath and try to come back.
And this awesome community helps too!...there is always a light on at SR for you.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 1,126
Panic was the beginning of my addictive spiral into alcoholism, and I turned to doctors for help in the late 1980s. They're solution was benzos and antidepressants.
Didn't work.
Well, I must add, I had a penchant to down the benzos with beer and smoke a joint!
My attacks were sealed in sweat. I could sitting in a business meeting and soak a shirt through, sweat wetting my hair like I had just gotten out of the shower.
Nine months sober, I no longer rely on benzos. I do take an average dose of an antidepressant.
If you panic has set in with only a few days of sobriety, I wouldn't, er, panic.
My panic and anxiety went on for decades. It was only through sobriety that they went away. Then again, I'm not in a very stressful situation. Reference the shame, it all has to do with the wreckage in out past due to the disease, and alcohol and drug consumption, in my opinion, are but a symptom.
Hang in there. For me, I needed support from others in my situation. I found that in AA. Where I'm living, AA and NA are all the same, the same faces, the same problems. I discovered I was far from unique. Depression abounds in
among alcoholics. So does extreme anxiety.
I would be wary of benzos. I'm not giving medical advice, and you should consult a doctor. Benzos are critical care in detox from alcohol. But they are to only be taken for very short periods, a manner of weeks, no more than two months.
They are extremely addictive. And detox from benzos, well, I've had hard core heroin addicts tell me that they would rather withdrawal from smack a few times than the pure terror of benzo withdrawal.
Do get help. Please post here. And read postings. I would see a doctor immediately, on my way to an AA meeting. And don't sweat walking into an AA meeting. You will be welcomed. Share with those there about your panic. You will find you are not alone.
Didn't work.
Well, I must add, I had a penchant to down the benzos with beer and smoke a joint!
My attacks were sealed in sweat. I could sitting in a business meeting and soak a shirt through, sweat wetting my hair like I had just gotten out of the shower.
Nine months sober, I no longer rely on benzos. I do take an average dose of an antidepressant.
If you panic has set in with only a few days of sobriety, I wouldn't, er, panic.
My panic and anxiety went on for decades. It was only through sobriety that they went away. Then again, I'm not in a very stressful situation. Reference the shame, it all has to do with the wreckage in out past due to the disease, and alcohol and drug consumption, in my opinion, are but a symptom.
Hang in there. For me, I needed support from others in my situation. I found that in AA. Where I'm living, AA and NA are all the same, the same faces, the same problems. I discovered I was far from unique. Depression abounds in
among alcoholics. So does extreme anxiety.
I would be wary of benzos. I'm not giving medical advice, and you should consult a doctor. Benzos are critical care in detox from alcohol. But they are to only be taken for very short periods, a manner of weeks, no more than two months.
They are extremely addictive. And detox from benzos, well, I've had hard core heroin addicts tell me that they would rather withdrawal from smack a few times than the pure terror of benzo withdrawal.
Do get help. Please post here. And read postings. I would see a doctor immediately, on my way to an AA meeting. And don't sweat walking into an AA meeting. You will be welcomed. Share with those there about your panic. You will find you are not alone.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: the high desert
Posts: 887
Surrender them. Realize that what you have done in the past you cannot change, but you can make up for them, or at least make amends. And realize that the things that have not happened, the things in the future, you do not know how they will turn out yet, so there is no reason to run possible scenarios through your head.
Let go of the worries and focus on today. As a friend of mine has said many times, If you have one leg in yesterday and the other in tomorrow, you are pissing all over today.
Hang in there and take care of yourself. You are worth it.
Let go of the worries and focus on today. As a friend of mine has said many times, If you have one leg in yesterday and the other in tomorrow, you are pissing all over today.
Hang in there and take care of yourself. You are worth it.
Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Oxnard (The Nard), CA, USA.
Posts: 13,860
I have GAD and drugging made it worse. Then came drug/alcohol detox in early sobriety. My anxiety went through the roof until I could see a Psych Doctor. After that things became at least manageable.
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