1st time joining a forum

[Phantom33]

Hi everyone this is my first time joining any type of forum....I battle with severe anxiety attacks and panic attacks....I feel like I'm gonna die when they hit.....I know the signs of an oncoming attack and try to take my medication in advance of this....but there are times when the medication says no way I'm not gonna work right now. I'm am emotional person and have always reacted to things based off of my emotions....so when an overly bad attack occurs right away I lock onto emotion and thought....I'm dying, whats that pain I feel, wait that pain wasn't there before.....etc....etc....a viscous cycle of irrational fear....my anxiety hits out of the blue and for no apparent reason...one minute fine next wanting to curl up into the fetal position....my anxiety has slowly gotten worse over last few months and I'm not sure why???? It's very frustrating....it not only affects my work but my home life...thankfully I have an understanding fiancee....but I know it takes a toll on her when she has to hear me ramble about the same exact stuff. I needed to seek out something or someone that could relate to what I was dealing with....I've been often asking myself " what happened?" "Where did I go wrong?" And have yet to find an answer.....I am a worry wart....everything is always worst case scenario and I'm really tired of it....

[NixonRulz]

Well, since I hate my job, let me take as long as I can to respond to you so I don't have to do any real work, just look like I am working.

Your story is pretty typical of most here. It just takes more time for some to get into that zone where they want to scream.

As a card carrying anxiety member for 20 years, what I can tell you is that you need to stop asking why or what you did to start the process down this road.

This was coming for you one way or another. If it wasn't one thing, it was another. You're wired different than most, but exactly as us fine people here. Your body and mind want to run in fear when there is no danger

If you wouldn't take your medication when you felt panic coming on, it would still stop.

And here in lies the key. When you stop fearing the thoughts and physical symptoms, panic gets annoyed with you and starts moving on to someone else

You give it its power. When you take away its strength and realize that it's you steering the ship, not anxiety, it feels like its not there

Not that it won't try again tomorrow or the next day, it will. But each time you don't react fearful of any thought or physical symptom that anxiety causes, you lessen the severity of your state of mind. You gain more and more control as you do this.

If you go to your safe zone, try to distract yourself or take a benzo when you feel the symptoms, you will probably never get where you wish to be. You may be coping with it but who the hell just wants to get by coping?

Accept that you are wired this way and because of that you are probably going to be sent some irrational thoughts or concerns from your big old brain.

Understand this to be a symptom of your disorder, understand that you don't need to react to symptoms.

Stop reacting and the anxiety backs off

[Phantom33]

Thank u NixonRulz....I appreciate your response and I completely understand what you're saying. At one time I'm my life I was able to use the tools I have learned to overcome most of my severe anxiety/panick attacks. But somewhere along the line I lost touch with that. One big factor was working so much overtime. I lost time doing things I enjoyed which only enhanced my anxiety. Now its just the opposite with work, they're so slow I don't know how much longer I'll have a job so stress is jumping me as well....all stuff that you've probably heard before....I have gone from a semi calm and collected person to a scared paranoid human.