Cobra
08-04-2013, 11:52 PM
I write this in hopes of helping myself, but maybe it will help others as well, although it might be uncomfortable for some to read. I got sick in December of last year. Suffered from constant stomach pain, which lead to depression and anxiety. After having an endoscope and colonoscope, a precancerous polyp was removed from a part of my lower intestines called the cecum. This is a very delicate area, and my gastro doctor told me there might be some bleeding. Everything seemed fine until two days later. I was feeling really tired and took a nap. When I woke up, I smelled blood in our bedroom. I had an urgent need to use the bathroom and so that's what I did. When I got up, I saw that the toilet was full of blood. Looked like someone had poured a five gallon bucket of blood in there! As my wife got dressed to take me to the ER, it happened again. Then, at the ER, it happened twice more. There was nothing they could really do there as my doctor was away for the weekend, so they prepped me to send me to another hospital. While I was lying there waiting, I felt an enormous pressure on my chest and the heart alarms went off. I was going into arrest from loss of blood! The staff rushed in and hooked me up to two IVs, pumping fluids into me as fast as they would go. I actually "saw the light", the ER room lighting up with a bright sunny light like someone had peeled the roof off the building. I stabilized, thank goodness, and they sent me by ambulance to a neighboring hospital. From Saturday to Monday, they kept IVs pumping into me, monitored my heart, and kept an eye on my red blood cell count. On Monday, I was taken into surgery to repair whatever had gone wrong inside me from the previous procedure. Everything came out all right, I stopped bleeding, and they sent me home a couple days later.
Two days after returning home, I had my first panic attack. I was sitting on the porch, talking about the experience with my wife. It was one of the most frightening things I had ever experienced. It was actually more frightening than almost dying in the ER. For the next week or so, I kept having panic attacks. They would come one right after the other until I thought I was surely going to die, and I had to be helped up off the bed. Went to the mental health facility, got pills, but very little real help. Just a bit of counseling. For the next three months, I got addicted to Ativan, weaned myself off them, and read everything I could about panic disorder, and how to repair my mind.
I have had mixed success so far.
I have not had a full blown panic attack in two months or so, but the constant low-level anxiety, while controllable, is very debilitating and tends to send me into bouts of depression. I am depressed right now.
There has to be a way to fix this. I was not like this before. I feel like I have to get to the root of the problem, and since I have been studying mindfulness and Buddhist philosophy, I think I understand why I am having these panic attacks.
I have never accepted death.
I have acknowledged it. I have even worked around it, being a CNA in a nursing home. I have gone to funerals. I watched my father die right before my eyes.
But I have never accepted death. Not on a personal level. I've never stared into its face and accepted that its face is my face. That I am going to die. That all my loved ones will die. The world will die. The universe will die. Although rationally I know that all those things are true, my subconscious ego, or whatever you want to call it, is absolutely, 100% in hysterical denial of this truth. This is why I break out into a cold sweat and my chest gets tight when I remember my experience in the hospital. This is why my heart starts pounding whenever my stomach gurgles. This is the root cause of me developing this panic disorder. This is why every chill, twinge, hiccup, fart, ache, pain and faintness sends me into a sort of hypervigilant consciousness that precedes my every attack. My subconscious mind is in utter terror that I am going to die, and it is watching for anything that might herald the coming event. If I don't drive, then someone can't crash into me while they're texting. If I don't exert myself, there's less of a chance of overtaxing something. If I'm not alone, someone will be able to help me if I need it. It is watching for every little sign and symptom of my body functions, pulse, BP, temp, pains, in the hopes that if something does go wrong, I can rush myself to medical care in time to prevent the inevitable.
My medical crisis has triggered some kind of hyper self preservation mode in my subconscious mind.
So, how to fix this?
I'm not sure, but avoidance, checking, and positive self-talk hasn't cured it. Avoiding frightening behaviors is only feeding into the panic. Compulsive body checking is just a symptom of it. And positive self-talk hasn't done anything but make the panic more manageable.
I have to adress the root cause, and the root cause is fear of dying.
I know this is going to suck, because its going to cause panic attack after panic attack, but I have to allow myself to feel the full force of the terror, experience the terrible thoughts that trigger my fears, I have to keep doing it and keep doing it until my mind has become desensitized to the fear, and my subconscious brain accepts the unalterable fact of death. I hope to have the strength to do this. I am going to try to do it slowly, using mindfulness techniques to blunt the force of my panic in the beginning, but I cannot bear to continue living like this anymore. I've got to go into the darkness. I have to make peace with my own demise.
Two days after returning home, I had my first panic attack. I was sitting on the porch, talking about the experience with my wife. It was one of the most frightening things I had ever experienced. It was actually more frightening than almost dying in the ER. For the next week or so, I kept having panic attacks. They would come one right after the other until I thought I was surely going to die, and I had to be helped up off the bed. Went to the mental health facility, got pills, but very little real help. Just a bit of counseling. For the next three months, I got addicted to Ativan, weaned myself off them, and read everything I could about panic disorder, and how to repair my mind.
I have had mixed success so far.
I have not had a full blown panic attack in two months or so, but the constant low-level anxiety, while controllable, is very debilitating and tends to send me into bouts of depression. I am depressed right now.
There has to be a way to fix this. I was not like this before. I feel like I have to get to the root of the problem, and since I have been studying mindfulness and Buddhist philosophy, I think I understand why I am having these panic attacks.
I have never accepted death.
I have acknowledged it. I have even worked around it, being a CNA in a nursing home. I have gone to funerals. I watched my father die right before my eyes.
But I have never accepted death. Not on a personal level. I've never stared into its face and accepted that its face is my face. That I am going to die. That all my loved ones will die. The world will die. The universe will die. Although rationally I know that all those things are true, my subconscious ego, or whatever you want to call it, is absolutely, 100% in hysterical denial of this truth. This is why I break out into a cold sweat and my chest gets tight when I remember my experience in the hospital. This is why my heart starts pounding whenever my stomach gurgles. This is the root cause of me developing this panic disorder. This is why every chill, twinge, hiccup, fart, ache, pain and faintness sends me into a sort of hypervigilant consciousness that precedes my every attack. My subconscious mind is in utter terror that I am going to die, and it is watching for anything that might herald the coming event. If I don't drive, then someone can't crash into me while they're texting. If I don't exert myself, there's less of a chance of overtaxing something. If I'm not alone, someone will be able to help me if I need it. It is watching for every little sign and symptom of my body functions, pulse, BP, temp, pains, in the hopes that if something does go wrong, I can rush myself to medical care in time to prevent the inevitable.
My medical crisis has triggered some kind of hyper self preservation mode in my subconscious mind.
So, how to fix this?
I'm not sure, but avoidance, checking, and positive self-talk hasn't cured it. Avoiding frightening behaviors is only feeding into the panic. Compulsive body checking is just a symptom of it. And positive self-talk hasn't done anything but make the panic more manageable.
I have to adress the root cause, and the root cause is fear of dying.
I know this is going to suck, because its going to cause panic attack after panic attack, but I have to allow myself to feel the full force of the terror, experience the terrible thoughts that trigger my fears, I have to keep doing it and keep doing it until my mind has become desensitized to the fear, and my subconscious brain accepts the unalterable fact of death. I hope to have the strength to do this. I am going to try to do it slowly, using mindfulness techniques to blunt the force of my panic in the beginning, but I cannot bear to continue living like this anymore. I've got to go into the darkness. I have to make peace with my own demise.