New to this forum

[Estelle2008]

First off let me tell you how much reading a lot of these posts have helped me :)

I am a mother of 2 amazing boys, 2 1/2 and 7 years old. I have been suffering for what feels like 7 years. It comes and goes, I will feel better and then bam! Its back!
I never knew what was going on...my dad suffered with depression so I assumed I was developing the same thing. I wasn't ever real close to my dad, but when he got "sick" and he signed himself into the hospital to seek help I thought we had gotten closer. My 2 brothers and I tried everything in our power to help my dad, but he had a girlfriend whom we now call the "black Widow" in the passed if my dad was feeling paranoid we could "talk him out of it" so to speak. But she fed his paranioa, and when he was in the hospital she would sign him out on day passes or weekend passes, which I might add the mental health system here in Nova Scotia Canada sucks! But she signed him out one weekend saying my brother was getting married and she took him to the lawyers office and tried to have him sign everything over to her, but thank goodness the legal assistant knew my dad and she knew that wasnt my dad, he wasn't himself. Then the very next weekend she signed him about again and she drove him to the woods around his home and that is where he committed suicide :'( That was November 25, 2012, I would say my panic/anxiety started approx. a year before that as we(my mom and my 2 brothers) dealt with a lot with dad and him being so paranoid and the girlfriend isolating him from us. I thought I dealt with his death well as my brothers were both working in Alberta and as I was home on Maternity leave with my second son I dealt with a lot of the legal part of my dads death and his properties and the probate of it all. But it turns out my family doctor seems to think maybe I didn't grieve for him, I now have an appt to see mental health on June 23rd. I have been experiencing the butterfly feeling what feels like 24/7, I get dizzy, tingly feeling everywhere and I cry uncontrollably. I don't cry because I'm sad so to speak I cry because I just don't like this feeling and its scary. I work in a home with adults with special needs so I have 4 nights where I am away from my home and it scares me that I may have a heart attack etc.
I don't want to go the medication path if I can help it as I have 2 small children, I have been looking online a lot for help, but hopefully my appt will help as my doctor seems to think cbt will help.

Any input from anyone would help as I am just at my wits end, I can't stop working and first and foremost my boys need me and they don't need a "crazy" mother.
Please help :(

[Im-Suffering]

The help you need is metaphysical. In understanding dads connection with the girl. They had a spiritual 'contract' and that could not be stopped by anyone probabilities were set into motion. There was attraction stronger than a 'pull' from any outsider let alone his children. They in a spiritual sense now, were soul mates of the strongest variety. This I do not expect you to understand, you may even shout blasphemous.

When we say 'spiritual' we do not mean dogma or religious.

Listen carefully, because this message is partly from your father:

Life has unseen layers my love. Ones that you cannot see, as undercurrents for the shape and motion of experience. You must accept these perceptive limitations, largely part of your belief system, but also understand you are being nudged along by forces benevolent about your personal growth. Not everything physical is as it seems. There is much more to every story. Including mine.

I had a hand in it, this I cannot deny, it was not her fault. Or yours or your brothers. Live your life ! Without guilt, remorse, regret, shame, or blame, and not from fear, uncertainty, but love and joy. I now know the moments are sacred, blessed, and this I wanted to tell you so you no longer waste any of them. Don't waste them on me, not in the sense of the interpretation or lamenting of things that could have been. Think of me now as whole and complete, and satisfied.

We all love you.

End of message.

[Estelle2008]

Thank you :)
I went and saw a Medium about 3 months after my dad's suicide and he told me pretty much the same thing. Although we tell ourselves every day that it wouldn't have mattered what we said or did...it wouldn't have changed his mind. I am just taking a wild stab at it and assuming my whole issue is because of my father because it all started around the time he went into the hospital...but I need help to control my attacks or learn what to do when one happens, when I am having one it feels like it lasts anywhere from 10 mins to 20 hours :( I used to be a happy go lucky gal that enjoyed every aspect of life, but now I am finding it hard to go on everyday, and my children are getting the grunt of it because I find it hard to want to go do anything in fear of an attack coming on and then what?? I ruin the whole outting because mommy's messed up! I don't want to take pills, I want to be able to manage this on my own.
:'(

[gypsylee]

Hi Estelle and welcome to the forum :)

[Estelle2008]

Thank you :) I am so thankful for this forum :) I don't know anyone who suffers and when I am going through an attack I try to explain it to my mom or my boyfriend and they just say "try to calm down and you'll be fine" but they just don't understand that it's not a matter of just "calming down" if it were that easy I could handle this, but I can't just calm down, I took and ativan one night that my doctor prescribed to me, it was 10pm one night and I started to get anxious, I couldn't calm myself down so I thought I might as well try one and see how it effects me me...well, it made me feel worse, I don't know if it was because I thought this was going to be a "quick fix" but I started to get heart palpitations and my heart was racing, I debated on going to the hospital, but feared they would think I was crazy! So I just went through it and barely slept! I went to my doctor a few days later and gave all 49 pills back to him...I am very sensitive to pills so if I don't have to take any meds I really don't want to, but I am willing to try anything :)

[gypsylee]

If we could just calm down we wouldn't have a problem :)

[Estelle2008]

Exactly :)

[Im-Suffering]

Read the following a couple of times:

There's much to heal, to let go of. Trauma, shock, pain. There is childhood trauma, associated with lack of affection, that's when the heart began to close. You must go into those feelings. Because they are associated with the current trauma, the same abandonment feelings. It is a life-theme that we talk much about. Every person has one that set up challenges and obstacles. Anxiety is closely related to heart worries not because of a physical condition alone by symbolically representing the metaphysical broken 'heart'.

So burying self in physical duties and responsibilities after death is not grieving you see but avoiding. There is deeper shock than the conscious self can come to terms with, coupled with the years of feeling unwanted, not inherently now, but because of dads depressive state. Suicide thoughts were not new to him, by the end it was a pattern of habitual thinking.

As a child you were more tuned in to daddy you see, he was supposed to be your role model, but he could not give himself to you. In those terms there was regrets added to his otherwise brooding disposition. He could not get life to budge, to give him what he thought he was supposed to have, which effected his 'manhood'. He felt less than, you understand. As a small child you could not reason what was wrong....

It must have been your fault. Partly. And so a majority of the current feelings are of that small hurt child. That is where you must go to heal and release the energies pent up since early on. All the way up until the current shock.

The body itself physically is representing these feelings by the show of anxiety and its manifestations which would be no longer needed if the psyche was healed.

[Estelle2008]

Thank you...I think :) Not sure I totally understand.

[Estelle2008]

I read it a few more times...makes a little more sense. Are you a therapist or something?

[Im-Suffering]

One last thing. On a strictly superficial note. The symptoms of an anxiety 'attack' will diminish if you wish (or anyone) when you stop fearing them. Fear (and love) is like a magnet you see? Another words, as you have done, sit and ride it out. Allow it, accept it, don't look to another for consolation or pity, or to even hold you. Just sit where you are let it run its course and continue on with your activity.

Now, i said superficial because the psychological has to be addressed (my last post above), releasing the psychic energies.

Remember however, an attack is a period of heightened awareness. The attacks themselves have a purpose. Because in this heightened state the buried feelings are at the surface, you see? So what would normally be swept under is intuitively magnified for your edification. The energies will release somehow now whether in seizures (shaking, palpitations, sweating) in some cases or willingly by looking inside. The attack magnifies the emotional cause.

So I have given you both a quick fix, and also an area of personal development.

[Im-Suffering]

I read it a few more times...makes a little more sense. Are you a therapist or something?

Therapist.. You could call it that !

Continuing on with your activity is very important. If the attack stops you dead in your tracks this is the formation psychologically of agoraphobia. The ground becomes fertile with fear and doubt (worry). So after one sits through and accepts an attack, one must continue on with whatever they had to do.

Again this is indeed 'coping' you see. Allowing a reprise from symptoms enough to examine beliefs and value judgments, and those life traumas we have spoken about.

[Estelle2008]

Thank you very much...this is all helping a lot :) I don't know how you did it

[Im-Suffering]

Thank you very much...this is all helping a lot :) I don't know how you did it

On a personal note because it will be a good example. When I had my first attack, my body was of course reacting with all the symptoms, I was lying in bed screaming out to my wife to hold me. Asking her if she loves me (buried issues were revealing themselves), do you understand what was happening? Now my life had some current traumas that triggered the attack, but during it I had reverted back to a child. That child needed love, affection, touch, security, safety - all of those things he had never gotten. I was talking to my father from a child's viewpoint. Although he had passed on at that point. Forty years of repressed emotions surfaced in a matter of minutes in an explosion of psychic energy. (to which the body reacted by heart racing, and so forth).

So I was left with 3 problems,

1) the anxiety itself and the fear of reoccurance
2) the surfacing of unresolved childhood issues
3) the current problems that triggered the regression and attack

Do you understand?

Life is very much about problem resolution - much mental distress and (physical) disease is formed by the inability to resolve mental issues (leading to brooding and a depressive state), and at the very least to see them clearly without the tainted lenses of false beliefs. Unresolved problems turn to indecision, doubt, worry, and ultimately fear (anxious state).

Agoraphobics must evaluate their value judgments about the world. Often going through a protracted period, shut in if you will, to face the cause of the fears and reemurge with a new vitality and zest for life. Where they gave thought to how scary or cruel a world it is for years (anti-life), now their thoughts have reversed. In this context agoraphobia is used as a tool, oftentimes painful but the individual cannot see a clearer method.

[Estelle2008]

OK, that makes sense. How do I go about resolving this? With a therapist?

[Estelle2008]

How long have you suffered with this?

[Im-Suffering]

OK, that makes sense. How do I go about resolving this? With a therapist?

Yes, but keep in mind your beliefs going into it will make a difference. You will in a sense meet your expectations. As you did with the ativan.

So go in with a clean slate. Expect the best.

I'm not suggesting a therapist is the only way. But indeed it will be helpful to kickstart the process.

I cannot stress enough though, about your expectations -

[Im-Suffering]

How long have you suffered with this?

I'm not suffering any more, as I've healed a lot. To some extent or another its been with me since I was 3. (Now 52). My earliest memory of anxiety and an attack was in my crib at 3 (1966) or 2 maybe, expecting mom to return home with my new sister, only to have her stillborn. That is my earliest vivid memory. (Shock). Try and imagine the family dynamics for the months that followed. (The atmosphere of the household) to which babies are receptive.

In a worst case scenario, I could have blamed myself. Remember, mommy was unhappy and crying, dad was repressing his emotions, but both of them not emotionally available for me. Now, a small child may blame himself, and that decision could ruin my later life, period. "I'm no good" " everything is always my fault" are just a few of the beliefs. Now, all of that coming from an undeveloped brain, you see. Without sufficient reason or intellect to come to such conclusions. But forced to, by some manner of emotional abandonment. Which was not their fault at all, see? They were indeed suffering in their own way.

Now I'm only using myself here as an example, to raise awareness that every moment matters. And how we often forget the actual causes of the trauma or stress, often saying "this happened out of the blue what is wrong with me?", well... Nothing pops in unwanted out of the blue you understand. There may be a gestation period you see, of many years. And so the cause is forgotten by the time the effect surfaces. To the psyche time does not matter.

At 51 say, I might suffer an attack when a trigger arises, maybe my friend has a new baby girl. Now I go into an attack, forgetting of course the event 40 some odd years ago with the stillborn. So i would rush myself to the ER not making the connection, believing my body has somehow rebelled against me for no reason, you see?

I hope this is clear for everyone reading it.

[jessed03]

I'm not suffering any more, as I've healed a lot. To some extent or another its been with me since I was 3. (Now 52). My earliest memory of anxiety and an attack was in my crib at 3 (1966) or 2 maybe, expecting mom to return home with my new sister, only to have her stillborn. That is my earliest vivid memory. (Shock). Try and imagine the family dynamics for the months that followed. (The atmosphere of the household) to which babies are receptive.

In a worst case scenario, I could have blamed myself. Remember, mommy was unhappy and crying, dad was repressing his emotions, but both of them not emotionally available for me. Now, a small child may blame himself, and that decision could ruin my later life, period. "I'm no good" " everything is always my fault" are just a few of the beliefs. Now, all of that coming from an undeveloped brain, you see. Without sufficient reason or intellect to come to such conclusions. But forced to, by some manner of emotional abandonment. Which was not their fault at all, see? They were indeed suffering in their own way.

Now I'm only using myself here as an example, to raise awareness that every moment matters. And how we often forget the actual causes of the trauma or stress, often saying "this happened out of the blue what is wrong with me?", well... Nothing pops in unwanted out of the blue you understand. There may be a gestation period you see, of many years. And so the cause is forgotten by the time the effect surfaces. To the psyche time does not matter.

At 51 say, I might suffer an attack when a trigger arises, maybe my friend has a new baby girl. Now I go into an attack, forgetting of course the event 40 some odd years ago with the stillborn. So i would rush myself to the ER not making the connection, believing my body has somehow rebelled against me for no reason, you see?

I hope this is clear for everyone reading it.

Very sad story.

Do you think that experience was somehow related to you becoming a medium later in your life?

[Im-Suffering]

Yes.

I wanted to show how over time we can forget the events and just feel the triggers.

Its like we have 2 psychological columns for example (trauma):

(No particular order, 1 can go with 2, 6 with 4 etc)

Column A. Column B

1) stillborn baby. - 1) guilt
2) john the bully. - 2) regret
3) divorce. - 3) shame
4) abusive mom. - 4) blame
5) grandmas death. - 5) criticism
6) car accident - 6) self conscious

Remember the game (or test) where you have to match the appropriate answer from column B to A? How all the lines can crisscross?

I will call this your emotional storehouse exam. Of course the average person has hundreds in each column if not thousands. After a while, given some time, all we are left with is column B on a daily basis in the current life. Or column A and B are so mixed up you wind up with a web looking diagram so confusing you bury all of A altogether. Even with 200 trips to the ER for anxiety often both columns remain elusive. Not realizing what you are feeling is related to your storehouse.

For 40+ years my father did not utter her name once. And he passed with that (ghost) pain intact (and so did mom, however she passed in tremendous physical pain as well, symbolic of all those repressed energies). Pain with seemingly no cause. Abstract pain in that the physical memory is no longer associated with the event that caused it. So we have what I call 'straggling pain' that just kind of hangs around. This type of pain is unresolvable in that no cause can be pinpointed, usually. And so long term brooding sets in followed quite naturally with depression, and so forth.

I want to say, I speak of them here, my parents, with love, honor, and respect for their journey.

It would be good for all readers to make their own 2 columns and see what they come up with. You can't heal what you can't see.

[Estelle2008]

I will try this with the columns :) thank you for taking the time to reply to this, you have helped me a lot & I really appreciate it :)