Scared...x

[xgemma06x]

Hi everyone,

I have suffered from anxiety problems for many years,

this week i have been worried i have swine flu, and i cant breathe properly and i have a constant fear that i am going to die.

Please help, it turns out i have tonsillitis and im scared im going to die in my sleep. please help how can i stop my self from thinking im going to die and how can i get my breathing back to normal?x

[Charlene]

Hi xgemma06x

I take it you've been to the doc's by now and you've been informed that you have tonsillitus? You're going to get through this, you will. You've always recovered from every other cold and virus before. So have faith in your body's ability to overcome tonsillitus. It knows what to do whether you're paying attention to it or not. It's going to heal itself and before you know it your throat will feel fine.

As for your breathing, try to exhale all the way....whoooooooooooooo. Now, take a deep inhaled breath, through your nose and watch your torso. Did your chest and shoulders move up or did your stomach, right at your belly button, push out? What you want is to push out your belly button, try not to breathe through your chest. The proper way to breathe is through your belly. Slowwww your breathing. Close your eyes. Take your time. Slowly inhale. Slowly exhale, all the way. Try again. Nice and slow, see.

Your thoughts can make your breathing feel like you're not getting enough air in, because you're breathing too shallow and this is what's called hyperventillation. When feeling stressed, under pressure or anxious, we sensitive anxiety prone people tend to not breathe properly. Just take your time, slow your breathing and try to focus on something that's not scary to you. Think about something you like....just try to divert your attention for a good minute and you''ll see that you do have control over your breathing. :)

[dtrotter]

this week i have been worried i have swine flu, and i cant breathe properly and i have a constant fear that i am going to die.


Let's face it, if you are going to die, you are already dead. There so many wonderful things around the world for you to check out, why spend those precious time and waste it on thinking that you are going to die.

You life is short. Face it, SO DARN SHORT. Only 35,000 days max, if you can reach 90. If you still scare of dying, i have a solution for you. Try and go for bungee jumping. Have some one pushes you over the cliff.

Then, it should help you get over your fear of dead.

[Charlene]

dtrotter,

Please have some compassion for your fellow posters. Your brutal comment "have someone push you over the cliff" - - it's a little too harsh.

[Constantinos]

Hi,

I am 35 years old and i have been suffering from panic attacks, anxiety, for the last 10 years, though if i can recall correctly i had panic attacks since the age of 10 - 11 without knowing what i was going through. In any case, the last 3,5 years i do psychotherapy and it helped me a lot. I can not say that i am 100% confident for myself but saw a lot of improvement. In addition to that i read an article lateley that helped me lot and i am quoting this below. Believe me it is going to help you.

Panic Attacks are completely harmless. Although they look really bad, they feel like your mind is out of control, you are feeling like running and hiding from yourself, and you are afraid that you are going to die, still, completely harmless. The secret and method to overcome your problem is that "Without fear of them they cannot exist". I will quote below a part of a text that helped me a lot. Please read it and it will help you.

"In quick overview, to end a panic attack - an overwhelming feeling of fear - you have to pass through the wall of apprehension to the other side of your fear (no, this isn't some weird faith healing or new age crap). This works! I wish I could take you there by the hand myself but YOU have to do it. The trust in it working is something that goes against all aspects of our sense of survival and takes some time to really believe in. Yet IF you are experiencing a fear/panic attack I found the only way to beat it is to try to let the feeling be as worse as it wants to be. Let it be as bad as you can make it. And, because it truly IS a self-created fear, once you have made the desire to travel to the "OTHER side" of fear by letting it do its positively worse to you then ...there is NOTHING...nothing there. No fear. The other side is NO fear at all but a big smile. The moment of realization is a wonderful experience. For me, it was THEN that I realized that these "out of control" feelings were finished!

Stress is the major instigator for panic feelings. Perhaps you had realized a certain level of stress that had exceeded your ability to release it. I say, "had" because probably the event that triggered these panic attacks is over with. There are many relaxation methods for lowering stress and all of them are beneficial. Understanding your stress and learning to manage it will always help you throughout your life. However, the panic attacks were probably the culmination of that initial stress event. I don't care WHAT or HOW you arrived at these feelings - you have them and you don't like them and you want to get rid of them! Right now it's not important that your mother was mean or your father ignored you or if you are a perfectionist, or obsessive, etc. I am not trivializing your situation. Panic attacks feed off of themselves. They are a common disorder that can trouble even the most intelligent or the strongest person. They are an entire entity all in themselves. These feelings seem so powerful and they scare you. But your mind is NOT going bananas, being lost or slipping away into insanity despite your fear or your past. You are only doing what seems natural...fighting them in trying to get control over them. But you are trying to STOP FEAR! Fear is not under your conscious control. It is controlled instinctively in reaction to WHAT YOU BELIEVE! And right now you believe that you are THREATENED! Instead, you are going to accept it and let it become you and, thereby, stop the overreaction. Read on!

Probably you have suspected a myriad of potential illnesses and feared some significant health problem that your physician has not found or explained away as "nerves" or some other reference to your nervous system. If not, please visit your doctor and remove these questions! He/she may even prescribe anti-anxiety drugs that may help you to deal with your panic feelings if you need immediate results. Some medical professionals like to describe panic as a chemical imbalance that might respond favorably to medication. I tried several of them. I preferred to not use them because I didn't like the side-affects and stipulations for use. But for some sufferers medication is very helpful. However, in the absence of a real medical problem, you are, at present, afraid of the panic attacks themselves or simply put, AFRAID OF BEING AFRAID!

I have to be blunt! There is no THING causing this (unless there is a specifically identified illness, situation or event like a wild animal attacking you). It's not a place or situation or thought...not that couch or that car or that room or that strange feeling in your eyes, stomach, head, arms, or that crowded place! Not a brain tumor, not cancer of anything, no breakdown of any nerves! Only you! To think otherwise..to think that a certain room or situation CAUSES you to have the attacks...is false. Sure, I understand that when you are in a place or situation where you have felt these attacks before that you are aware of being there and fear THAT place or situation. BUT IT'S YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM being on a high state of alert. You must understand that it's coming from you! You also are exaggerating those strange feelings that you are having in your body into MAJOR significance. You are boxing in your life more and more by HIDING from these! It's NOT these places or situations or feelings, and I know that's hard to accept. But this is where you change your attitude from HIDING to "giving up"! From superstition to a rational approach!

Once you apply the attitude, "I will let this feeling of fear be as worse as it wants to be, I don't care anymore", and let it happen, let yourself go towards it and begin to believe it (the prime objective), then the truth starts to comes out. You become a little less afraid. IT TAKES PRACTICE. (Research in treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder has demonstrated that persistent practice of skills such as these can result in measurable changes in brain function without medication.) As you begin to "pooh-pooh" these fear feelings and establish the attitude of non-caring more and more you get closer to the rationale about them. Eventually you will be ready for the time when you truly try to make it worse while having a panic attack - and THAT is a key moment!

[col73]

Hiya

The worst thing anyone can do is worry about nothing, if you think omg im gonna get swine flu, that will then trigger off a panic attack, then u will be really ill, which will make u more concious over getting panic attacks in the future, it will then be a circle of emotion, think about something bad, panic attack happens and so on, in reality we are our worst enemy!! if we wasnt paranoid over the slightest thing we would be fine.

[dimspace]

if i had a pound for every time this year i thought i had swine flu i would be a millionaire...

ive stopped watching the news...

but we shoulod all remember, less people have died of swine flu than die of normal flu every year... normal healthy active adults dont die from it..

[sherlockevans01]

Wow! Great post. I was really lookng for this kind of post. Im interested finding more posts about this topic. Anyone here can suggest where should I go? Thanks a lot.
Sherlock Evans