Midnight Sky
09-18-2009, 05:30 AM
1. Okay, so I’m scared now. It’s normal. There is something that pushed my inner alarm button, adrenaline is shooting through my veins, and if I listen to those feelings instead of my positive thoughts, the adrenaline will increase, trapping me within the vicious cycle and resulting in a full-blown panic attack. This is a normal response of my body to something it thinks it needs to protect me from.
2. Things don’t have to be perfect. I really wanted everything to work out of course, but in the end, nothing will ever go completely as planned. You will at some point get a flu at an inconvenient time, you will miss a train or a plane, and there will be people who will dislike you and treat you badly. Shit happens. Now I accept that and I’ll deal with it.
3. I can keep talking to myself in a soothing, positive way no matter what. You’re not dependent on other people going with you or on certain things you ‘must have’ with you in order to keep saying helpful sentences to yourself.
4. I’ll look at the goal, not at the obstacle. If you keep looking at the one thing you’re trying to avoid (like thinking about a panic attack for example) you will most likely crash into it. If you keep looking at your goal, eventually, you will reach it – whatever you’re doing.
5. Either you die or life goes on. I realize that some dark humor is required for this one to work. Eventually, all situations boil down to these two options: Either you die (in which case a panic attack will not save you, so don’t bother) or you survive and get on with it after whatever just happened (panic or no panic).
6. At the end of the day, eventually, I’ll die anyway. So whether I’m having a panic attack now or not really doesn’t have any influence on the dead certain outcome. So I might as well just live until that day comes. Unless I’m prepared to kill myself, but then again, since every fear originates from the fear of death, I could also just face it, because if I die anyway, I might as well die trying.
2. Things don’t have to be perfect. I really wanted everything to work out of course, but in the end, nothing will ever go completely as planned. You will at some point get a flu at an inconvenient time, you will miss a train or a plane, and there will be people who will dislike you and treat you badly. Shit happens. Now I accept that and I’ll deal with it.
3. I can keep talking to myself in a soothing, positive way no matter what. You’re not dependent on other people going with you or on certain things you ‘must have’ with you in order to keep saying helpful sentences to yourself.
4. I’ll look at the goal, not at the obstacle. If you keep looking at the one thing you’re trying to avoid (like thinking about a panic attack for example) you will most likely crash into it. If you keep looking at your goal, eventually, you will reach it – whatever you’re doing.
5. Either you die or life goes on. I realize that some dark humor is required for this one to work. Eventually, all situations boil down to these two options: Either you die (in which case a panic attack will not save you, so don’t bother) or you survive and get on with it after whatever just happened (panic or no panic).
6. At the end of the day, eventually, I’ll die anyway. So whether I’m having a panic attack now or not really doesn’t have any influence on the dead certain outcome. So I might as well just live until that day comes. Unless I’m prepared to kill myself, but then again, since every fear originates from the fear of death, I could also just face it, because if I die anyway, I might as well die trying.