Originally Posted by
dagit
First, as i said earlier, i wanted to know what i was frightened of. What was causing the panic to grow. For me the main reason was thinking that i was having a heart attack. With that thought constantly in my head, it was almost impossible to stop the fear rising. as every time i started to panic, id worry about a heart attack, which in turn would make me worry more, and so the fear of heart attack grew - and on it went.
What else was i scared of? Why for example did i dislike going out of the house without my wife? Can she cure heart attacks? Obviously not. So what did i fear when leaving the house? It was a combination of looking an idiot and passing out in front of everyone and embarrassing myself. This was particularly relevant when collecting my son from school. All the parents and I standing in the playground waiting for the kids to come out. What if i passed out on the playground? What would everyone say? What would they think? How would my son get home if i passed out and died of a heart attack right there at school? To be honest, i had no chance of avoiding a panic attack with thoughts like that going around in my head.
I knew i had to stand up and try to confront and resolve at the very least, these two key concerns.
Whilst I’m sure what i did is not conventional in anyway. I can honestly tell you, it worked for me…
Firstly, the heart attack…… When a panic came on and i could feel it rising and rising. id stop. collect my thoughts as much as i could and shout at the top of my voice…”Go on then, bloody die!! Get on with it you tart!”….and then id wait…nothing…..so id wait some more…..nothing…….then, perhaps more calmly (as the panic effect was waring off a bit), id say to myself..”Not dead yet then? Heart attack didn’t come this time ‘eh”?…….and before i had a chance to argue with myself about the fact that i was lucky this time and the next one would definitely get me (i know….i know…arguing with myself…) I’d call myself an ass and and think about something else.
Every time I did this, i achieved exactly the same result….I DIDNT DIE OF A HEART ATTACK.
So, you can imagine. the fear, it slowly started to go away…As the fear left, so did the panics…I had nothing else to panic about…If i ever did get a panic start, id think…”It’s a panic. You’ve had hundreds of them before, you will not have a heart attack, it will go in a moment”…sometimes, id actually tell it to “Bugger off!”
I did exactly the same thing, rather embarrassingly i have to tell you, with the second problem.. What if i pass out at the school and look a complete wally in front of all the parents and the children. What if my son comes out form school and sees his Dad looking almost dead on the floor, dribbling to himself?
I had to force myself into the situation to try to cure it (told you it was a little unconventional). I went to the school gates, armed with the fact that if i did pass out, at the very least, i wasn’t going to die of a heart attack because of it. The moment i reached the playground i could feel the panic starting to rise. Im SURE it was because i was EXPECTING it too, i was kind of willing it to happen without even knowing it…how nuts is that! Anyways, it started. So what did i do? In the middle of the playground and right in front of the very people that i didn’t want to make myself look stupid in front of. I shouted, yet shouted…”Well pass out then!”……guess what… I didn’t pass out.
Everyone looked at me..”who the heck is this nutter near our children”…I’m sure they were saying to each other….. I don’t know exactly if that was what they were thinking because no one spoke to me. In fact, they seemed to move further away from me…. in hindsight, i could have shouted into a mile phone or something to make it look like i was actually talking to someone else..and not myself….but hey…..
It had worked…The panic left me that day (the embarrassment stayed for a few more school visits i have to tell you). Now for a short time after that episode, whenever i reached the school gate, I could sense the panic trying to start again, but now i absolutely knew that it was my brain expecting it to happen and that i was actually causing it by my own suggestion. So it was much easier to cope with. I simply acknowledged what was happening and thought to myself “Not today”.
So thats my story, and whilst its a very personal thing to write about. I sincerely hope that if it helps just one person overcome this terrible condition, then it was worth it.
You can beat this. you can triumph, even though you probably feel that you can’t. I thought that same. I thought id always have this. But who wants a life like that? A life of constant worry what if i have an attack and look an arse. Why one earth would you do that to yourself. Im not going to tell you that you are not going to worry about, you will. I can tell you that one day, you will stop that too. but for now. every time the thought or fear comes along. Recognise it for what it actually is….fear. nothing else. Everything else is your own thoughts making it worse. Look at it this way. You’re all alone, at night, in the a middle of a violent part of town. Out of nowhere a group of men suddenly come towards you. You instantly start to worry.. Are they going to hurt me? Are they going to mug me? and you start to look for an escape route. Can i run? Can I hide anywhere? Naturally, you will start to sweat, your hands will shake, your chest will tighten and your heart will beat so loud that you will think the men can hear it……sound familiar???…
How about, if, at that very moment. Someone puts on a light. The men are just happy chatting away to themselves and walk straight past you without so much as looking at you and within a few moments, are out of sight. You put yourself through all that panic, all that worry, all that anxiety for what? absolutely nothing. What started out as your survival instinct making sure that you were ready to escape should the worst happen. pumping your heart to get the blood flow to your legs to make them ready to run. Breathing heavily to ensure that your lungs are at capacity incase you need to run like hell or scream the place down….all of these thing are natural occurrences designed to help you in and anyone else in a situation like that….
The problem is, that people who suffer with panic attacks and anxiety, do this to themselves every singe day. Some multiple times…. Wouldn’t it be great if you could “Turn the light on” when you started to notice a panic happening? Wouldn’t it be great if you could see the panic start and at that moment, take the fear out of it so that it would simply go away.
Well you can. You just have to try. You just have to trust yourself.
Find out what you are afraid of.. When a panic starts, what keeps it there? For me it was dying of a heart attack. Whilst the panic would start on its own, and i had no control to stop that. What i DID control was that i knew i wasn’t going to have a heart attack. Simple because i knew that, I took away the fear…the result….The panic started ,then fear left me, the panic calmed down, it went.
Now it did take a while to get used to it and it did take courage to stand by it. BUT, in the end, i mastered it.
Im 42 years old now and i haven’t had a panic attack for 15 years. Sure i think about it now and then, in actual fact i was concerned that writing this might cause them to start again…It hasn’t.
I wrote this to help those who have panic attacks and anxiety issues in a clear way. Ive seen plenty of books on the subject, mostly written by some Doctor, who will give best practice advice. But rarely do people that have actually suffered from them talk about them. I believe that there is some stigma, some undisclosed weakness that people who suffer from them think about themselves. Some how it makes you weak or suggested that you have mental health issues and if anyone knew you’d be locked up and put into the asylum immediately chased down by a group of pitch fork welding yokel folk from the village.
Its not like that at all. Its just another issue to test your strength and mental resolve and to get you ready for whatever else life throws at you.
I sincerely wish you well and I want you to look forward to the very day that you finally no longer have to deal with anxiety.