panic attack, AGAIN!

[acasey]

so this is gonna sounds so stupid, but here i go. so last night i decided i was gonna try to learn to mediatate, thinking it would help with my anxiety. well i couldn't relax enough and i knew i wasn't doing it right. so i got on the computer to look for techniques how to do it. i ran into this thread where this girl was saying how she was meditating and had an outer body experience. this thought for some reason sent me into a panic. i started thinking about what would of happened if this happened to me while i was trying to meditate, and what it means to have that experience, does that mean your dead, and so on and so on. anyway i had a full blow panic attack. somewhow i ended up getting to sleep. but when i woke up this morning i started thinking about it again, and now im freaking out again. i keep thinking that if i keep thinking about it then this will happen to me too. i know that sounds stupid , and i can't shake the feeling. any advice.......

[ImJace]

Out of body experience is not referring to dying. Rather it is a way to describe feeling like your mind and body have separated. I feel like this when I have really bad panic attacks. They make me feel disconnected from reality. It's certainly nothing to worry about. Our minds are very powerful and cause us to feel many things that are easily translated into feelings that cause panic. Just remember that it's nothing to worry about, and many people experience these feelings :)

[acasey]

well thank you for your reply. i know it's ridiculous, or how ever you spell that. lol. it's just like when my anxiety sets in, my mind just thinks of things i would never think of and then i freak out, had i not been in a state of anxiety these thoughts would had ment nothing to me. but my anxiety caused one little thought to spiral out of control. ugh, i really hate anxiety!

[generalmac]

That feeling is one of the most common feelings during panic or anxiety.. it is infact a defence mechanism the brain does to relieve panic and stress. When you are so anxious and tense the body tries to find ways to relieve that by slowing the process of thoughts to body.. which is why you feel so spacey.. but its nothing to be alarmed about, it goes away once you relax! its just hard to get through!
if you do not think about it when you try to meditate then it won't happen. this feeling of separation happens when you constantly think about it and check in with yourself to see if you feel it.. and then from that you make yourself anxious and hyper aware which in turn creates the separation feeling... haha!

Good luck with meditating, try to think of it as just a calming sense of BEing. not separating or analyzing or creating a new state of mind... just be :) it helps me to imagine all my thoughts ideas emotions and worries fly away into a box and I picture a big white sheet... there is nothing but me and I am just being! :):):)

hope this helps!

[acasey]

thank you for the reply. yeah i think you pretty much covered it here. i guess it's something i will def have to pratice, last night my mind just raced and raced, i guess i was trying to hard. then after reading that out of body stuff it just creeped me out so i couldn't even go back to it. i think it will do wonders for me once i get the hang of it. thats what my whole problem is, i have to many thoughts and i focus on them way to much, if it can help me to just let my thoughts go, well that would just be super :) thanks again for the tips

[acasey]

nope i sure haven't. i thought it had to be silent. thats a great ideal, i will def give it a try. rain is always relaxing to me, so that may just work :)

[PittsburghCounseling]

Keep in mind that for meditation to work well, you have to practice it for a while (a week or two). It took me a wile to get the diaphragmatic breathing right. Yoga is similar to meditation and that really works for me. There are tons of free yoga videos on youtube.

[acasey]

hmm yoga is a good idea. i actually have a yoga dvd i got forever ago and never watched. i may just give that a try. thanks for the tip :)