Severe Anxiety

Two hour panic attack. Well that was fun!

Funny thing is, it woulda been over in ten minutes if I hadn't taken over my breathing and sped it up unnecessarily which made things worse. no idea why it's so bad this week, I mean there's stress/pressure in my life but not above normal or anything. In fact life is slower now than it's been in six months!.

You are taking some steps to deal w/ this, I hope? You shouldn't have to put up with 2 hour panic attacks!

I'd forgotten I'd posted that about my shaking and puking day. And nobody answered, meh. It hasn't happened again; I have drastically cut down on the stressful aspects of my job.

it went away once I hung out with my roommates. it's harder to make this go away cuz unlike late last year, when the stimulus for my panic attacks was heightened levels of stress beyond what I could handle, right now it seems to be overwhelming disinterest and boredom.

no idea why it's so bad this week

i had a really severe panic attack yesterday as well w/o any of the usual triggers. maybe it just the time of year or something?

I always wonder how severe mine are. How would you define your severe panic attacks?
I once literally wanted to jump off a cliff we were climbing. Noone realized (as I was just walking) but I was very close to just jumping. usually mine are just *there*, a prolonged feeling.
The other weekend I was able to just shut it out. Consciously decide to ignore it. Very strange (for me anyway).

I dunno. I'd say mild is where I just feel like I can't breathe, maybe am trembling and sweating a bit, but I can take control of it and make myself breathe and get back to normal in a few minutes. It feels severe when I can't control my breathing and get stuck in hyperventilation, start crying and can't stop, throw up, have to flee the scene, or curl up in a ball, anything like that. But this is totally subjective.

i am scared that my troubles are going to drive away that people that i love

pssh, just focus on people you love, make sure you continue to express interest in what is troubling them, and accept help graciously. Great relationships aren't defined by how people react when everything's going great.

there is a clinical definition of a panic attack, in that it involves 3 or more of a list of symptoms/feelings. when i was working through my panic disorder (still am, but it used to be worse), understanding the difference between rapidly mounting anxiety and a panic attack helped me understand my own ability to stop rapidly mounting anxiety from becoming a panic attack. before, it was just "i had a mild panic attack" or "i had a severe panic attack," but afterward, i felt like i had some agency in the process, since i could actively intervene and STOP anxiety from spilling over into panic. made me feel less helpless, i'm saying.

How would you define your severe panic attacks?

length, number of symptoms, severity of symptoms e.g. stuff like De-realization (feelings of unreality) or depersonalization (being detached from oneself) and Sense of impending death

. no idea why it's so bad this week, I mean there's stress/pressure in my life but not above normal or anything. In fact life is slower now than it's been in six months!.

i found a couple of weeks ago, when i was at one my most happiest and contentest parts of my life, that for no apparent reason my anxiety started to rise. it was like my mind was all 'okay things are great, the only way from here now is DOwn..'

I have not suffered anxiety hardly at all since I last posted to this thread. I also stopped taking Ativan in that time. Strange, that.

in regards to severity, I oddly haven't really had a hyperventilation episode since my first ever panic attack, but the impending doom, dissociative feelings are all there. Inability to focus, overwhelming dark feelings and despair, and a feeling that nothing will ever be normal again. hand/leg twitching.

I also think I know where this latest episode is coming from. It's not random at all. I'm stressed about money I foolishly lost gambling (even though I have more than enough to pay bills for several months), and stressed about a project I'm doing at work. I thought that wasn't it because I was pretty relaxed when I left work yesterday but upon arriving at work this morning, within minutes of entering the building, I went from relaxed to stiff as a board, and within minutes of dialing into a meeting, I felt a burning sensation in my stomach and I realized work is the trigger right now.

so kind of a relief to know I can control it since i know what it is.

having some idea of what's contributing can make such a difference. even when i can't control a stressor, it helps to have an understanding of it.

surm, i could have written your post upthread. :( but i just started therapy, feeling hopeful about that.

Alas, my understanding of it hasn't helped one bit. :-(

awww :(. sorry to hear that.

me going out and driving and doing stuff today helped significantly. plus listening to Simply red's "Holding Back the years".

pssh, just focus on people you love, make sure you continue to express interest in what is troubling them, and accept help graciously. Great relationships aren't defined by how people react when everything's going great.

this is true, but I understand surm's comments. I think one of the big reasons for panic episodes really snowballing is the fear of having it play out in public in front of friends/loved ones. Not only is it embarrassing, but there is usually a fear that some of the people close to you won't understand, or that the issues will change you and cause you to lose those you care about. When they first surfaced, my episodes led to the dissolution of the greatest romantic relationship I've ever had-- partially my fault for not opening up to my partner enough, but also, it prevented me from being me, and drove a wedge between us.

As for the friends that react negatively to your problem as if it is a burden, yes, that does mean that person was a shitty friend to begin with, but that's often little consolation to someone who suffers from anxiety and likely has self-esteem issues too (not to put everyone under that umbrella, only going off my own experience).

anxiety died way down this weekend as I had a lot of fun w/ friends...but persistent feeling of non-motivation and flatness has been taking over me for a week. just no desire to do things. usually w/ me this only lasts a short while so it'll probably be gone soon, but I get positively Dexter Morgan*-ish when i'm like this

*in that I have no feelings, nto that I kill anybody

:( hate this.

<3

i'm trying to be kind and compassionate about my own anxiety like i am towards the anxiety of others and stop fighting it

estela, i think these were wise words you said upthread and i hope they are still helpful to you now. <3

<3 thank you both. i am not berating myself but i would like this to pass. it usually does. but this has been quite a severe attack for a couple of weeks. it's partly physical, i got food poisoning and then i lost my appetite and it still hasn't returned and now i've lost weight which i can't afford to do at all and which i find very stressful because it takes forever to put it back on again, and i feel weak and run down and nervous.

i know people don't like people moaning about their low weight but it's really horrible when you're shrinking away without wanting to. and people make rude accusatory remarks which make it worse. yesterday i went and bought some hospital grade sustagen and the pharmacist told me sternly six times that i was not to use it as a meal replacement, even though i had said i was looking for a supplement, and she was being very patronising and rude but i knew if i objected i would just sound like a defensive anorexic. she said over and over, you can't afford to lose any more weight, as her narrowed eyes moved from my clavicle down to my feet and back up again.

does anxiety ever make anybody incredibly and inexplicably angry? like is this a thing?

yes. sometimes at work I get mad that I get asked to do something even though A. the person asking me has every right to ask it and B. there's no reason for me to be mad about it. and it's usually tied to anxiety

oh estela that sounds really awful.

I know advice from afar is not much use but don't put pressure on yourself over the weight...just work at it, bit by bit and it will happen. The stress of all that & being sick, no wonder you're feeling all jangly.

(hugs)

does anxiety ever make anybody incredibly and inexplicably angry? like is this a thing?

during periods when im frequently suffering from panic attacks i tend to lose hold over my emotions really easily and my mood tends to being v changeable. so i will get really angry about really small things and then often quite sad

right now I wish I wasn't incredibly bored by everything. anxiety is passing but being replaced by feelings of 'blah'

^^^ www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=40&threadid=2409

oops

much love to you, anxious ilxors

The comorbid depression - the exhaustion, the blah-ness - the therapist I last saw said that these are due to your brain being worn out by the anxiety and totally to be expected. After a period of calm, your brain chemistry will generally sort itself out again, and this is why doing the breathing exercises etc. to catch and control your anxiety, and as much proactive relaxation as you can, are important moves.

I get the overemotional thing too. Something my ex utterly failed to understand. He always reacted with judgements and hostility, like I was doing it to get attention or punish him, and would accuse me of being childish and a drama queen, like I wouldn't control it if I could? Getting away from that has helped my anxiety a lot, nearly as much as stepping back from the career stuff. So um, apropos of nothing but if anyone is in a situation where people are judgy, tell those people to gtfo.

Surfing that actually helps...thanks. I mean I had a hunch, but it's reassuring to hear it from professionals/people who are experienced. two years in, still new to this.

and your second paragraph completely and utterly otm

i'm sorry, i'm not trying to self diagnose on ilx. there have been some rough things over the last couple of months where i have been more down than up and maybe never really up. but lately its like i've turned this corner. sometimes, for no particular reason i can fathom, i get so angry i can't speak. seething with rage and wondering why. i realise this is a different problem to what you are all having. i'm sorry. this isn't about panic attacks. but i'm so confused by myself. i don't know what you call any of this. i'm kindof sorely lacking any vocabulary for describing these things. its not really something i know about.

much love to you, anxious ilxors

― i love pinfold cricket (gbx),

Depression and anxiety actually wear down your resistance to being anxious and depressed! It's horrible.

yeah, cyclical. i had probably been like....11 months without a bout until November, when I got hit with temporary financial issues while I was helping my bro move in w/ me. I think Januarys/Februarys are just gonna be 'those kinda months' for the near future.

<3 to you estela and everyone dealing with anxiety
i'm okay these days - meditation, breathing, 'personal work'/perspective all keeping things cool, level, good even

Judith, anger is another way of reacting to stress, so maybe you just have - or have had - more stress lately than you've been able to deal with? Idk so much about it but i'd imagine a lot of the same tricks would work as for anxiety. Iirc (going back 20 years to psych degree) anger is more defensive so you might benefit from thinking about your stress factors, whereas an anxious person might need to stop thinking about them, but breathing and meditation are always good IMO.

Not trying to diagnose you either, mind. All the best with it anyhow.

for me, anger & anxiety/panic are all part of the same ball of wax: not having a properly developed method of dealing with strain. some inputs make me violently angry almost instantly, while others trigger anxiety or panic.

HI DERE

It's probably not the best idea to have some critical breakthroughs (some recent reading and bizarrely: a WTF episode gave me some significant insights) about myself while you're simultaneously trying to rollout a major software release at work. My last 24 hours have been:

1pm yesterday: (meeting with production manager) "OK so that project that we only told you about last week, well it'll need to run through your production management software. Oh, it went live on the public site yesterday.

2pm yesterday: (meeting with new CTO who started four weeks ago. He started when I was on vacation so I had no idea I was getting a new boss until I found out that he was placed in my office and I was kicked out into the cubical farm). How's the integration going? I know it's a surprise, but don't blame me as this project was going before I was hired on.

6pm yesterday: went home and passed out in bed. Too exhausted to even bother with dinner or changing clothes.

2am: work calls and wakes me up... "your site is down. come in and fix it immediately - the remote plants are calling" Investigate for a hour and discover that Covad was running a test on their network. No one informed me ahead of time so I could warn the night crew. Fall back asleep

10am this morning: woke up and discovered my hands were uncontrollably shaking. Balance off. I feel drunk and am still tired. GF is worried. I'm worried too. Took a nap during lunch today and the shaking subsided, but fucking hell...

Meanwhile, I'm trying to help get a brand-new CSR package going (dev. time on this has been months)

Somewhat better now, but this week can seriously to eat a bag of dicks.

estela, you aren't shrinking away to us. You are a giant of this place, and so immensely present for us with your pithiness and wisdom. Thank you.

Surfing turned out to be very otm. the 'blah' feelings largely subsided as of this morning following two straight days of relaxation :). still a little comedown left to go, but happy to see it come back.

oh geez, Elvis, I totally feel you on that...ridiculous work project is what triggered my recent bout. and the hand shaking, man...that's rough. really hoping you can cope and deal with it as best as possible in light of a tough situation. it's always hard when it's work and you have no real way of escaping it for more than a few days a week.

Estela, that must be awful. Some people are just arrogant and ignorant assholes. Sorry, rude to say, but very very true. I hope you can manage to gain weight.

for me, anger & anxiety/panic are all part of the same ball of wax: not having a properly developed method of dealing with strain.

I hate putting the blame on someone, but I do realize I did not learn the necessary coping methods. My mother was a very strong presence. She definitely gave me the feeling she was always better at dealing with things and I leaned on her as a result. She still "hides" things from me. But that isn't a good way to deal with things imo. Anyway, yeah, whatevs. Pills help. lol

I'm glad you're picking up a bit, Neanderthal.

Elvis, that is is horrible. I hope your job isn't going to stay that stressful for long.

is anxiety just another word for fear

i am scared

they're pretty close neighbors. my disorder started amidst excessive irrational fear of health complications that were loosely lated to what the problem eventually turned out to be (mono)