Panic Attacks

Aistan

So, they fucking suck, right? Hell yeah they do.

This would be my fourth time having one. I'm quite sure about that number since every single one I have had, including this one, has been the absolute worst moment of my life. Each single one worse than the others, no matter which way you compare them. I'm not sure that works out mathematically but there it is.

Every time it's accompanied by my heart beating faster, feeling pretty cold. So far it has always been in the middle of the night when it happens. My senses are all heightened, like I can smell myself stinking a lot more, and can taste a pretty bad taste in my mouth despite having brushed my teeth just a few hours previously. I also get a lot more honest during, like I think that anything and everything could potentially help the situation and make it stop, so I blurt out whatever is on my mind just in case that one revelation is the one that'll make my brain go back to normal. That's why this is being posted here right now, since it's still going on a little bit, though nowhere near as bad as it was to start with.

If I had a therapist or someone to talk to i'd be bringing this up with them, but because I don't have any health insurance I haven't been able to see one for a while. A friend offered to pay for a few sessions with one as a birthday gift but so far the three that I have contacted asking if I could set up an appointment have either been fully booked or have never contacted me back. So, you guys are it, for the time being.

Anyone have any tips for how to make them stop, if not how to make them never happen in the first place? So far i've always had my mother physically present for me to talk with while it winds down, but just in case that's not an option in future when it happens again any ideas for how to weather the storm alone would be helpful.

Thanks.

khain

Do you hyperventilate during it? If so a common way to stop one in progress is to regain normal measured breathing by taking long deep breaths using your stomach and then exhaling over about the same time period, about 5 seconds for each. It also has the added advantage that since you have to count it takes your mind off whatever is causing the panic attack.

JebusUD

Keep calling people. Giving up after 3 calls is pretty bad.

As for the symptoms, panic attacks are usually associated with hyperventilation. you need to control your breathing. Your feel like you can't breathe so you breathe harder and faster. This is wrong. Slow down your breathing. Count to 4. Four in. Hold for a moment. 4 out. Hold again. Repeat. (That's one one thousand two one thousand. Etc)

Theother thing is anxiety. Try and clear your mind. The best thing is to head this off before it becomes a problem. Feeling anxious, take a break, give yourself some you time.

And remember, it'll be alright.

Aistan

No hyperventilation, no. Just the increased heart rate. I usually slow my breathing regardless, just because that's something to focus on, but yeah.

Remembering that it'll be alright is an issue, though. Outside of when it is happening yes, I know it's going to end. While it is going on though, part of the feeling is that this is how it is going to be for the rest of my life. It's now happened and stopped happening four times, so logically yes, it is going to stop at some point. Whatever is going on to make my body have this reaction isn't logical though.

It's never any specific thing that causes it. Like I said it has always been in the middle of the night while i'm already asleep, waking me up from sleep.

davidsdurions

Where abouts do you live? Is there a university nearby? They usually have plenty of eager student therapists ready and willing to help. They've been trained in all the techniques to help your situation and are generally a free service to anyone willing to ask. Just have to take the initiative to call the college's switchboard and ask for student health and they should be able to get you to the correct receptionist to set up an appointment.

Clearly this advice only helps if you live not in the middle of nowhere, but it's just a thought.

Aistan

UW might, yeah. It's something to think about. I normally loathe having to go into Seattle for anything, but if that's an option then it might work.

I'll look into it after Christmas.

Blarghy

Anything common about the evenings before the nights the panic attacks occurred on? I have a friend who started getting panic attacks shortly after she started a new late-night waitress job. After a bit, she realized that every night she had a panic attack were nights that she decided to finish off the last pot of coffee herself before closing up. Your trigger might not be the same, but it could be something like that.

Aistan

Nothing that I haven't also done on days/evenings where I didn't have one, no. I initially thought it was due to getting cold while asleep, some weird body temperature regulation thing, because once it happened on a summer night where I left the windows open and wasn't asleep under the covers. Last night was almost the complete opposite of that situation though, so I've no idea again.

I also finished up Ghost Trick before I went to sleep, but again, playing a game before bed is a thing I do multiple times a week.

Honestly I don't even know if it is what would be diagnosed as a panic attack. That's just what i'm calling it because I can't think of whatever else it may be. It does truly seem to be random.

Neco

You say this happened four times now, have these ALL been recent?

What you are describing definitely sound like panic attacks for sure, but it is hard to say due to the nature of panic attacks to begin with. It sounds like you are already trying breathing exercises, so that is good at least.

I am not sure exactly where you live, but I am in Seattle, and there are definitely a LOT of therapists in this area who do sliding scale fees if you have no insurance. (I bring this up since it sounds like you live somewhat in the area). If necessary, a good therapist will be able to refer you to a (semi) affordable psychiatrist if your panic attacks become too severe. I would advise you to try looking into that if possible.

Aistan

They have not been recent, no. My memory is complete shit, but I would guess that they have all happened within the last decade or so. Prior to two nights ago the last one was maybe a year ago.

I wouldn't call them severe by any means just due to how infrequent they have been. If I get another in, like, the next month then yeah i'll start seriously looking around. Not that it will likely help, since I can never get a response from anyone about anything.

Really I was just mostly looking for methods to use while it is going on to make it stop. So far everything i've read can be summed up as "ride it out", though.

Neco

Ok, well roughly four in ten years is maybe not enough to worry about seeking professional help just yet (though it NEVER hurts to do so!). If there is an increase in frequency or intensity though, I would definitely recommend doing so.

Anyway, let me preface this by saying I am not a therapist or psychiatrist, so do not take any of my advice as any kind of professional advice.

You said you tried slowing down your breathing during the panic attacks. Have you tried doing controlled breathing? One of the more common ones I have learned is the counting to five trick. You want to sit or lie in whatever is most comfortable for you, slowly inhale and count to five. Hold it in for five seconds, and then slowly exhale for five. Keep repeating that. There are also kind of "guided meditation" techniques as well that work well with the breathing exercise. This will usually have someone else talking to you, and trying to guide your thoughts to various happy places. :P Obviously, this requires a second person, but I am sure something like this could be found online. I will look for some when I get home.

These are just off the top of my head, but to be honest, they don't really work for me personally. However, I also have pretty severe panic disorder, so I typically get panic attacks multiple times a day and suffer insomnia as a result. So I am on meds for them. But you might want to try this, particularly the guided meditation exercises, as you say that talking has helped you in the past.

Just a few things that I can think of right now that may help preventing panic attacks altogether, here are a few possible suggestions, generic as they may be:

Try to limit your caffeine intake. I don't know if you drink a lot of caffeine or not, but this can be a big one. For me personally, one cup of coffee is enough to make me physically start shaking.

Eat healthy and regularly. Skipping meals can also lead to anxiety, and if you are combining that with caffeine, well...

I don't know if you drink alcohol or not either, of course, but try to limit how much you drink. Too much alcohol can do more than just make you sick, you can be very prone to anxiety as it wears off.


...These are just a few things I can think of really quickly. If I think of more, I will post it.

EDIT: Here is one guided meditation I found on youtube. I have NO idea if this would actually relax anyone or not, but it is making me laugh, so I am going to post it. :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtCBFE90F18

There are actually a lot of videos of this type of thing on youtube if you want to search for them.

Aistan

I only mentioned the therapy thing as an explanation as to why I was coming here to ask rather than talking to a professional. I probably wouldn't see one just for these rare occurrences, no. I'd be seeing them for all the other problems I have. I can't even imagine what I would do if I had them more regularly. Multiple times a day must be awful, i'm sorry.

I do not drink alcohol, at all. Nor do I really drink anything with caffeine in it. Not for any particular objection to those substances, I just think alcohol and coffee taste like complete shit.

That all is pretty good information though, thank you. That video is pretty funny, but maybe it'd work during. Part of what goes on during it is I will try literally anything to make it stop. Having a broader pool of things to try and draw on can't do anything but help.

DisruptedCapitalist

In my case, I wasn't able to beat the panic attacks on my own, dispite my attempts at "mind over matter." The only thing that helped in the end were SSRI's (Paxil in my case.) It got so bad that I checked myself into a hospital once because I was convinced I was having an aortic aneurism. After receiving needless amounts of radiation from a CT scan and spending wayyy too much money to find out there was nothing wrong with me, my doctor strongly suggested I go on Paxil to manage the symptoms. It's been 3 years now and I haven't had them since.

Rderdall

I feel you man. About 3 months before my daughter was born I started waking up in the middle of the night with what I thought at the time, were heart attacks. I'd bolt awake freezing cold, yet extremely sweaty. My heart would feel like it was trying to pound out of my chest and I would get this weird innate desire to just get in my car and drive away. Then, just as I started to calm down, I'd have to hit the bathroom like it was nobody's business. The part that was super scary was that I had no clue what was happening to me, and I began to seriously worry that I had some chronic illness that was going to kill me before I could see my daughter grow up.

And then it happened once during the day. The night attacks were a walk in the park compared to what happens if you have one while you're awake. I was at work typing up some documents when all of a sudden, I got this really uncanny sense of de ja vu. I could have swore that I'd been here, typing all of this before, and then I could not remember what I was just working on. I was staring at the screen like I was reading someone else's work and I had no memory of the last 5 minutes of my life. Then my mind started racing, thinking of all of the terrible diseases that could cause this and how this just confirms that I was going to die before my daughter grew up. My heart began pounding, my chest got incredibly heavy, breathing was difficult, and I just got this urge to run away. And then, 30 mins later, straight to the bathroom.

I live in Canada, so I don't need to worry about medical costs, and ended up booking an appointment with a neurologist. He examined me, asked me a bunch of questions and checked my blood pressure. It was 155/110. (Crazy high). He told me to go see my family doctor (because there was nothing wrong with my brain), who scheduled me time with a therapist. The therapist was the best thing ever.

She straight up told me that there's nothing wrong with me, and helped me to recognize the symptoms of a panic attack as well as what I can do to mitigate their wrath when I have another one. Essentially, what is happening is your body is preparing itself for Fight or Flight in reaction to a threat. Your muscles tighten up to prepare for having to run for your life, or fight for it. Your heart starts racing to get blood flowing to your muscles so they can do their job. Your mind temporarily blanks itself so that the threat has your full and undivided attention so that you can make the best decisions possible on how to react. Oh, and the trips to the bathroom are the result of your digestive system flushing itself out to help prepare for reaction as well.

All of these things would happen to you if you stumbled upon a bear in the forest, or if you got mugged in a dark alley. The trouble with panic attacks is that your body begins reacting to threats that aren't real.

What she (the therapist) taught me was that all the stress in my life had been building up and this was my body's way of dealing with it. She told me to pick a word that helps me to focus and relax and repeat that word while taking long, deep breaths whenever I have an attack. I'm a Christian, and my mom had told me about the word Maranatha which means O Lord, Come!. So from the on, every time I had a panic attack, I'd just whisper Maranatha using long, slow breaths and trying to breath through my stomach.

I started having the attacks almost exactly 3 years ago. I had probably 6 to 8 attacks between December 2010 and March 2011. I had maybe 3 more the remainder of 2011. Since then, I've had 2. The last of which, was two weeks ago. Since the attacks, I've been very aware of my internal anxiety levels, and I have noticed that almost like clockwork, I get anxious every Sunday evening, right around supper time. My brain was already leaving the weekend and thinking about the upcoming work week, and it was unconsciously stressing me out.

I've found that whenever life gets me wound up (from a super busy work schedule, home renovations, career changes, family issues or money issues), I need to make time to unwind, or I start to get anxious again.

The biggest help I can provide are these tips:

1. You are not alone in this. There is nothing wrong with you. You are not heading for the mental ward because you suffer from panic attacks. WAY more people than you're probably aware of suffer from them, but unfortunately, mental health is one of those things that people are just too afraid to talk about still.
2. Talk to people. I'm sure posting this thread has began to help already. If you have friends or family that you trust to share this info with, call them when you feel anxious or if you feel an attack coming on. My wife has been my rock through all of this, and would always talk me through what was happening when I'd have an attack. Immensely helpful. If you begin talking to others about your panic attacks, chances are you'll find people will probably say "Oh man, I get those too" and you become a support system for them too.
3. Recognize what adds stress to your life and what you do to relieve stress. If the items in column A far outweigh those in B, you've got some work to do. My biggest stress relievers were sports, video games and laying in bed with my headphones in listening to audio books. And, I should add (now that she's almost 3) my daughter. Every time I look at her I see that my little issues in life mean nothing compared to how much I love her.
4. Eat healthy. I know that everyone preaches this, and it seems almost unrelated, but hear me out. I have a job that requires that I'm all over the city doing service work and my schedule is such that it's extremely easy to rely on fast food for lunch. I know that fast food is bad for me. I feel guilty eating fast food knowing that I could have just packed a sandwich if I'd woken up 10 minutes earlier. Every day, feeling guilty about eating fast food adds up, not to mention the fact that you're filling your body with crap. It's not major, but over time, I began to get anxious every time I'd pull into a drive through. Knowing that ONCE AGAIN, for the FOURTH DAY IN A ROW, I'm letting my body down by eating something that is only going to temporarily satisfy me and do nothing beneficial in the long run.

Sorry for the giant wall of text, but I hope that at least some of it helps. Cheers,

Aistan

It's interesting you mention deja vu, actually, because that happens to me a lot. Every week or so at least, though I can't think of any common time or activity they happen in. Now that I think about it it's a pretty similar experience only it doesn't last as long as what I was categorizing as a panic attack. Those last maybe a couple minutes, and while it's incredibly uncomfortable at the time it doesn't stick with me as much once it's over with. Interesting.

Brains are weird.

And all that does help, thank you.