How do I help a middle aged woman with dehibilitating fear?

Organichu

I live with a very close family friend. She's a woman in her early thirties and despite a battery of health issues (epilepsy, trouble walking, aphasia, etc.) she's a fairly normal and vital person. She is college educated, she has a robust sense of humor, and she loves to build and fix things with her hands.

However, she is incredibly, incredibly frightful about many things. Right now it's an hour past midnight and she's literally sobbing (talking to my aunt, her best friend), shaking, almost choking on her own tears, because it's Friday the 13th and she saw the trailer for some new scary movie. I'm not exaggerating when I say that she is in a state of extreme distress.

I know the obvious answer is to seek medical treatment- psychological in nature, I suppose. I am trying to convince her of this and I'm trying to figure out a way to get her to submit to an examination. However, in the mean time, I'm looking for anything I can do to help her through this. I don't joke about it (I think the chances of that working are far overshadowed by the chances of that backfiring), and other than just asking her how she feels and trying to assure her that everything will be ok, I don't know what I can do. I'm looking for methods of avoiding these sudden attacks of fear and methods of consoling her once she's suffering.

Please no flippant remarks about telling her to grow up... this isn't telling a fat kid that he looks like crap to convince him to put down cupcakes. I'm pretty sure she's emotionally stunted in a very profound sense and I'm looking for strategies of minimizing that retardation of her emotional welfare.

Trowizilla

That sounds a bit like a panic attack. That's not emotional stunting, that's a mental disorder, and she needs medication and therapy.

In the meantime, having someone around may help. Try to distract her if you can before she gets into the full swing of one; having something besides the fear to focus on can help prevent the vicious cycle of fear + adrenaline rush = more fear.

Regina Fong

You need to do whatever you can to get her treatment. Acute anxiety is treatable, and she will thank you once she sees how medication mutes or even eliminates her symptoms.

OremLK

My wife was having some anxiety problems (milder than this, but they were still messing with her life). She went and saw a doctor, who prescribed her prozac, and it helped her immensely.

So I guess, yeah, convince her to see a doctor.

CooterTKE

yep sounds like panic attacks. I was getting them leading up to my wedding plus had other family issues going on at the time so I went to the dr. They put me on meds for about 3 months and I have yet to have another one. I used to get them in college as well about once a term.

nexuscrawler

The good news is anti-anxiety medications aren't too dangerous and the newer ones like Xanax are very effective and not usually addictive.

Tell her to talk to a doctor.

vonPoonBurGer

Organichu wrote: »

However, she is incredibly, incredibly frightful about many things. Right now it's an hour past midnight and she's literally sobbing (talking to my aunt, her best friend), shaking, almost choking on her own tears, because it's Friday the 13th and she saw the trailer for some new scary movie. I'm not exaggerating when I say that she is in a state of extreme distress.

From a psychology perspective, this sounds like it could be either a specific phobia, perhaps an irrational fear of Fridays that fall on the 13th, or maybe it's a more generalized anxiety disorder / panic attack syndrome. It could also be some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder, if the current anxiety is linked with a past event or situation. Standard disclaimer: I'm not a licensed clinical psychologist, I just have a BA in Psych, which means I am absolutely not qualified to make any sort of diagnosis in person, let alone via second-hand descriptions on teh intarwebs. I'd strongly recommend that she speak to a clinical psychologist if possible, because I do know that cognitive-behavioral therapy has a strong track record for treating this spectrum of disorders. Don't discount the value of anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication, as might be prescribed; CBT plus appropriate pharmaceuticals tends to be more effective than either one by itself.

Sarcastro

My advice is probably a bit off the beaten path, but I've found it to be effective.

I have always found highly emotional people to be very cyclical in nature. They have good days and bad days, days when they are normal, days when everything seems to get to them.

Get a calender, and start marking these out. A scale from one to four. After about a month, you'll see a pattern start to form, and you'll know pretty much in advance when you're headed into a difficult time. On these days, make sure she is in a comfortable place, with everything sort of handled. Less things to get upset about if there's not a whole lot of rushing around going on.

Establishing the behavior pattern makes it easier to see that it's not life going up and down, its the person- and as such, they can control it. Putting the control back into the hands of the person can be very empowering, and gives them some tools to work when dealing with their personal issues. Over time, they can 'tune in' to the successes of thier good days, and use those same strategies when dealing with the bad ones.

Specularity

Until she can avoid the panic attacks altogether (probably through counseling) you could teach her some tricks like the ones I learned:

1) diaphragmatic breathing: breathe deeply with the lower parts of the abdomen then with the upper then let it all out slowly. This helped me focus on something other than what was making me panic and the hit of oxygen was nice (stress can make you breathe more shallowly)

2) pulse-guided breathing: I know, more breathing. Find your pulse and count how many beats in one breath. The goal is to lower the number of beats per breath (because your pulse is slowing), though hopefully your breathing will be slowing down as well.

If she can get herself together enough (or if you can do this), making a nice cup of herbal tea or kava tea (no caffeine, please!) and running a bath with a simple, feel-good book can help a lot (though this is more of something to do as a relaxation phase after the worst is over). Are there any particular things that consistently freak her out? My grandma finally just had to stop driving because she would have a panic attack, usually at the worst times (middle of an intersection). Not a great alternative, but better than feeling as awful as she did; if your friend has anything that you could easily avoid, it might be a good thing to help her do that.

Good luck!

tallgeeze

Has she been like this for the majority of her life? Maybe the medications she is/was taking for her various conditions has brought this on. Medications affect people differently, so maybe they are causing paranoia(or something like it) which can lead to fear.

Phoenix-D

tallgeeze wrote: »

Has she been like this for the majority of her life? Maybe the medications she is/was taking for her various conditions has brought this on. Medications affect people differently, so maybe they are causing paranoia(or something like it) which can lead to fear.

Definitely something to check out. Most medications that do this have labels on them that indicate it.

Be careful about how you do it if you go this route, though. You really, really don't want to accidentally introduce the idea that her medications are dangerous and have her go into panic attacks when its time to take them..

meeker

Two things:

Early thirties is middle-aged?! Shit, I still feel young...


She needs a therapist immediately. Well, obviously not immediately. Let her finish her panic attack, have a cup of coffee and tell her in a supportive manner that you are concerned for her health and happiness. Appeal to her logical side when she is in a calm state. Don't try to commit her in the middle of an episode.