Well folks this is something new...enjoy and let know what you think
Anthony
Monday 14 December 2009
Friday 20 November 2009
This is Panic 15 - Robert Enke
This one folks, will be a different format to TIP and also there'll not be a massive amount of humour involved. I am sorry for that. I try and make these entertaining to read but the subject for this one hit a bit close to home for me for a variety of reasons. However, as ever, I'm going to talk about it because that's the best thing to do.
Many of you who know me personally know that I speak German fluently and follow German football. After a couple of problematic years away from Germany, Robert Enke returned to the German Bundesliga at the time I was just moving there.
Enke had started his career in his home town of Jena before moving to Mönchengladbach and then overseas. After an unspectacular career in Europe during which he played little and was bottled by his own fans while playing for Fenerbahce, Enke moved back to Germany to join the club he would later captain, Hannover 96.
The details of Enke's last few years and death are tragic to say the least. He became depressed and had regular panic attacks, crippled by the fear that he would be overtaken by a younger, better player. However football remained his release but he never felt like he could be open about his illness.
In 2006, his daughter died aged 2 from a heart infection which is said to have really affected Enke and plunged him back into a downward turn.
8 months before his death, Enke and his wife adopted a little girl but the German international was so worried that he believed if people found out he was depressed, they'd take the child away.
We all know how Enke died and I will not re-hash that again but it spoke to the real issue and one of the reasons why I started this blog in the first place.
I sat with my laptop and watched Enke's memorial service in front of 45,000 people inside Hannover's AWD Arena and thousands more outside. These people were friends, family, colleagues, supporters and admirers of this one man and yet he felt that he couldn't be open about what was wrong.
The stigma around anxiety and depression can cripple us as much as anything else and we can spiral downwards into an emotional black hole. Believe me, it's happened to me and I know it's happened to at least one other person reading this. We can change attitudes towards anxiety conditions and other mental health problems and we can hold out our hand and help each other through this.
I beg of you, if you are feeling really low and depressed about any condition you have, please talk to your GP. There are also great groups like Depression Alliance who can help and if you really need to talk to someone right away, call the Samaritans who also do excellent work.
As a fan of German football, Robert Enke to me was Mr Hannover 96. He was the man I saw leading Germany into the World Cup and beyond and was one player who I respected greatly. Even as a hardend Hansa Rostock fan, I will admit to having wished we got to see him play more.
Please folks, never ever think you are alone with this. Together we will all make it through.
For Robert Enke; that which we do not see on this Earth will live forever in the stars. Schlaf gut.
Many of you who know me personally know that I speak German fluently and follow German football. After a couple of problematic years away from Germany, Robert Enke returned to the German Bundesliga at the time I was just moving there.
Enke had started his career in his home town of Jena before moving to Mönchengladbach and then overseas. After an unspectacular career in Europe during which he played little and was bottled by his own fans while playing for Fenerbahce, Enke moved back to Germany to join the club he would later captain, Hannover 96.
The details of Enke's last few years and death are tragic to say the least. He became depressed and had regular panic attacks, crippled by the fear that he would be overtaken by a younger, better player. However football remained his release but he never felt like he could be open about his illness.
In 2006, his daughter died aged 2 from a heart infection which is said to have really affected Enke and plunged him back into a downward turn.
8 months before his death, Enke and his wife adopted a little girl but the German international was so worried that he believed if people found out he was depressed, they'd take the child away.
We all know how Enke died and I will not re-hash that again but it spoke to the real issue and one of the reasons why I started this blog in the first place.
I sat with my laptop and watched Enke's memorial service in front of 45,000 people inside Hannover's AWD Arena and thousands more outside. These people were friends, family, colleagues, supporters and admirers of this one man and yet he felt that he couldn't be open about what was wrong.
The stigma around anxiety and depression can cripple us as much as anything else and we can spiral downwards into an emotional black hole. Believe me, it's happened to me and I know it's happened to at least one other person reading this. We can change attitudes towards anxiety conditions and other mental health problems and we can hold out our hand and help each other through this.
I beg of you, if you are feeling really low and depressed about any condition you have, please talk to your GP. There are also great groups like Depression Alliance who can help and if you really need to talk to someone right away, call the Samaritans who also do excellent work.
As a fan of German football, Robert Enke to me was Mr Hannover 96. He was the man I saw leading Germany into the World Cup and beyond and was one player who I respected greatly. Even as a hardend Hansa Rostock fan, I will admit to having wished we got to see him play more.
Please folks, never ever think you are alone with this. Together we will all make it through.
For Robert Enke; that which we do not see on this Earth will live forever in the stars. Schlaf gut.
Monday 9 November 2009
This is Panic 14 - Finances
Hi folks, after a bit of a brief break due to the hectic nature of life, we're back and this one's been brewing for a bit.
This is another attempt by me to be slightly topical. You can't escape it on the telly or in newspapers or articles online, this financial recesion is everywhere and we keep hearing about it...constantly. With money getting tighter and things like loans and the like becoming harder to come by it can start stressing us out and that can't be good.
Think tank The Young Foundation published a report in January of this year called Receding Tide: Understanding unmet needs in a harsher economic climate. The conclusions coming out of it were that the recession will have an impact on the mental health of the nation. The report comes to the conclusions that as finances get tighter, we start trying more and more to satisfy our material needs and this means that our psychological needs suffer as a result.
It's actually something a lot of us tend to do. I certainly do; we get so wrapped up in all the other little things in life like paying the bills and doing this and that with friends and keeping up with the Jones' that we forget that we need to look after ourselves. I have done this at work from time. I try to make sure everything is done at work and run myself into the ground and make myself ill both physically and mentally.
That report points out that our system is geared much more towards the material than the psychological and I'm inclined to agree. Without getting to much into my own personal political philosophy, there never seems to be much of a focus on how or why we do things but simply that we do them and do them at the expense of everything else, including ourselves it seems.
I know I am lucky. I got laid off about a year ago, was out of work for 2 months and then got a job paying a significant amount more than what I was earning while I was employed but I still have a lot of empathy and sympathy for those out of work. It is really worrying as we sit there thinking of how far we can make things stretch or last that little bit longer. Coming up to Christmas as well and all the expectations on people regarding presents and decorations and the like.
Last year I managed to do ok. My money I got from my old work was enough for me to live and be able to do ok at Christmas along with the fact I could go shopping whenever I wanted to but what I was spending on Christmas presents could not be spent on other things.
I made a really concious choice when I had no real income that I was going to use the money wisely. I cut out anything that could be cut out. I cut back on foods that I could do without and planned more clearly what I was going to make for meals during the week so I could plan expenditure.
Budgeting if money is tight is time consuming but it is a really sensible idea. If you are worrying about stuff then you need to do what you can to minimise that worry. If you know how much you have then it makes it easier to plan it all out. Sure it doesn't improve the cash flow or get more money in but if you know what to work with, it's one less thing to worry about.
All in all the finances story is one that acts as a good similie for us in general. We need to ignore the bits and pieces around the outside and focus on the middle, ourselves that little bit more. There is no shame in putting ourselves first at all if we're low on funds or if we're not well.
In these trying times we need to orangise our priorities and making sure we are well and can live properly is one of them. To some, money makes the world go round but decent mental health cannot be bought.
This is another attempt by me to be slightly topical. You can't escape it on the telly or in newspapers or articles online, this financial recesion is everywhere and we keep hearing about it...constantly. With money getting tighter and things like loans and the like becoming harder to come by it can start stressing us out and that can't be good.
Think tank The Young Foundation published a report in January of this year called Receding Tide: Understanding unmet needs in a harsher economic climate. The conclusions coming out of it were that the recession will have an impact on the mental health of the nation. The report comes to the conclusions that as finances get tighter, we start trying more and more to satisfy our material needs and this means that our psychological needs suffer as a result.
It's actually something a lot of us tend to do. I certainly do; we get so wrapped up in all the other little things in life like paying the bills and doing this and that with friends and keeping up with the Jones' that we forget that we need to look after ourselves. I have done this at work from time. I try to make sure everything is done at work and run myself into the ground and make myself ill both physically and mentally.
That report points out that our system is geared much more towards the material than the psychological and I'm inclined to agree. Without getting to much into my own personal political philosophy, there never seems to be much of a focus on how or why we do things but simply that we do them and do them at the expense of everything else, including ourselves it seems.
I know I am lucky. I got laid off about a year ago, was out of work for 2 months and then got a job paying a significant amount more than what I was earning while I was employed but I still have a lot of empathy and sympathy for those out of work. It is really worrying as we sit there thinking of how far we can make things stretch or last that little bit longer. Coming up to Christmas as well and all the expectations on people regarding presents and decorations and the like.
Last year I managed to do ok. My money I got from my old work was enough for me to live and be able to do ok at Christmas along with the fact I could go shopping whenever I wanted to but what I was spending on Christmas presents could not be spent on other things.
I made a really concious choice when I had no real income that I was going to use the money wisely. I cut out anything that could be cut out. I cut back on foods that I could do without and planned more clearly what I was going to make for meals during the week so I could plan expenditure.
Budgeting if money is tight is time consuming but it is a really sensible idea. If you are worrying about stuff then you need to do what you can to minimise that worry. If you know how much you have then it makes it easier to plan it all out. Sure it doesn't improve the cash flow or get more money in but if you know what to work with, it's one less thing to worry about.
All in all the finances story is one that acts as a good similie for us in general. We need to ignore the bits and pieces around the outside and focus on the middle, ourselves that little bit more. There is no shame in putting ourselves first at all if we're low on funds or if we're not well.
In these trying times we need to orangise our priorities and making sure we are well and can live properly is one of them. To some, money makes the world go round but decent mental health cannot be bought.
Wednesday 28 October 2009
This is Panic 13.1 - Therapy in the news
Well folks this is a bit of an update from the last post. Whilst on BBC News earlier I stumbled across this@
Link to "'Talk therapy for the depressed"
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (aka NICE) have come out saying that antidepressants shouldn't be used to treat depression in adults with chronic health problems but rather they should be directed towards structured physical acitvity and Cognitive Behavoiral Therapy for help.
MIND, the mental health focussed charity have responded saying that shifting too much of a focus towards CBT and computerised CBT and away from counselling could be seen as an excuse by some health providers to cut funding to other talk based therapies.
Reading the advice from NICE, I can see where they come from to an extent but it seems very much like they are trying to pick one therapy that "works" best and then tar all people with the same brush somewhat.
Depression (and anxiety as they are linked) relating to chronic health problems or even chronic health anxiety is very much a different thing for different people and to push one form of talk therapy over other kinds seems irresponsible to me. It's not scientific to assume that all people will benefit from one kind of therapy to a mental illness.
Take the drugs from the statin family, used for blood pressure conditions. There are a variety of different statins used for different people and you tailor to the patient. Essentially what this advice from NICE seems to be is totally disregarding that individual patients and thrust one kind of therapy upon people which doesn't sit well with me.
I'd hope that NICE will listen to constructive criticisms from the mental health professional community and be prepared to alter that advice in the future.
As ever, this is just the ramblings of myself so please do read the article and the advice from NICE at their website; click here for that.
Link to "'Talk therapy for the depressed"
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (aka NICE) have come out saying that antidepressants shouldn't be used to treat depression in adults with chronic health problems but rather they should be directed towards structured physical acitvity and Cognitive Behavoiral Therapy for help.
MIND, the mental health focussed charity have responded saying that shifting too much of a focus towards CBT and computerised CBT and away from counselling could be seen as an excuse by some health providers to cut funding to other talk based therapies.
Reading the advice from NICE, I can see where they come from to an extent but it seems very much like they are trying to pick one therapy that "works" best and then tar all people with the same brush somewhat.
Depression (and anxiety as they are linked) relating to chronic health problems or even chronic health anxiety is very much a different thing for different people and to push one form of talk therapy over other kinds seems irresponsible to me. It's not scientific to assume that all people will benefit from one kind of therapy to a mental illness.
Take the drugs from the statin family, used for blood pressure conditions. There are a variety of different statins used for different people and you tailor to the patient. Essentially what this advice from NICE seems to be is totally disregarding that individual patients and thrust one kind of therapy upon people which doesn't sit well with me.
I'd hope that NICE will listen to constructive criticisms from the mental health professional community and be prepared to alter that advice in the future.
As ever, this is just the ramblings of myself so please do read the article and the advice from NICE at their website; click here for that.
Saturday 24 October 2009
Panic Buys - Understanding Anxiety and Panic Attacks
Title: Understanding Anxiety and Panic Attacks
Author: Dr Kwame McKenzie
Publisher: Family Doctor Books in association with the British Medical Association
Click here for the publisher's website
Click here for the book on Amazon.co.uk
The back of this book proudly trumpets that over 4 million books have been sold in the Family Doctor series which makes sense if they follow a similar pattern to this one.
I bought this book a while ago and it's very good if you deal with your anxiety condition and life's problems in a similar way to myself which is to bone up on a subject, read around it and use the appropriate tactics gleamed from what you've read.
The book's format has the various chapters broken up into sections making it easy to stop and start without feeling like you particularly need to race to the end of the chapters which is useful as you don't want to rush through reading anything to better inform you about your condition.
As the book covers a range of subjects within the broader field of anxiety, the book is also useful in that to get to information you may find useful you don't have to read the whole book. The break up of the chapters helps the reader to jump about as needed to and the information is never presented in massively long lumps of text. That said, if like me you are keen on reading around the subject then knowing about other kinds of anxiety disorders can be interesting reading. If that's not your bag and you want it for additional help rather than for interesting reading, the book itself normally retails for about £3-£5 so it's usefulness is not negated by the cost
The book's author Dr Kwame McKenzie is a lecturer in psychiatry at University College London and the book obviously benefits from his expertise. The issue of course with some books written by clinicians and aimed at the lay person is that the way information is presented in certain parts can come across as a bit patronising but the book doesn't bamboozle the reader with overly technical terms and any longer terms are explained.
As well as explaining the conditions and drugs used, the book also covers the different kinds of treatments and provides a chapter on self help techniques that could be useful.
Don't be mistaken, this book is a basic overview of everything rather than an in depth study. It will give you bare bones help and good signposting towards other treatments and ideas that may be useful. I liken it to an appointment with your GP; decent and to the point but short and a bit overly clinical and sterile in parts.
If you're wanting something to hold your hand a bit or help you through a hard time or provide you with effective techniques for dealing with attacks, this is not the book for you. If your problem is a new thing and you want something to read before delving deeper or you want to give something to others to help them understand a bit better than this book will certainly do the job.
With such a low price it's certainly a handy book to have around but it's a bit like taking an aspirin for a broken arm. It'll help short term but it certainly won't cure anything.
Author: Dr Kwame McKenzie
Publisher: Family Doctor Books in association with the British Medical Association
Click here for the publisher's website
Click here for the book on Amazon.co.uk
The back of this book proudly trumpets that over 4 million books have been sold in the Family Doctor series which makes sense if they follow a similar pattern to this one.
I bought this book a while ago and it's very good if you deal with your anxiety condition and life's problems in a similar way to myself which is to bone up on a subject, read around it and use the appropriate tactics gleamed from what you've read.
The book's format has the various chapters broken up into sections making it easy to stop and start without feeling like you particularly need to race to the end of the chapters which is useful as you don't want to rush through reading anything to better inform you about your condition.
As the book covers a range of subjects within the broader field of anxiety, the book is also useful in that to get to information you may find useful you don't have to read the whole book. The break up of the chapters helps the reader to jump about as needed to and the information is never presented in massively long lumps of text. That said, if like me you are keen on reading around the subject then knowing about other kinds of anxiety disorders can be interesting reading. If that's not your bag and you want it for additional help rather than for interesting reading, the book itself normally retails for about £3-£5 so it's usefulness is not negated by the cost
The book's author Dr Kwame McKenzie is a lecturer in psychiatry at University College London and the book obviously benefits from his expertise. The issue of course with some books written by clinicians and aimed at the lay person is that the way information is presented in certain parts can come across as a bit patronising but the book doesn't bamboozle the reader with overly technical terms and any longer terms are explained.
As well as explaining the conditions and drugs used, the book also covers the different kinds of treatments and provides a chapter on self help techniques that could be useful.
Don't be mistaken, this book is a basic overview of everything rather than an in depth study. It will give you bare bones help and good signposting towards other treatments and ideas that may be useful. I liken it to an appointment with your GP; decent and to the point but short and a bit overly clinical and sterile in parts.
If you're wanting something to hold your hand a bit or help you through a hard time or provide you with effective techniques for dealing with attacks, this is not the book for you. If your problem is a new thing and you want something to read before delving deeper or you want to give something to others to help them understand a bit better than this book will certainly do the job.
With such a low price it's certainly a handy book to have around but it's a bit like taking an aspirin for a broken arm. It'll help short term but it certainly won't cure anything.
Friday 16 October 2009
This is Panic 13 – Therapy
Well folks, it’s been a long time coming this one so I wanted to share my experiences that I’ve had with therapy. I should say now that I am throwing counselling and therapy under the same title here, basically any sort of talking related bits to help you get well as it were.
Apparently having therapy sessions regularly appears on those lists of “things to do before you die” which always struck me as odd. Before I’d really thought about it, therapy was a thing people did when they were ill. Now I’ve grown older (though not necessarily wiser) I realise that things like therapy can be very helpful and reflecting on who you are and why you do certain things with an objective observer can be very useful.
I had a smallish bout of therapy back in early 2004. Looking back I was physically not that bad but for a messy break up with someone had left my head a bit of a mess and it spiralled a bit from there to the point where I wasn’t really sure what was going on. I was having infrequent panic attacks as well which obviously wasn’t helping matters.
I got put in touch with a guy called Arthur through the church I go to. Arthur had training as a counsellor which sounded ok to me, he said he didn’t want any money from me because I was a student at the time so thought “well I feel bloody miserable and it’s costing me nothing but my time so why not?”
Arthur was actually a really nice old boy (he was nearly 80 when we met) and was also very good at what he did. Now as it was through church, yes there was a Christian element to what was going on which I know is not everybody’s bag. That said whilst we prayed at the end of every session and he occasionally pulled the odd part of the bible out to explain a point, he knew what to say. It wasn’t “your ill feelings are the work of the devil, repent sinner!” sort of thing, but carefully considered thoughtful words from a guy who shared a belief system with me.
That was a while ago now and since then my anxiety issues have come more to the fore than minor bouts of depression. I should also point out these recent visits to therapy were not through my GP so the waiting times were drastically cut down.
I actually asked to be referred to someone through occupational health at work. Work had been really stressful and I’d suffered burnout after trying to do everything for everyone. When I came back to work, I sat down with my boss and asked if there was scope to see someone. They don’t want me having time off ill, I don’t want me having time off ill and I wanted to take more of a grip on my problems. As I’ve said before, I owe it to myself and my fiancé to be as healthy as I can be. It’s right that I make that effort and so my boss referred me on.
In any one year through my work you can have 7 sessions total. It seems like an odd number but I was told it was one introduction session to get to know a bit about me and my issues and then 6 actual sessions as it were. I was actually pretty grateful for the fact I got someone relatively close to home, round the corner from my other half in fact so I could go and see her afterwards.
A session was about 50 minutes, give or take a bit, which is a good amount of time to delve into stuff and develop ideas without being too long and straining your brain too much. It sounds kind of cheesy but it was always on comfy chairs in nice well lit, pastel coloured rooms, I guess to try and be as relaxing as possible. The one thing that I noticed, probably because I never sit still for more than a few minutes at a time is that the room was set up so I was nearest the door but could never see a clock in my line of sight. To be fair that’s a sensible tactic. The client feels less time pressure if they are not looking at the clock.
We covered a lot of ground actually in a few sessions. A lot of my issues (and this is not going to shock anyone who has even the most basic knowledge of psychology at all) stem from my adolescence and growing up in the home environment that I had. We dug back into some of the decisions made by me and for me, what I liked about them and what I didn’t like and had a look at some of the things that may have triggered me having anxiety issues and panic attacks.
It was actually interesting to sit there and have someone help me do nothing but reflect on my and why I do things for a sustained period of time like that. The whole process threw up a lot of issues surrounding being assertive when I need to be and why I am so passionate about things and get so wound up so easily. We also spent a lot of time looking at how I could perhaps relax better and get rid of the megaton of nervous energy that I seem to have so often. We talked about me doing things to “let things out” like singing more and how the physical act of breathing out or singing could be useful for me as I hold stuff in.
It’s odd to think when you first try some of these techniques that you’ll be using later but I realise that I am using some of them, particularly some of the assertive linguistic techniques. I did learn a decent relaxation technique that I was told to try at work. The only shame of course is I never get 15 minutes to myself to try it.
My series of sessions have ended now and I need to decide where to go from here. I either go back into the primary care route and talk to my GP again and possibly go down the route of the improved access to psychological therapies, or look for other free therapies or pay.
I think the best thing for me to do right now is ironically what I’ve been doing; sit, contemplate and think about where to go from here. I don’t need to instantly rush back into another kind of therapy or constantly need to analyse who I am or why I do things.
It was a useful process though and for us anxiety sufferers, I actually recommend it. I talked in part 9 about wondering why an individual attack happened and this is just an extension of that. This is me looking at the bigger picture of why I have all my panic attacks and it can only do good I feel.
Now…time to chill out on that couch.
Apparently having therapy sessions regularly appears on those lists of “things to do before you die” which always struck me as odd. Before I’d really thought about it, therapy was a thing people did when they were ill. Now I’ve grown older (though not necessarily wiser) I realise that things like therapy can be very helpful and reflecting on who you are and why you do certain things with an objective observer can be very useful.
I had a smallish bout of therapy back in early 2004. Looking back I was physically not that bad but for a messy break up with someone had left my head a bit of a mess and it spiralled a bit from there to the point where I wasn’t really sure what was going on. I was having infrequent panic attacks as well which obviously wasn’t helping matters.
I got put in touch with a guy called Arthur through the church I go to. Arthur had training as a counsellor which sounded ok to me, he said he didn’t want any money from me because I was a student at the time so thought “well I feel bloody miserable and it’s costing me nothing but my time so why not?”
Arthur was actually a really nice old boy (he was nearly 80 when we met) and was also very good at what he did. Now as it was through church, yes there was a Christian element to what was going on which I know is not everybody’s bag. That said whilst we prayed at the end of every session and he occasionally pulled the odd part of the bible out to explain a point, he knew what to say. It wasn’t “your ill feelings are the work of the devil, repent sinner!” sort of thing, but carefully considered thoughtful words from a guy who shared a belief system with me.
That was a while ago now and since then my anxiety issues have come more to the fore than minor bouts of depression. I should also point out these recent visits to therapy were not through my GP so the waiting times were drastically cut down.
I actually asked to be referred to someone through occupational health at work. Work had been really stressful and I’d suffered burnout after trying to do everything for everyone. When I came back to work, I sat down with my boss and asked if there was scope to see someone. They don’t want me having time off ill, I don’t want me having time off ill and I wanted to take more of a grip on my problems. As I’ve said before, I owe it to myself and my fiancé to be as healthy as I can be. It’s right that I make that effort and so my boss referred me on.
In any one year through my work you can have 7 sessions total. It seems like an odd number but I was told it was one introduction session to get to know a bit about me and my issues and then 6 actual sessions as it were. I was actually pretty grateful for the fact I got someone relatively close to home, round the corner from my other half in fact so I could go and see her afterwards.
A session was about 50 minutes, give or take a bit, which is a good amount of time to delve into stuff and develop ideas without being too long and straining your brain too much. It sounds kind of cheesy but it was always on comfy chairs in nice well lit, pastel coloured rooms, I guess to try and be as relaxing as possible. The one thing that I noticed, probably because I never sit still for more than a few minutes at a time is that the room was set up so I was nearest the door but could never see a clock in my line of sight. To be fair that’s a sensible tactic. The client feels less time pressure if they are not looking at the clock.
We covered a lot of ground actually in a few sessions. A lot of my issues (and this is not going to shock anyone who has even the most basic knowledge of psychology at all) stem from my adolescence and growing up in the home environment that I had. We dug back into some of the decisions made by me and for me, what I liked about them and what I didn’t like and had a look at some of the things that may have triggered me having anxiety issues and panic attacks.
It was actually interesting to sit there and have someone help me do nothing but reflect on my and why I do things for a sustained period of time like that. The whole process threw up a lot of issues surrounding being assertive when I need to be and why I am so passionate about things and get so wound up so easily. We also spent a lot of time looking at how I could perhaps relax better and get rid of the megaton of nervous energy that I seem to have so often. We talked about me doing things to “let things out” like singing more and how the physical act of breathing out or singing could be useful for me as I hold stuff in.
It’s odd to think when you first try some of these techniques that you’ll be using later but I realise that I am using some of them, particularly some of the assertive linguistic techniques. I did learn a decent relaxation technique that I was told to try at work. The only shame of course is I never get 15 minutes to myself to try it.
My series of sessions have ended now and I need to decide where to go from here. I either go back into the primary care route and talk to my GP again and possibly go down the route of the improved access to psychological therapies, or look for other free therapies or pay.
I think the best thing for me to do right now is ironically what I’ve been doing; sit, contemplate and think about where to go from here. I don’t need to instantly rush back into another kind of therapy or constantly need to analyse who I am or why I do things.
It was a useful process though and for us anxiety sufferers, I actually recommend it. I talked in part 9 about wondering why an individual attack happened and this is just an extension of that. This is me looking at the bigger picture of why I have all my panic attacks and it can only do good I feel.
Now…time to chill out on that couch.
Wednesday 7 October 2009
Make it write - This is Panic in Anxious Times
As I've mentioned before, This is Panic was recently featured in the magazine Anxious Times, the quarterly magazine of national charity Anxiety UK.
A bit of backstory; I emailed Anxiety UK asking to be put on their blogroll if they had one, they asked me to write about the blog. It covers a bit of ground that's been covered before here but it serves as a good introduction to me and the idea of the blog. I hope you enjoy it
Originally published in Anxious Times issue 71, September 2009
A bit of backstory; I emailed Anxiety UK asking to be put on their blogroll if they had one, they asked me to write about the blog. It covers a bit of ground that's been covered before here but it serves as a good introduction to me and the idea of the blog. I hope you enjoy it
Originally published in Anxious Times issue 71, September 2009
I always start with the gory details.
I’m 25 and had my first panic attack at 17. I was in the car with my dad and my sister and I saw my face in the rear view mirror of my dad’s Vauxhall Astra and thought I was about to die. The pins and needles caused by my hyperventilating were so strong that my thumbs locked into my palms and my eyes clamped half shut. Since then I have had up times and down times. During my time living in
We all find ways to cope with our anxiety conditions. Some people go for runs, some play video games, I write.
Writing was a hobby that I fell into at 15 and, now that I have this chance to examine it, it’s one of the few true solaces that I had growing up and one I still have today. No matter what I do or how hectic the day has been, there is always time to jot something down. My great uncle wrote poems in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, my fiancé writes on TV for a popular mens magazine, I do This is Panic.
This is Panic started out as a post on Facebook. One Friday in May of this year, I was off work due to a viral illness and stress and the anxiety that plagues me was fully in control of me. Out of nowhere I found myself writing a really long rambling mess as to how I was feeling and what it was that affected me. I actually felt a lot better for having done it, like I’d screamed every ounce of air from my lungs. I’d always told people that I had panic attacks but I’d never gone into so much detail.
I got a response from a variety of people in a variety of ways, many of them reminding me that whilst anxiety affects me, it doesn’t define who I am. I wanted to answer people whilst continuing to talk about the problems I was having. Work was stressing me out so I talked about work, my work ethic, how I don’t know when to stop and the effect that it all has on my anxiety. It helped me examine everything in a different light.
One thing people talk about with the internet is the chance of anonymity. You can divulge as much or as little about yourself as you want. You can even make it all up should you so choose. Not me, I wanted people to see what this was, who I was and how I felt so brutal honesty isn’t an editorial choice I make as a writer but a necessity. Honesty is the best way of being able to accept that you have a problem and helps others to understand it. It was from there that more ideas came for posts and more and more response came. I decided that I didn’t want it to just be me writing but This is Panic to be a sounding board for sufferers or friends of sufferers or professionals with a bit of handy advice to impart whilst at the same time continuing on with my writing/anything else I decide to do with the blog (I am experimenting with the idea of video posts).
I don’t expect This is Panic to be a cure all for anyone, least of all me but I know that the blog has helped me take on an objective and rational examination of myself and my condition. It’s not a replacement for professional help (and hopefully by the time this is published I will have started mine) but it’s me taking as much of a personal hand in my own care as I can.
Anything I write for This is Panic is all my own garbled thoughts and I use examples from my own life to illustrate my point. Somethings won’t work for everyone just like they don’t all work for me. If they do or don’t, I will say. I’m not trying to play at doctor or therapist but as a lot of us are in the same boat, I just want people to know that we’re not crazy and there’s tuff we can do to minimize the impact this has on us.
If asked what my plans are for the site, I’d say that I want to keep writing it and think of new ways to try and give a real person’s perspective on panic and anxiety whilst hopefully being able to publish articles from other people who want to do the same thing.
The dream is people reading it and feeling they’re not alone. For a very long time I felt very isolated with this problem. I was even once told by a doctor to “pull myself together”. I was lucky that people took the time to understand what was with me and by nature I am so social that I went looking for help. Some people are not so lucky or so social. My biggest hope is that This is Panic makes one person feel less alone and more like a human being. If that happens, it’ll be worth it.
When I am writing a blog post I try and sign off in a semi humorous way that is appropriate to what I’ve been talking about. Now whilst I inject humour into my writing, this subject isn’t a joke to me. I do not know when and if my anxiety problems will stop as I can’t see the future. I still gave minor episodes and the odd full blown attack where I am convinced that I am about to die. I am a massive dentalphobe and don’t like water on my face as I nearly drowned twice at age 4. I am scared that my children will be susceptible to this because I do.
I just want to react in the best way I can with every skill I have and I want to help end some of the preconceptions surrounding something that a lot of British people suffer from. I may not make it better but I want to make it right.
Monday 14 September 2009
This is Panic 12 – Hospitals and Doctors and Needles, oh my!
The above title came to me as more of a joke than anything else. The writing process for this blog is always a bit of a mish mash of ideas mixed in with trying to provide some sort of commentary on regular events. Having written last time out about having a dental phobia, initially I was a bit wary of going for another health topic so soon but once this title came to me, I knew it was worth trying to have a chat about all this.
Unless you have been living in a black hole (insert Bracknell/Guildford/name of your local hovel here) you won’t have missed the insane array of news on the virus called H1N1, known to us in the Joe Bloggs Brigade as Swine Flu. There’s more and more talk at the moment about the upcoming vaccine that is being produced, how it’s going to be administered, who is first in the cue and will it even work. My initial worry wasn’t any of that; it was more “uh oh, needles”.
I’ve been nervy of needles for ages, as long as I can remember. Going through school every so often you needed those all too crucial immunisations against those variety of diseases like polio and the ever dreaded BCG injection for tuberculosis and I would always go a bit funny looking at needles. I always gone for the tried and tested classic of not looking at it but of course you still know what’s coming and thus I still get really angsty just waiting for the needle to go in. I suppose the issue for me is, and this sounds so daft but it’s true, I don’t like pain. Some people don’t mind it but I hate pain and injections have always hurt me and unnerved me so my natural reaction when faced with one is to panic. Now I know full well that if I go to certain places I may need them and I will suck it up and do it but I will be warning the nurse/healthcare assistant that I am likely to get very agitated.
It got me into thinking about doctors and hospital appointments in general because sometimes they can be really scary places to go. It creates a bit of a crazy cycle where you’re ill and need to be seen but you’re scared of going to the appointment so you don’t get seen so you get more ill meaning the need to be seen increases.
Aside from what opponents of healthcare reform in the USA say, the NHS is there to help us when we are ill and that doesn’t just mean plastering your leg if you break it but with stuff like anxiety, panic, OCD and anything else you care to name.
Doctors, nurses and other healthcare practitioners are incredibly well trained professionals who want to do the best they can to help you with whatever’s wrong. We have a right to be scared but we need to relay that fear to whoever we’re dealing with. Psychic powers don’t come with a medical diploma so if you’re worried about something, tell your GP. If you’re worried about seeing your GP, tell someone and they may go with you.
I was a lot more worried about seeing the doctor when I was little than now. Little me thought that you only went to the doctor if something was really seriously wrong with you. This isn’t the case now of course and the only thing that bothers me at the moment is just having to wait. My GP’s good but he barely ever runs to time bless his cotton socks. Now we’re not always so lucky with our GPs I know but you are within your rights at your surgery to ask to see another doctor or to register elsewhere as long as you’re in the catchment area of that surgery. Don’t shop around though just because you don’t like what you hear! Doctors have a duty to tell you their opinion of the best treatment for you, in my opinion that’s what a good doctor will always do. I’ve disagreed with my doctor before but we reached a compromise on a few things.
There is of course that one step up from the GPs surgery that makes people feel even worse, the hospital.
It’s easy to associate hospitals with bad things. The media seems to leap on any story surrounding a hospital doing something wrong or a management failure of some description and it does little to calm the fears of people let alone people suffering from something like an anxiety condition!
Having worked in a hospital (and not out of choice, due to building works) for about 4 months, I feel somewhat desensitised to it all, apart from the room where they take blood for blood tests which never ceases to creep me out. Hospitals are just a place where people come to get better to me now but I know that I didn’t always feel that way and loads of us don’t.
You go to hospitals for the big things that need sorting. You go to Halfords if you need to buy a bulb for the headlight but you wouldn’t go to them for a new front axel would you? If you’re seeing a consultant then they will have spent years and years training for this. 5 years to be a doctor, then 2-3 years doing general bits then however many years it is to specialise in something, these people will know their stuff. They can’t make the procedures easier to bare physically but they can be honest and let you know the details you need to know and setting your mind at ease as to what might be coming is half the battle.
Being scared is alright, it’s perfectly natural and I’m not saying you should feel no fear because that’s just impossible. If fear however is stopping you from getting seen and more importantly getting better then something needs to be done about it. Whether it be dentist or doctor, we can be sure that the people we’re seeing are the best for the job. If you help them, they will help you.
The title of this blog is obviously a play off of the line in the ever popular film, Wizard of Oz and to an extent some of our fears about things over the last two posts are akin to when Dorothy finally meets The Wizard. What lies behind the curtain is unexpected and scary until we look at what it is we’re faced with which is ultimately less than we thought it was. The truth, sometimes, may be hard to take but it allows us to move on. For me, my anxiety is that curtain. It obscures the things that I know to be true and distorts reality and makes me afraid of things.
We have a bit of the cowardly lion in us all but for those of you who don’t remember the story, he had the courage all along. We all do. It’s that courage that will help us get well as much as anything else.
Unless you have been living in a black hole (insert Bracknell/Guildford/name of your local hovel here) you won’t have missed the insane array of news on the virus called H1N1, known to us in the Joe Bloggs Brigade as Swine Flu. There’s more and more talk at the moment about the upcoming vaccine that is being produced, how it’s going to be administered, who is first in the cue and will it even work. My initial worry wasn’t any of that; it was more “uh oh, needles”.
I’ve been nervy of needles for ages, as long as I can remember. Going through school every so often you needed those all too crucial immunisations against those variety of diseases like polio and the ever dreaded BCG injection for tuberculosis and I would always go a bit funny looking at needles. I always gone for the tried and tested classic of not looking at it but of course you still know what’s coming and thus I still get really angsty just waiting for the needle to go in. I suppose the issue for me is, and this sounds so daft but it’s true, I don’t like pain. Some people don’t mind it but I hate pain and injections have always hurt me and unnerved me so my natural reaction when faced with one is to panic. Now I know full well that if I go to certain places I may need them and I will suck it up and do it but I will be warning the nurse/healthcare assistant that I am likely to get very agitated.
It got me into thinking about doctors and hospital appointments in general because sometimes they can be really scary places to go. It creates a bit of a crazy cycle where you’re ill and need to be seen but you’re scared of going to the appointment so you don’t get seen so you get more ill meaning the need to be seen increases.
Aside from what opponents of healthcare reform in the USA say, the NHS is there to help us when we are ill and that doesn’t just mean plastering your leg if you break it but with stuff like anxiety, panic, OCD and anything else you care to name.
Doctors, nurses and other healthcare practitioners are incredibly well trained professionals who want to do the best they can to help you with whatever’s wrong. We have a right to be scared but we need to relay that fear to whoever we’re dealing with. Psychic powers don’t come with a medical diploma so if you’re worried about something, tell your GP. If you’re worried about seeing your GP, tell someone and they may go with you.
I was a lot more worried about seeing the doctor when I was little than now. Little me thought that you only went to the doctor if something was really seriously wrong with you. This isn’t the case now of course and the only thing that bothers me at the moment is just having to wait. My GP’s good but he barely ever runs to time bless his cotton socks. Now we’re not always so lucky with our GPs I know but you are within your rights at your surgery to ask to see another doctor or to register elsewhere as long as you’re in the catchment area of that surgery. Don’t shop around though just because you don’t like what you hear! Doctors have a duty to tell you their opinion of the best treatment for you, in my opinion that’s what a good doctor will always do. I’ve disagreed with my doctor before but we reached a compromise on a few things.
There is of course that one step up from the GPs surgery that makes people feel even worse, the hospital.
It’s easy to associate hospitals with bad things. The media seems to leap on any story surrounding a hospital doing something wrong or a management failure of some description and it does little to calm the fears of people let alone people suffering from something like an anxiety condition!
Having worked in a hospital (and not out of choice, due to building works) for about 4 months, I feel somewhat desensitised to it all, apart from the room where they take blood for blood tests which never ceases to creep me out. Hospitals are just a place where people come to get better to me now but I know that I didn’t always feel that way and loads of us don’t.
You go to hospitals for the big things that need sorting. You go to Halfords if you need to buy a bulb for the headlight but you wouldn’t go to them for a new front axel would you? If you’re seeing a consultant then they will have spent years and years training for this. 5 years to be a doctor, then 2-3 years doing general bits then however many years it is to specialise in something, these people will know their stuff. They can’t make the procedures easier to bare physically but they can be honest and let you know the details you need to know and setting your mind at ease as to what might be coming is half the battle.
Being scared is alright, it’s perfectly natural and I’m not saying you should feel no fear because that’s just impossible. If fear however is stopping you from getting seen and more importantly getting better then something needs to be done about it. Whether it be dentist or doctor, we can be sure that the people we’re seeing are the best for the job. If you help them, they will help you.
The title of this blog is obviously a play off of the line in the ever popular film, Wizard of Oz and to an extent some of our fears about things over the last two posts are akin to when Dorothy finally meets The Wizard. What lies behind the curtain is unexpected and scary until we look at what it is we’re faced with which is ultimately less than we thought it was. The truth, sometimes, may be hard to take but it allows us to move on. For me, my anxiety is that curtain. It obscures the things that I know to be true and distorts reality and makes me afraid of things.
We have a bit of the cowardly lion in us all but for those of you who don’t remember the story, he had the courage all along. We all do. It’s that courage that will help us get well as much as anything else.
Wednesday 2 September 2009
This is Panic 11 - The Dentist
Now this one is not going to be fun to talk about because this is something that almost gives me attacks just thinking about it but it bares talking about.
According to Dentalphobia.co.uk somewhere in the region of 7-13% of the Western world suffers from some form of a fear of the dentist which means if you apply those numbers to here, somewhere in the region of 4.5 - 7.9 million people in the UK are afraid of the dentist and I am one of those people.
As ever with TIP, we revert back to a story from my past. My fear of the dentist stems from when I was 4 years old. I was with my mum getting a check up as you do when you're little. Being a small boy I didn't want to do as I was told. After a while the dentist decided she was fed up of me not playing along so she grabbed me by the nose and forced my jaw open so she could look inside. I have been a wreck ever since.
I wouldn't pull out any teeth growing up so the dentist needed to do it for me, normally by doping me sideways up to the eyeballs and doing a load in one go. I had too many teeth in my jaw so I had a couple of goes on that one. At one point I had a tooth get infected and collapse so I needed a root canal but no way in blue hell were they doing that while I was awake. It was decided they would knock me out, do the root canal AND pull out 7 remaining baby teeth. It was originally meant to be done over 2 appointments but someone "luckily" cancelled and they did it in one job lot. I had a panic as they put that plastic thing in your hand so they can attach syringes. The only upside was I got to have corned beef hash when I woke up.
I have only ever been to the dentist alone once when I was in Germany. Once...I haven't been for a while now because I can't bring myself to physically sit through it if I don't have to. If I need to be seen then yes I will go but I need to take someone with me. I have a really low gag reflex when anything is in my mouth like a dentist's tool and that's if they can even get me to lie back in the chair. I sit straight backed as long as I can, I really almost cannot sit back in one of those things without nearly hyperventilating.
The thing with me and the dentist is that I am a LOT better than I was. I know if it was just a check up where they can 100% say they won't do anything and just pull out the little mirror thing then yes, I can manage, just. I know it's another part of my anxiety that I need to battle but it's been pushed behind the other parts of the anxiety that I have to deal with normally.
As with anything, planning helps combat it.
If you don't want to go alone, don't! I won't go alone now to the dentist and it's a case of finding someone to go with you. Not everyone can be available all the time but don't be afraid to cancel an appointment if you can't find people to go with. I know dentist appointments are hard to come by but you decide how you want to be seen and treated.
The other thing to do is be honest off the bat. Dentists are people too and they are trained professionals so if you tell them all the facts, they can do the best job possible. Tell the receptionist when you book an appointment for the first time and mention it to the dentist as well. It doesn't make the treatment itself easier to take but the dentist will make more of an effort to help you out. At least that's the hope ha ha
Dental hygiene can't be avoided and is something we all need to do unless we want to all be on Fixadent adverts so that means the dentist. It's annoying and scary for a lot of us but you can chew-se (ouch that one really hurt) how you live your life and what you do with your teeth.
I realise that I am not the greatest of role models for this one but in keeping with the creed of honesty on here, I like to think that if I can make people realise how not to do it, that'll be helpful too.
I am also slowly going to build up to going again once work has settled a bit. Watch this space folks, more on this story to gum. (Wow where do I get these from?)
According to Dentalphobia.co.uk somewhere in the region of 7-13% of the Western world suffers from some form of a fear of the dentist which means if you apply those numbers to here, somewhere in the region of 4.5 - 7.9 million people in the UK are afraid of the dentist and I am one of those people.
As ever with TIP, we revert back to a story from my past. My fear of the dentist stems from when I was 4 years old. I was with my mum getting a check up as you do when you're little. Being a small boy I didn't want to do as I was told. After a while the dentist decided she was fed up of me not playing along so she grabbed me by the nose and forced my jaw open so she could look inside. I have been a wreck ever since.
I wouldn't pull out any teeth growing up so the dentist needed to do it for me, normally by doping me sideways up to the eyeballs and doing a load in one go. I had too many teeth in my jaw so I had a couple of goes on that one. At one point I had a tooth get infected and collapse so I needed a root canal but no way in blue hell were they doing that while I was awake. It was decided they would knock me out, do the root canal AND pull out 7 remaining baby teeth. It was originally meant to be done over 2 appointments but someone "luckily" cancelled and they did it in one job lot. I had a panic as they put that plastic thing in your hand so they can attach syringes. The only upside was I got to have corned beef hash when I woke up.
I have only ever been to the dentist alone once when I was in Germany. Once...I haven't been for a while now because I can't bring myself to physically sit through it if I don't have to. If I need to be seen then yes I will go but I need to take someone with me. I have a really low gag reflex when anything is in my mouth like a dentist's tool and that's if they can even get me to lie back in the chair. I sit straight backed as long as I can, I really almost cannot sit back in one of those things without nearly hyperventilating.
The thing with me and the dentist is that I am a LOT better than I was. I know if it was just a check up where they can 100% say they won't do anything and just pull out the little mirror thing then yes, I can manage, just. I know it's another part of my anxiety that I need to battle but it's been pushed behind the other parts of the anxiety that I have to deal with normally.
As with anything, planning helps combat it.
If you don't want to go alone, don't! I won't go alone now to the dentist and it's a case of finding someone to go with you. Not everyone can be available all the time but don't be afraid to cancel an appointment if you can't find people to go with. I know dentist appointments are hard to come by but you decide how you want to be seen and treated.
The other thing to do is be honest off the bat. Dentists are people too and they are trained professionals so if you tell them all the facts, they can do the best job possible. Tell the receptionist when you book an appointment for the first time and mention it to the dentist as well. It doesn't make the treatment itself easier to take but the dentist will make more of an effort to help you out. At least that's the hope ha ha
Dental hygiene can't be avoided and is something we all need to do unless we want to all be on Fixadent adverts so that means the dentist. It's annoying and scary for a lot of us but you can chew-se (ouch that one really hurt) how you live your life and what you do with your teeth.
I realise that I am not the greatest of role models for this one but in keeping with the creed of honesty on here, I like to think that if I can make people realise how not to do it, that'll be helpful too.
I am also slowly going to build up to going again once work has settled a bit. Watch this space folks, more on this story to gum. (Wow where do I get these from?)
Tuesday 1 September 2009
Update 01/09/2009
Hey all, apologies for the radio silence. I have been a very busy boy recently away from the blog with trips to various corners of the country to see friends/relations/cats so that's why we've been lacking in posts recently but there is news on the horizon:
More of the wonder of the interwebs:
As a fair few of you will be aware, This is Panic now has a page on Facebook so you can become a "fan" of the blog on there. Remember to invite your friends along as the more people, the better a discussion we can all have about everything. Searching This is Panic on Facebook should give you the page. A big thanks to those of you who have already joined the party.
Everyone loves posts:
The next part of the series is in the works at the moment. As ever if there's anything that you want to see written about. Also don't forget that this is your space too! If you want to contribute anything to the blog itself then let me know either through the site itself or Facebook.
New series:
A new series of posts is in the works as well. It'll be called "Panic Buys" where I and you lovely lot will review some of the products on hand marketed to help us cope with anxiety conditions. I don't mean medications but things like books, herbal remedies, self help guides, anything we can get our grubby little hands on. Part 1 of that is in the pipeline to come out soon but as ever input people! Your reviews are welcome.
This is Panic in print:
I mentioned a while back that the blog was going to be featured in a national publication and as it's now September and the magazine is coming out soon, I think we can let the cat out of the bag.
A while back I sent an email to the national charity Anxiety UK (formally The National Phobics Society) asking them if they had a blog roll and if so could we be put on it. The response was essentially "sorry, no blog roll but we like the blog and would you mind writing something for it?"
Naturally I jumped at the chance.
Anxious Times is the quarterly magazine of Anxiety UK which has articles covering the gambit of conditions from GAD to OCD to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It's got regular articles from professionals and is a good publication for anyone who either suffers or works in the field of mental health. For you environmentally minded lot, you can even subscribe and get the magazine sent to you as a pdf!
The article I've written is called "Make it Write" and will feature in the September issue of the magazine, out this week. The article will come out in Anxious Times first and I will publish it at a later stage on here but it'd be great if some of you would go get the magazine and show some love.
That's all for now folks, stay happy and if you can't stay happy at least stay safe.
Anthony
More of the wonder of the interwebs:
As a fair few of you will be aware, This is Panic now has a page on Facebook so you can become a "fan" of the blog on there. Remember to invite your friends along as the more people, the better a discussion we can all have about everything. Searching This is Panic on Facebook should give you the page. A big thanks to those of you who have already joined the party.
Everyone loves posts:
The next part of the series is in the works at the moment. As ever if there's anything that you want to see written about. Also don't forget that this is your space too! If you want to contribute anything to the blog itself then let me know either through the site itself or Facebook.
New series:
A new series of posts is in the works as well. It'll be called "Panic Buys" where I and you lovely lot will review some of the products on hand marketed to help us cope with anxiety conditions. I don't mean medications but things like books, herbal remedies, self help guides, anything we can get our grubby little hands on. Part 1 of that is in the pipeline to come out soon but as ever input people! Your reviews are welcome.
This is Panic in print:
I mentioned a while back that the blog was going to be featured in a national publication and as it's now September and the magazine is coming out soon, I think we can let the cat out of the bag.
A while back I sent an email to the national charity Anxiety UK (formally The National Phobics Society) asking them if they had a blog roll and if so could we be put on it. The response was essentially "sorry, no blog roll but we like the blog and would you mind writing something for it?"
Naturally I jumped at the chance.
Anxious Times is the quarterly magazine of Anxiety UK which has articles covering the gambit of conditions from GAD to OCD to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It's got regular articles from professionals and is a good publication for anyone who either suffers or works in the field of mental health. For you environmentally minded lot, you can even subscribe and get the magazine sent to you as a pdf!
The article I've written is called "Make it Write" and will feature in the September issue of the magazine, out this week. The article will come out in Anxious Times first and I will publish it at a later stage on here but it'd be great if some of you would go get the magazine and show some love.
That's all for now folks, stay happy and if you can't stay happy at least stay safe.
Anthony
Thursday 13 August 2009
This is Panic 10 - General Health
As I don't have much in the way of an order for how posts come along, I am heavily influenced by the insane amount of news that I take in via papers, tv and the internet. The talk in America about their health reform and all the insanity with swine flu at the moment, I got to thinking a lot this week about health in general.
They say that sometimes you don't see something till it smacks you in the face. A large chunk of my thinking about all this came when I got...well...smacked in the face. I was moving some stuff about at work and as I bent over to put something away, I managed to take an upturned chair leg just above my eye. Luckily there was no concussion, just a large bruise that hurts badly but it set off a familiar chain of events for me.
A lot of my triggers for panic attacks are health related and have been since they began. It was a blemish on my chest that sparked off the first ever panic attack that I had. Now obviously in hindsight there were a lot of other contributing factors but it was seeing that blemish that did it and off I went.
It's always little things like that or little twinges that set me off in some way. If I can rationalise out the issue then it makes it easier to calm myself down. Part of the process for me has become to try and sort out my health and be healthier. If, in the unlikely event that something ever was wrong with me, if I am healthy then I'd know about it right?
I realise now a bit further down the road that the above is not a great attitude to have. I see that now and I have modified my approach somewhat. Being healthy is a good thing full stop. Now I am not at the peak of physical condition but I am in decent condition. I walk 30 minutes a day (thanks to work), I cook with fresh veg and little oil and I try to keep stuff low fat. It doesn't sound like much I know but keeping myself in decent condition has helped somewhat with my anxiety.
From experience of casually meeting other sufferers of anxiety problems, certain lifestyle choices can exacerbate the issue rather than help it. Now I made a lot of changes after I went on to my tablets (see TIP part 5) so these are all since about December 2007 but they were useful to me:
1. Cutting down on alcohol: Admittedly this one was a direct result of my medication but I've kept this one up somewhat since I came off of medication. Those of us with a passing knowledge know that alcohol can be a depressant if you have loads and also (and this is definitely the case for my meds) you can't drink whilst taking them. If you're not on meds then a drink won't kill you but don't go overboard.
2. Cutting down on caffeine: This one was a personal choice. Now we've all had too much caffeine now and then and we know what it does to us; we get twitchy, we get jumpy and your brain rushes a mile a minute. Now personally I find none of these helpful for battling anxiety when I am having a moment. Whilst I know some people and books advise totally removing caffeine, I like the taste of tea and coffee too much. I limit myself to 4 caffeinated drinks a day in total which is normally 1 coffee and 3 teas a day. I spread them over the course of the day and I never have anything like that after about 7or 8pm. After that, hot milky decaff drinks like low fat hot choc or caffeine free herbal teas are your friend and will have a better effect and help
3. Cut down junk food: Sugar like caffeine has the twitchy high energy thing if you have too much of it. I like stuff like chocolate and the odd take away but I always feel slightly sluggish after one for some reason. I always try to use at least some veg in every meal I cook, even if it's tinned. Again, moderation and the world won't end if you have a kebab on a Friday night or a chocolate bar but eating loads of junk food will increase your weight, make you feel sluggish loads and I find it lowers my mood if I have too much of it in too short a space of time.
The other part to all of this as well is trying not to over react if you ever do feel unwell. Now this is the bit I struggle with. That twinge you worry about is an instant worry to me that I am about to drop dead but I am getting better at not going off the deep end.
When I took that whack to the head, I went and got seen by a nurse at work. I made a point of saying "I've done this to myself and also I suffer from an anxiety condition and I'd like some reassurance that I am ok please." The nurse did a good job of giving me a full examination needed for a head injury and took the time to clearly explain what was wrong, what wasn't and what to do when I went home.
Now we all get ill, we all get injured but we need to not instantly associate every injury with instant death. Now a shot to the head is different and do make sure to get yourself checked if you take a half way decent blow to the noggin but you will take a few knocks and they will do next to nothing to you in the long run. If you're worried, get them checked out but rest assured, unlike in the USA at the moment, the only bill you'll get is a clean bill of health.
They say that sometimes you don't see something till it smacks you in the face. A large chunk of my thinking about all this came when I got...well...smacked in the face. I was moving some stuff about at work and as I bent over to put something away, I managed to take an upturned chair leg just above my eye. Luckily there was no concussion, just a large bruise that hurts badly but it set off a familiar chain of events for me.
A lot of my triggers for panic attacks are health related and have been since they began. It was a blemish on my chest that sparked off the first ever panic attack that I had. Now obviously in hindsight there were a lot of other contributing factors but it was seeing that blemish that did it and off I went.
It's always little things like that or little twinges that set me off in some way. If I can rationalise out the issue then it makes it easier to calm myself down. Part of the process for me has become to try and sort out my health and be healthier. If, in the unlikely event that something ever was wrong with me, if I am healthy then I'd know about it right?
I realise now a bit further down the road that the above is not a great attitude to have. I see that now and I have modified my approach somewhat. Being healthy is a good thing full stop. Now I am not at the peak of physical condition but I am in decent condition. I walk 30 minutes a day (thanks to work), I cook with fresh veg and little oil and I try to keep stuff low fat. It doesn't sound like much I know but keeping myself in decent condition has helped somewhat with my anxiety.
From experience of casually meeting other sufferers of anxiety problems, certain lifestyle choices can exacerbate the issue rather than help it. Now I made a lot of changes after I went on to my tablets (see TIP part 5) so these are all since about December 2007 but they were useful to me:
1. Cutting down on alcohol: Admittedly this one was a direct result of my medication but I've kept this one up somewhat since I came off of medication. Those of us with a passing knowledge know that alcohol can be a depressant if you have loads and also (and this is definitely the case for my meds) you can't drink whilst taking them. If you're not on meds then a drink won't kill you but don't go overboard.
2. Cutting down on caffeine: This one was a personal choice. Now we've all had too much caffeine now and then and we know what it does to us; we get twitchy, we get jumpy and your brain rushes a mile a minute. Now personally I find none of these helpful for battling anxiety when I am having a moment. Whilst I know some people and books advise totally removing caffeine, I like the taste of tea and coffee too much. I limit myself to 4 caffeinated drinks a day in total which is normally 1 coffee and 3 teas a day. I spread them over the course of the day and I never have anything like that after about 7or 8pm. After that, hot milky decaff drinks like low fat hot choc or caffeine free herbal teas are your friend and will have a better effect and help
3. Cut down junk food: Sugar like caffeine has the twitchy high energy thing if you have too much of it. I like stuff like chocolate and the odd take away but I always feel slightly sluggish after one for some reason. I always try to use at least some veg in every meal I cook, even if it's tinned. Again, moderation and the world won't end if you have a kebab on a Friday night or a chocolate bar but eating loads of junk food will increase your weight, make you feel sluggish loads and I find it lowers my mood if I have too much of it in too short a space of time.
The other part to all of this as well is trying not to over react if you ever do feel unwell. Now this is the bit I struggle with. That twinge you worry about is an instant worry to me that I am about to drop dead but I am getting better at not going off the deep end.
When I took that whack to the head, I went and got seen by a nurse at work. I made a point of saying "I've done this to myself and also I suffer from an anxiety condition and I'd like some reassurance that I am ok please." The nurse did a good job of giving me a full examination needed for a head injury and took the time to clearly explain what was wrong, what wasn't and what to do when I went home.
Now we all get ill, we all get injured but we need to not instantly associate every injury with instant death. Now a shot to the head is different and do make sure to get yourself checked if you take a half way decent blow to the noggin but you will take a few knocks and they will do next to nothing to you in the long run. If you're worried, get them checked out but rest assured, unlike in the USA at the moment, the only bill you'll get is a clean bill of health.
Monday 3 August 2009
This is Panic 9 - relapsing
I am aware that the word relapse has certain connotations attached to it that are not pleasant. It speaks more of drug or alcohol addicts falling off the wagon rather than the context I mean it in here. I mean relapse as in having another attack after a period of relative stability. I wanted to use this post to have a look at how people deal with having a large attack out of the blue and how to get back on track.
I suppose to an extent I look at myself as a functioning anxiety sufferer. I have moments of high anxiety but they do not interrupt my sleep or my daily life so this past weekend was a real downer for me.
Looking back I’d probably indulged a bit too much on the Saturday evening. It was nice though, Chinese take away which I ate too much of, a couple of bottles of Perroni and watched Charlie Wilson’s War (good film) and repeats of Mock the Week before bed. Nothing new there, pretty average Saturday night for some I’d venture.
I woke up about 2:15am Sunday morning and I was burning up. The room felt like a furnace and it felt like the world was chattering in my head. I managed to get downstairs and into the dining room/kitchen and took a few good long deep breaths. I started having one of my moments where I thought a skin blemish was a sign of me getting septicaemia. I was awake for about an hour where I managed to talk myself off the ledge with a mixture of deep breathing, autogenic relaxation and a cup of chamomile and limeflower tea. I took a glass of water with me and headed back to bed. I am claiming a small victory as I managed to have all that and not wake anyone up.
I woke up feeling drained and a bit antsy still but felt ok after a bowl of Lidl own brand malt crunchies and a cup of tea. Having packed up all my stuff (I was on holiday last week), I hopped in the car. Now with 6 of us in there I was in a seat right at the back over the wheel arch in what in normal circumstances is the boot. Trust me, never a great place to be. I thought my stomach was ok but I felt nauseous very quickly which make me anxious and made me burp a lot. I tried to counter the panic by listening to an audiobook and taking deep breaths of air from the window. I got worse and worse as the journey went on, feeling more and more nauseous until I started properly hyperventilating. For some reason I was trying to fight the attack until I couldn’t get the words out, we stopped the car in a country lay by and I dived out onto the grass with my paper bag. Only when I got out did the pins and needles rush up my arms and face. I was breathing out of the bag with people gathered round me as I sat on the grass.
Now as ever, I am now feeling a lot better. Hyperventilation to end the whole attack lasted about 8 minutes if asked to hazard a guess. I got to my destination and sat down with a decent lunch and a cup of lemon and ginger tea which seemed to help. The annoying thing for me was that having done relatively well and not having had a full blown attack for about 3 months and if I am honest I feel a bit down about it.
Now those of us who suffer from an anxiety condition where attacks are (sadly) the norm, learn how to recover and move on from it. The issue here is how do we deal with the set back when we’ve come a long way? The idea is that we never want to have an attack again so what do we do now we’ve had one and feel like we have to start from square one all over again?
I personally try and have a loose attitude to timing when it comes to attacks. I obviously remember roughly when I have had one but I do not remember the exact date unless something else specific happened. I try not to have a mentality of an accident clock, “x days since last attack” and then resetting it when I have one. I can understand why people do that but personally I find the idea a bit restrictive. You end up in this cycle being obsessed with time and how many days and weeks and months you’ve not had an attack rather than just getting on with things.
The big thing for me is trying to reason out why I may have had an attack. Understanding the issue helps defeat it I feel. Allow a bit of hindsight (a day or so) and then think about the reasons why you had one. For me the attacks yesterday could be attributed to things like the argument I had with someone, the increased levels of alcohol in my system over the last week, the excess of food I ate Saturday night combining with being very over heated in bed. I don’t want to go too far into the ins and outs as to what was the primary cause because 1, there may not be one and 2, it’s possibly too complicated a process to try discussing inside 10,000 words here on TIP.
That said I feel it’s crucial to try and understand what may have caused the attack. Whilst on a superficial level “just because” may seem like an answer, it’s kind of glossing over the answer to me because there is a reason for most things. Now I admit that there’s no known reasons for many things (Why are the worst things for us those that taste the nicest? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Why do people watch Strictly Come Dancing?) but when it comes to human behaviour, there is generally an answer for most things. Now I am not saying that people need to go into pain staking detail and peel back all the emotional scabs for every minor incident but self examination helps me so I generally suggest it to people.
The only real advice I can give is what I have heard from so many people, “don’t beat yourself up!” Attacks happen. They happen for a reason. The best way to counter them is to not agonise about the fact that you had one and balling yourself up to try not to have one again but to work at changing the factors that caused you to have one. It is all merely a stumble, nothing more.
I suppose to an extent I look at myself as a functioning anxiety sufferer. I have moments of high anxiety but they do not interrupt my sleep or my daily life so this past weekend was a real downer for me.
Looking back I’d probably indulged a bit too much on the Saturday evening. It was nice though, Chinese take away which I ate too much of, a couple of bottles of Perroni and watched Charlie Wilson’s War (good film) and repeats of Mock the Week before bed. Nothing new there, pretty average Saturday night for some I’d venture.
I woke up about 2:15am Sunday morning and I was burning up. The room felt like a furnace and it felt like the world was chattering in my head. I managed to get downstairs and into the dining room/kitchen and took a few good long deep breaths. I started having one of my moments where I thought a skin blemish was a sign of me getting septicaemia. I was awake for about an hour where I managed to talk myself off the ledge with a mixture of deep breathing, autogenic relaxation and a cup of chamomile and limeflower tea. I took a glass of water with me and headed back to bed. I am claiming a small victory as I managed to have all that and not wake anyone up.
I woke up feeling drained and a bit antsy still but felt ok after a bowl of Lidl own brand malt crunchies and a cup of tea. Having packed up all my stuff (I was on holiday last week), I hopped in the car. Now with 6 of us in there I was in a seat right at the back over the wheel arch in what in normal circumstances is the boot. Trust me, never a great place to be. I thought my stomach was ok but I felt nauseous very quickly which make me anxious and made me burp a lot. I tried to counter the panic by listening to an audiobook and taking deep breaths of air from the window. I got worse and worse as the journey went on, feeling more and more nauseous until I started properly hyperventilating. For some reason I was trying to fight the attack until I couldn’t get the words out, we stopped the car in a country lay by and I dived out onto the grass with my paper bag. Only when I got out did the pins and needles rush up my arms and face. I was breathing out of the bag with people gathered round me as I sat on the grass.
Now as ever, I am now feeling a lot better. Hyperventilation to end the whole attack lasted about 8 minutes if asked to hazard a guess. I got to my destination and sat down with a decent lunch and a cup of lemon and ginger tea which seemed to help. The annoying thing for me was that having done relatively well and not having had a full blown attack for about 3 months and if I am honest I feel a bit down about it.
Now those of us who suffer from an anxiety condition where attacks are (sadly) the norm, learn how to recover and move on from it. The issue here is how do we deal with the set back when we’ve come a long way? The idea is that we never want to have an attack again so what do we do now we’ve had one and feel like we have to start from square one all over again?
I personally try and have a loose attitude to timing when it comes to attacks. I obviously remember roughly when I have had one but I do not remember the exact date unless something else specific happened. I try not to have a mentality of an accident clock, “x days since last attack” and then resetting it when I have one. I can understand why people do that but personally I find the idea a bit restrictive. You end up in this cycle being obsessed with time and how many days and weeks and months you’ve not had an attack rather than just getting on with things.
The big thing for me is trying to reason out why I may have had an attack. Understanding the issue helps defeat it I feel. Allow a bit of hindsight (a day or so) and then think about the reasons why you had one. For me the attacks yesterday could be attributed to things like the argument I had with someone, the increased levels of alcohol in my system over the last week, the excess of food I ate Saturday night combining with being very over heated in bed. I don’t want to go too far into the ins and outs as to what was the primary cause because 1, there may not be one and 2, it’s possibly too complicated a process to try discussing inside 10,000 words here on TIP.
That said I feel it’s crucial to try and understand what may have caused the attack. Whilst on a superficial level “just because” may seem like an answer, it’s kind of glossing over the answer to me because there is a reason for most things. Now I admit that there’s no known reasons for many things (Why are the worst things for us those that taste the nicest? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Why do people watch Strictly Come Dancing?) but when it comes to human behaviour, there is generally an answer for most things. Now I am not saying that people need to go into pain staking detail and peel back all the emotional scabs for every minor incident but self examination helps me so I generally suggest it to people.
The only real advice I can give is what I have heard from so many people, “don’t beat yourself up!” Attacks happen. They happen for a reason. The best way to counter them is to not agonise about the fact that you had one and balling yourself up to try not to have one again but to work at changing the factors that caused you to have one. It is all merely a stumble, nothing more.
Wednesday 22 July 2009
This is Panic 8 – relationships
People need people; that’s a pretty obvious statement to make. I’ve always been of the opinion that you’re not supposed to be on your own for too long a period of time in both a short or a long term sense and that includes finding someone romantically. Relationships and romance and other related bits can be a massive stress on anyone, not just anxiety sufferers and in some cases it will even cause people to have attacks when it gets that heavy. So what I’m going to do this time around is have a look at how my relationships have been affected by my anxieties and some more garbled TIP brand thinking as to what is the best way to handle stuff with finding/getting/living with that special someone and panic.
Somehow (and don’t ask me how) I’ve managed occasionally to have some female interest. I was seeing a girl at the time of my first panic attack. It found it really difficult to actually explain what had happened at the time, primarily because I wasn’t overly sure myself what had happened. That was pretty much it really. I was 17, unsure of whom I was let alone what was happening to me so I ignored it.
From there on through university it was a mish mash really of not really talking about it too heavily because it didn’t come up that much. I never felt the need to introduce myself along the lines of “Hi I’m Anthony, I’m x years old and by chance do you keep a paper bag handy as I think I could hyperventilate.” I think I told the odd one or two but certainly not all of them.
The real difference came when I went to Germany for a year as part of my course. I actually ended up having an attack inside the first couple of weeks of being there. Looking back I was living on my own for the first time in a new place with a new job teaching small kids how to speak English off the back of three days of training. The girl who I ended up seeing whilst I was there was in the room at the time and she didn’t know what to do and thought I was about to pass out/collapse/die/something not very good and at the time I wasn’t as aware of my attacks as I am now so I freaked out a bit as well.
Germany was marred a bit by panic attacks. I had a stomach problem where the valve at the top of my stomach didn’t shut properly but before I was diagnosed with it, I would burp…a lot. I’d eat at 1pm and be burping until about 4:30pm as a result and because I had no idea what was happening, I’d panic. At one point I ended up on stomach medication from my German GP and low grade antidepressants from my British GP. Taking 5 tablets a day was not my style and eventually I weaned myself off the antidepressants and eventually off the stomach tablets as well. That said from there on in, being gassy has been a symptom of my being anxious.
Time went on and I have to say that I have really struck gold at the moment. Between the end of university and meeting my fiancé, I had a few attacks, some large ones but girls I was seeing didn’t seem to understand. I may be doing them a disservice there but that was the impression that I got.
My wife to be is arguably the most tolerant woman in the world. I can hear those of you who know me personally already saying “well she’d have to be to be with you ha ha” and yes you’re all very funny. We actually started dating shortly before I hit crisis point but she had gone back to her parents’ for Christmas so I was on my own as it were for a chunk of it. I told her all of what was happening because I thought “better give her the chance to jump ship now while she still has the chance” but she was having none of it. She had experience of people in her family having anxiety problems so my attacks were nothing new to her. She knows what has to be done to calm me down or to deal with me when I am having one and she’s been present while I’ve had large attacks as well.
That’s how things are at the moment. As most of you know I have now started therapy for the first time which is a surreal experience (and one I will blog about later) which Mrs Russell to be is firmly behind. I actually went off of my own bat because I owe it to myself to be as well as I can be. I want to be a good husband and if I don’t make an effort to try and manage my condition then I don’t think I’m doing her or myself justice.
When it comes to how I handle relationships with girls (and this will work on guys too ladies because the principles are the same) I reckon the following things need thinking about:
Be honest: one which has been part of the creed of TIP as it were since the start. People close to you need to know what is wrong with you. Now I’m not saying dive overboard and tell everyone you meet that you might end up freaking out in a corner but find an ideal time in your relationship where you feel comfortable saying what you have to deal with and go from there. If whoever they are can’t handle what’s wrong with you, so be it. Whoever you are is an awesome person and you have a problem and anyone who can’t see past that is not worthy of your time and emotion.
Let people know what you do/need: If you’re on medications, let your other half know. In the unlikely event that you have an accident and end up in hospital, doctors need to know if you’re on medications so any drugs they give you don’t cause you further damage. I find it helps as well to have this on a bit of card in your wallet/purse as well in case nobody else is about but let your other half know what you take, how much and how many times a day.
Also for when you’re having an attack, let your lady/bloke know what you need to help you come back down. It’s hard to talk whilst hyperventilating so if they know that they need to get your paper bag from the bedside table and a glass of water to sip on, it’ll be better and they’re less likely to freak out and make you worse.
It’s not the be all and end all: In the introduction to TIP back in June I said “it affects us but it doesn’t define us”. That is very true and something to keep in mind. If you’re with somebody you don’t want your illness completely taking over every aspect of your life. We are all worthy of love and being loved and that is whether we have a problem with panic attacks or claustrophobia or agoraphobia or GAD or anything else. If you think you’re better single until you feel better in yourself, do it. Nobody should think any less of you. If you think you can manage an adult relationship, wonderful, more power to you but we are all not just anxiety condition sufferers. We are infinitely more than just that.
A very long one this time out and a lot to take in so feel free to let me know what you think about it all. At the end of all of this, I am very lucky to have someone who understands me and what’s wrong with me and we are all deserving of that chance but we should also not be afraid to be alone if it’s what is best for us at that time. Whether “I want to hold your hand” or “dearly beloved I can’t relate to you”, this is all in your hands, not the hands of your condition.
Somehow (and don’t ask me how) I’ve managed occasionally to have some female interest. I was seeing a girl at the time of my first panic attack. It found it really difficult to actually explain what had happened at the time, primarily because I wasn’t overly sure myself what had happened. That was pretty much it really. I was 17, unsure of whom I was let alone what was happening to me so I ignored it.
From there on through university it was a mish mash really of not really talking about it too heavily because it didn’t come up that much. I never felt the need to introduce myself along the lines of “Hi I’m Anthony, I’m x years old and by chance do you keep a paper bag handy as I think I could hyperventilate.” I think I told the odd one or two but certainly not all of them.
The real difference came when I went to Germany for a year as part of my course. I actually ended up having an attack inside the first couple of weeks of being there. Looking back I was living on my own for the first time in a new place with a new job teaching small kids how to speak English off the back of three days of training. The girl who I ended up seeing whilst I was there was in the room at the time and she didn’t know what to do and thought I was about to pass out/collapse/die/something not very good and at the time I wasn’t as aware of my attacks as I am now so I freaked out a bit as well.
Germany was marred a bit by panic attacks. I had a stomach problem where the valve at the top of my stomach didn’t shut properly but before I was diagnosed with it, I would burp…a lot. I’d eat at 1pm and be burping until about 4:30pm as a result and because I had no idea what was happening, I’d panic. At one point I ended up on stomach medication from my German GP and low grade antidepressants from my British GP. Taking 5 tablets a day was not my style and eventually I weaned myself off the antidepressants and eventually off the stomach tablets as well. That said from there on in, being gassy has been a symptom of my being anxious.
Time went on and I have to say that I have really struck gold at the moment. Between the end of university and meeting my fiancé, I had a few attacks, some large ones but girls I was seeing didn’t seem to understand. I may be doing them a disservice there but that was the impression that I got.
My wife to be is arguably the most tolerant woman in the world. I can hear those of you who know me personally already saying “well she’d have to be to be with you ha ha” and yes you’re all very funny. We actually started dating shortly before I hit crisis point but she had gone back to her parents’ for Christmas so I was on my own as it were for a chunk of it. I told her all of what was happening because I thought “better give her the chance to jump ship now while she still has the chance” but she was having none of it. She had experience of people in her family having anxiety problems so my attacks were nothing new to her. She knows what has to be done to calm me down or to deal with me when I am having one and she’s been present while I’ve had large attacks as well.
That’s how things are at the moment. As most of you know I have now started therapy for the first time which is a surreal experience (and one I will blog about later) which Mrs Russell to be is firmly behind. I actually went off of my own bat because I owe it to myself to be as well as I can be. I want to be a good husband and if I don’t make an effort to try and manage my condition then I don’t think I’m doing her or myself justice.
When it comes to how I handle relationships with girls (and this will work on guys too ladies because the principles are the same) I reckon the following things need thinking about:
Be honest: one which has been part of the creed of TIP as it were since the start. People close to you need to know what is wrong with you. Now I’m not saying dive overboard and tell everyone you meet that you might end up freaking out in a corner but find an ideal time in your relationship where you feel comfortable saying what you have to deal with and go from there. If whoever they are can’t handle what’s wrong with you, so be it. Whoever you are is an awesome person and you have a problem and anyone who can’t see past that is not worthy of your time and emotion.
Let people know what you do/need: If you’re on medications, let your other half know. In the unlikely event that you have an accident and end up in hospital, doctors need to know if you’re on medications so any drugs they give you don’t cause you further damage. I find it helps as well to have this on a bit of card in your wallet/purse as well in case nobody else is about but let your other half know what you take, how much and how many times a day.
Also for when you’re having an attack, let your lady/bloke know what you need to help you come back down. It’s hard to talk whilst hyperventilating so if they know that they need to get your paper bag from the bedside table and a glass of water to sip on, it’ll be better and they’re less likely to freak out and make you worse.
It’s not the be all and end all: In the introduction to TIP back in June I said “it affects us but it doesn’t define us”. That is very true and something to keep in mind. If you’re with somebody you don’t want your illness completely taking over every aspect of your life. We are all worthy of love and being loved and that is whether we have a problem with panic attacks or claustrophobia or agoraphobia or GAD or anything else. If you think you’re better single until you feel better in yourself, do it. Nobody should think any less of you. If you think you can manage an adult relationship, wonderful, more power to you but we are all not just anxiety condition sufferers. We are infinitely more than just that.
A very long one this time out and a lot to take in so feel free to let me know what you think about it all. At the end of all of this, I am very lucky to have someone who understands me and what’s wrong with me and we are all deserving of that chance but we should also not be afraid to be alone if it’s what is best for us at that time. Whether “I want to hold your hand” or “dearly beloved I can’t relate to you”, this is all in your hands, not the hands of your condition.
Saturday 11 July 2009
This is Panic 7 - holiday
Hey everyone, sorry for the delay to part 7. As the title may suggest, I'm currently away at my secret remote location (the in-laws) on a relaxation mission at the moment.
Holidays are something we all need. We all need a couple of days away from the norm of our lives and that means going away somewhere nice (hopefully, it depends on what you want to do) to "relax".
Now I've put "relax" like that because, as I've mentioned before, relaxation for some of us is really hard. Just because we're in a different place away from our normal lives doesn't mean that we can forget what causes our anxieties or escape our triggers so what are we supposed to do with ourselves? Once again as I am in the middle of a situation, I wanted to throw a couple ideas out there as to what I do to avoid holiday stress, both before and after:
1. Be organised: Now hear me right, I don't mean organise every minute detail of every day but have all the major points organised; where you are staying, how many nights, how much, what planes/trains/coaches/buses need to be caught and tickets booked appropriately. There is nothing worse for me than realising I need to get a mode of transport and having no idea where to go and what to do.
2. Planing the day: As above, it's not a case of minute organisation of every minute of every day. Holidays are meant to be loose and non constrained but if you decide on an excursion then plan it well. There's no point and will only cause arguments and stress to you and others if plans keep chopping and changing. Take some time to find out where you can go and what you can do, plan it out and go for it. Try and have a couple of days where you don't do something though. If you have holidays for the reasons I have them (because I am shattered from working so hard that I need a break) then a day or two of doing little more than reading is really needed.
Remember to be nice and make compromises though. You can't do everything you want all the time but make sure you get to do bits you want as well.
3. Travel packs: You know what I mean by that; the board games but in little versions that pack into small boxes to keep the kids entertained in the car or the plastic travel packs of tissues that sit in your pocket rather than having a ruddy great box. Well if you're going away and you are susceptible to attacks then think about your own travel attack pack. At the moment I am not too bad so my pack generally consists of a paper bag and a bottle of water at the moment but you may want to add more to that. If you have meds then definately add those and always make sure you have enough medication on you to last the full length of your holiday there and back. Other things like any self help books and Rescue Remedy/St John's Wart (again only use as directed, never more) should be included but only if you feel it necessary.
4. Enjoy yourself: A really easy thing to say I know but that's the point of a holiday, to have fun. I know if you're in the middle of a depression spiral or a cycle of really bad attacks then it can be soul crushingly hard to just "relax" but this is a week where all normal expectations on you are not what they were. You can just be who you are/want to be. Work can wait, everything else for those days can be put to one side and you can just forget about the world.
As ever not a complete guide but hopefully it'll give you some ideas as to what to bear in mind so you can have a good rest.
I've written enough for today, I think I need a break.
Holidays are something we all need. We all need a couple of days away from the norm of our lives and that means going away somewhere nice (hopefully, it depends on what you want to do) to "relax".
Now I've put "relax" like that because, as I've mentioned before, relaxation for some of us is really hard. Just because we're in a different place away from our normal lives doesn't mean that we can forget what causes our anxieties or escape our triggers so what are we supposed to do with ourselves? Once again as I am in the middle of a situation, I wanted to throw a couple ideas out there as to what I do to avoid holiday stress, both before and after:
1. Be organised: Now hear me right, I don't mean organise every minute detail of every day but have all the major points organised; where you are staying, how many nights, how much, what planes/trains/coaches/buses need to be caught and tickets booked appropriately. There is nothing worse for me than realising I need to get a mode of transport and having no idea where to go and what to do.
2. Planing the day: As above, it's not a case of minute organisation of every minute of every day. Holidays are meant to be loose and non constrained but if you decide on an excursion then plan it well. There's no point and will only cause arguments and stress to you and others if plans keep chopping and changing. Take some time to find out where you can go and what you can do, plan it out and go for it. Try and have a couple of days where you don't do something though. If you have holidays for the reasons I have them (because I am shattered from working so hard that I need a break) then a day or two of doing little more than reading is really needed.
Remember to be nice and make compromises though. You can't do everything you want all the time but make sure you get to do bits you want as well.
3. Travel packs: You know what I mean by that; the board games but in little versions that pack into small boxes to keep the kids entertained in the car or the plastic travel packs of tissues that sit in your pocket rather than having a ruddy great box. Well if you're going away and you are susceptible to attacks then think about your own travel attack pack. At the moment I am not too bad so my pack generally consists of a paper bag and a bottle of water at the moment but you may want to add more to that. If you have meds then definately add those and always make sure you have enough medication on you to last the full length of your holiday there and back. Other things like any self help books and Rescue Remedy/St John's Wart (again only use as directed, never more) should be included but only if you feel it necessary.
4. Enjoy yourself: A really easy thing to say I know but that's the point of a holiday, to have fun. I know if you're in the middle of a depression spiral or a cycle of really bad attacks then it can be soul crushingly hard to just "relax" but this is a week where all normal expectations on you are not what they were. You can just be who you are/want to be. Work can wait, everything else for those days can be put to one side and you can just forget about the world.
As ever not a complete guide but hopefully it'll give you some ideas as to what to bear in mind so you can have a good rest.
I've written enough for today, I think I need a break.
Monday 29 June 2009
This is panic 6 - fight or flight
Hey everyone, I'm trying to space out posts a bit more so that's why there's been such a break. This post as well takes a slightly different format and look but it's because I'm more asking myself a question than what I normally do.
People call it one of the most basic instincts a human has; fight or flight. When faced with a dangerous situation and the adrenaline's pumping, do we stand our ground or run to the hills? It's a feeling that caused by the chemicals in our head and it's those chemicals that kick off when people have panic attacks.
The thing is, we must face this feeling a lot during our lives and it applies to a lot of things we do. The one thing that I want to attach it to in this case is panic attacks itself. Do you make an effort to fight them or do you let them come and deal with it that way?
I have heard people say that you should do one or the other:
People who say fight are those who want the attack to be overcome with the force of will, an attempt to talk yourself off the edge. The argument is that you should not succumb to these things that have an impact and use your energies to beat it that way.
People who say flight are those who take more of an accepting tone towards panic attacks. Panic attacks actually have little physical impact on you once they are done and on average they only last between 7 to 10 minutes from the first tinglings to a return to the normal breathing state. Also they are a bit traumatic to have as you can appreciate and if you try and fail to stop one you add that on top of it, ergo better to let it run its course.
Personally when I am having an attack it actually ends up being a bit of both. I hate having attacks. Whilst I am accepting that I do have them and I have coping mechanisms and things I do during them to make it all go smoothly, I really hate having them.
I have mentioned before that I have triggers for my attacks, most people who have attacks do. For me it'll be a twinge in my muscles or pins and needles in one of my arms. Those range from the tips of my fingers to the top of my arms. The other main trigger is when I don't catch my breath. When one of these happens I generally go into defense mode.
Defense mode for me means regulating my breathing. Pins and needles are also a side effect of hyperventilation and if you can control your breathing I have found you can ward an attack off that way. I revert back to old breathing exercises learned from singing; deep breath in for 6, hold for 2 and out for 8. If this doesn't work I normally revert to the old tried and tested method of breathing into a paper bag. By paper bag for me, I actually use a large A4 envelope. Paper bags with some level of durability are somewhat hard to come by so the envelope works really well.
The point of the bag is to actually to help even up the CO2 levels in your system. Now I have read in a few places that doing this is actually detrimental to you and you can end up passing out. Having a panic attack itself will never normally make you pass out and if I am honest I have never had any issues with a paper bag. Seeing yourself breathing is the whole point of the exercise and a part of your brain goes "oh look, I am actually breathing". How that would work with something bar a paper bag is the question. I suppose a plastic bag could technically work but no need to add to the sense of impending death with actual death.
Once the paper bag is not really being effective, at that point I let it the whole thing play out. I try and get a glass of water (with rescue remedy if possible but not always) and breath in and out of the bag until I feel that I can breath normally. I also try sometimes to get outside but I tend to move about a lot which is not what I should do and I am now better at just trying to sit down straight backed.
The moral again with all of this is to find what works for you. Ultimately you know your own body and how you react in an attack situation so don't let people enforce stuff on you in a moment like that, it could have a detrimental effect. All I will say is if you're having a period where you're having lots of attacks, be prepared and have what you need to hand. If you are prepared, it is easier to be in control.
People call it one of the most basic instincts a human has; fight or flight. When faced with a dangerous situation and the adrenaline's pumping, do we stand our ground or run to the hills? It's a feeling that caused by the chemicals in our head and it's those chemicals that kick off when people have panic attacks.
The thing is, we must face this feeling a lot during our lives and it applies to a lot of things we do. The one thing that I want to attach it to in this case is panic attacks itself. Do you make an effort to fight them or do you let them come and deal with it that way?
I have heard people say that you should do one or the other:
People who say fight are those who want the attack to be overcome with the force of will, an attempt to talk yourself off the edge. The argument is that you should not succumb to these things that have an impact and use your energies to beat it that way.
People who say flight are those who take more of an accepting tone towards panic attacks. Panic attacks actually have little physical impact on you once they are done and on average they only last between 7 to 10 minutes from the first tinglings to a return to the normal breathing state. Also they are a bit traumatic to have as you can appreciate and if you try and fail to stop one you add that on top of it, ergo better to let it run its course.
Personally when I am having an attack it actually ends up being a bit of both. I hate having attacks. Whilst I am accepting that I do have them and I have coping mechanisms and things I do during them to make it all go smoothly, I really hate having them.
I have mentioned before that I have triggers for my attacks, most people who have attacks do. For me it'll be a twinge in my muscles or pins and needles in one of my arms. Those range from the tips of my fingers to the top of my arms. The other main trigger is when I don't catch my breath. When one of these happens I generally go into defense mode.
Defense mode for me means regulating my breathing. Pins and needles are also a side effect of hyperventilation and if you can control your breathing I have found you can ward an attack off that way. I revert back to old breathing exercises learned from singing; deep breath in for 6, hold for 2 and out for 8. If this doesn't work I normally revert to the old tried and tested method of breathing into a paper bag. By paper bag for me, I actually use a large A4 envelope. Paper bags with some level of durability are somewhat hard to come by so the envelope works really well.
The point of the bag is to actually to help even up the CO2 levels in your system. Now I have read in a few places that doing this is actually detrimental to you and you can end up passing out. Having a panic attack itself will never normally make you pass out and if I am honest I have never had any issues with a paper bag. Seeing yourself breathing is the whole point of the exercise and a part of your brain goes "oh look, I am actually breathing". How that would work with something bar a paper bag is the question. I suppose a plastic bag could technically work but no need to add to the sense of impending death with actual death.
Once the paper bag is not really being effective, at that point I let it the whole thing play out. I try and get a glass of water (with rescue remedy if possible but not always) and breath in and out of the bag until I feel that I can breath normally. I also try sometimes to get outside but I tend to move about a lot which is not what I should do and I am now better at just trying to sit down straight backed.
The moral again with all of this is to find what works for you. Ultimately you know your own body and how you react in an attack situation so don't let people enforce stuff on you in a moment like that, it could have a detrimental effect. All I will say is if you're having a period where you're having lots of attacks, be prepared and have what you need to hand. If you are prepared, it is easier to be in control.
Thursday 18 June 2009
This is panic 5 - medication
I mentioned this very briefly in one of my other posts but I wanted to go into greater detail about it after I saw something the other day.
I was reading a website and some unrelated counselling leaflets about encouraging patients and medical professionals about the choices regarding treatments for anxiety conditions. There has (to me at any rate) always been something of a stigma about some conditions where the answer is to dope people up and that'll make them ok again. Well...no that doesn't work and nobody with any sort of mental condition is a stock case.
The thing to remember is that choice includes taking medication for your problem. If it was something else wrong with you, like taking tablets for a problem with your leg then loads of people probably wouldn't even care but because it's medication to affect your brain, people freak out a bit. So what I want to do is give you an honest account of what medication did to me.
In December 2007, I hit crisis point. I was having a few attacks a day coupled with constant burping as well as having a cold. I tried to grit my teeth through it as best I could because I wanted to not be controlled by the attacks. Then one morning I was awake at 6am and in the space of 5 seconds, I burped, farted and had to blow my nose.
It was at that point I knew that I needed to do something.
I called in sick to work saying that I needed to sort myself out and I was putting my health above them and because like an arse I wasn't registered with a doctor at the time, I walked to the walk in centre that I'd gone to when I'd had an attack at work, wrapped up like an Eskimo and shaking like a leaf.
The nurse there explained what she thought was wrong with me and told me to sort out a doctor. I managed to get myself sorted out and saw who is now my doctor. He listened to what I said about how I felt and I said that I'd been offered medication before (after my first attack I was offered valium, I declined) but that I felt it may help me and what he recommended.
He prescribed me paroxetine. Here's my attempt at explaining the science; Paroxetine is part of the same family of medication as Prozac known as Selective Serontonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI'S). What they do is increase the amount of serotonin in your synapses in your brain and, as the popular tampon adverts taught the public, serotonin is the "happy hormone". They're not exactly happy pills per se but they help regulate your down moments if you're depressed and for panic attacks they regulate your mood to make you less angsty and remove the sensations that you have during an attack. For comic value, paroxetine has also been used to treat men who have problems with premature ejaculation...yeah, I laughed too.
Now all medications have side effects but they are different for everyone so all I can do is explain what happened to me. This is not any crackpot medical opinion. Instead it's a crackpot explanation.
There are recommended doses for the different kinds of conditions that can be treated with paroxetine and a starting dose. I was lucky to the extent that when it all came down, I never needed more than the starting dose of 20mg a day. One white round tablet no bigger than a smartie. All I can say is thank the Lord that I never was on any more than that!
The first tablet I took had an effect within a couple of minutes and it felt like I had been thrown under a bus. I was so drained it was beyond funny and I was at work during this too. Work at the time knew what was going on and they were very tollerant to their credit. The next day was a Friday luckily but after tablet 2, I started feeling really nausious to the point where I couldn't eat a full meal and I didn't for the next 3 days. Work sent me home that day. I busted my hump as much as I could but I hit the wall and my boss thanked me for my effort in spite of it all but sent me home to rest.
Over that weekend it was very tough. As the tablets started to take effect, more side effects came in. I had a really dry mouth every morning which meant I drank lots of water so I went to the toilet a lot. I had moments of fuzzy vision. They also caused a wonderful tandem of lethargy so I was tired 24/7 along with causing insomnia. I'd be tired all day, wake up at about 3am every night then be tired all day. The other real kicker was (and this is true with a lot of antidepressent medication) that your feelings of anxiety or depression can get worse initially. Now that sounds stupid I know but you're getting an initial rush of chemicals into your head so it makes sense somewhat.
The worst feeling was that so much was happening to my body in one go that there were mornings where I was scared to take that pill. That tiny little pill was the most terrifying thing on Earth.
I was really lucky that I was due to go to my mum's for a week. It meant I got to go up on Christmas Eve and spend a week just getting used to my meds and not having to do anything if I didn't want to. I knew it would be good when I got to my mum's and my desire to eat returned. I got to wake up on Christmas Day and eat Christmas dinner like a regular human. It was the greatest feeling on Earth.
Ok so that all sounds like an utter horror story but considering the progress I made, it was worth it in the end.
My attacks and anxiety lessened a lot while I was on the tablets. I quickly got into the routine of having it with breakfast every day. Yes it meant no alcohol for a good long while but it was a sacrifice I had to make. I felt able to go out and do what I wanted to do.
The real downside to my meds was I felt slightly subdued now and again, like I couldn't quite operate at full speed with the type of intensity I like to have. It's odd as those of you who know me personally know that I hate being ill and feeling like I can't be me. It's annoying as you are doing everything you normally do but it almost feels a bit in slow motion. It's not brilliant if I am honest.
Coming off the tablets was a bit of a long exercise. Due to it's nature, stopping paroxetine with no warning can lead to withdrawl symptoms so I came off it a tablet a week meaning the time without medication got longer till eventually I was on none. It was an interesting process. In the gaps where I'd not taken a tablet for a day or so, I'd feel really light headed. In fact during the first week free of meds, I was at a friend's house moving a box upstairs for them and got so light headed that I nearly fell backwards down the stairs.
That was about 9 months ago. Of course the anxiety has not gone away but I am at a point at the moment where I can say that I don't need medication to function like I did then. However it was a viable option for me at that time. Something within me chemically needed addressing to alter the balance in my head. I am happy to accept that now. I know that I am not crazy but I was ill. How do you best treat some illnesses? With medication.
Now meds are not the be all and end all of treatment for what's wrong with me and, if honest I should have started counselling alongside taking these tablets rather than getting it now so long after. I can't change that now obviously.
The thing I will say to people is don't be scared to discuss taking medication with your GP. Just because you talk about it doesn't mean you have to take it but if you think it will help you then don't be afraid. I want to get well, you do too. Even if you do pop, you can always reach a point where you feel that you can stop.
I was reading a website and some unrelated counselling leaflets about encouraging patients and medical professionals about the choices regarding treatments for anxiety conditions. There has (to me at any rate) always been something of a stigma about some conditions where the answer is to dope people up and that'll make them ok again. Well...no that doesn't work and nobody with any sort of mental condition is a stock case.
The thing to remember is that choice includes taking medication for your problem. If it was something else wrong with you, like taking tablets for a problem with your leg then loads of people probably wouldn't even care but because it's medication to affect your brain, people freak out a bit. So what I want to do is give you an honest account of what medication did to me.
In December 2007, I hit crisis point. I was having a few attacks a day coupled with constant burping as well as having a cold. I tried to grit my teeth through it as best I could because I wanted to not be controlled by the attacks. Then one morning I was awake at 6am and in the space of 5 seconds, I burped, farted and had to blow my nose.
It was at that point I knew that I needed to do something.
I called in sick to work saying that I needed to sort myself out and I was putting my health above them and because like an arse I wasn't registered with a doctor at the time, I walked to the walk in centre that I'd gone to when I'd had an attack at work, wrapped up like an Eskimo and shaking like a leaf.
The nurse there explained what she thought was wrong with me and told me to sort out a doctor. I managed to get myself sorted out and saw who is now my doctor. He listened to what I said about how I felt and I said that I'd been offered medication before (after my first attack I was offered valium, I declined) but that I felt it may help me and what he recommended.
He prescribed me paroxetine. Here's my attempt at explaining the science; Paroxetine is part of the same family of medication as Prozac known as Selective Serontonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI'S). What they do is increase the amount of serotonin in your synapses in your brain and, as the popular tampon adverts taught the public, serotonin is the "happy hormone". They're not exactly happy pills per se but they help regulate your down moments if you're depressed and for panic attacks they regulate your mood to make you less angsty and remove the sensations that you have during an attack. For comic value, paroxetine has also been used to treat men who have problems with premature ejaculation...yeah, I laughed too.
Now all medications have side effects but they are different for everyone so all I can do is explain what happened to me. This is not any crackpot medical opinion. Instead it's a crackpot explanation.
There are recommended doses for the different kinds of conditions that can be treated with paroxetine and a starting dose. I was lucky to the extent that when it all came down, I never needed more than the starting dose of 20mg a day. One white round tablet no bigger than a smartie. All I can say is thank the Lord that I never was on any more than that!
The first tablet I took had an effect within a couple of minutes and it felt like I had been thrown under a bus. I was so drained it was beyond funny and I was at work during this too. Work at the time knew what was going on and they were very tollerant to their credit. The next day was a Friday luckily but after tablet 2, I started feeling really nausious to the point where I couldn't eat a full meal and I didn't for the next 3 days. Work sent me home that day. I busted my hump as much as I could but I hit the wall and my boss thanked me for my effort in spite of it all but sent me home to rest.
Over that weekend it was very tough. As the tablets started to take effect, more side effects came in. I had a really dry mouth every morning which meant I drank lots of water so I went to the toilet a lot. I had moments of fuzzy vision. They also caused a wonderful tandem of lethargy so I was tired 24/7 along with causing insomnia. I'd be tired all day, wake up at about 3am every night then be tired all day. The other real kicker was (and this is true with a lot of antidepressent medication) that your feelings of anxiety or depression can get worse initially. Now that sounds stupid I know but you're getting an initial rush of chemicals into your head so it makes sense somewhat.
The worst feeling was that so much was happening to my body in one go that there were mornings where I was scared to take that pill. That tiny little pill was the most terrifying thing on Earth.
I was really lucky that I was due to go to my mum's for a week. It meant I got to go up on Christmas Eve and spend a week just getting used to my meds and not having to do anything if I didn't want to. I knew it would be good when I got to my mum's and my desire to eat returned. I got to wake up on Christmas Day and eat Christmas dinner like a regular human. It was the greatest feeling on Earth.
Ok so that all sounds like an utter horror story but considering the progress I made, it was worth it in the end.
My attacks and anxiety lessened a lot while I was on the tablets. I quickly got into the routine of having it with breakfast every day. Yes it meant no alcohol for a good long while but it was a sacrifice I had to make. I felt able to go out and do what I wanted to do.
The real downside to my meds was I felt slightly subdued now and again, like I couldn't quite operate at full speed with the type of intensity I like to have. It's odd as those of you who know me personally know that I hate being ill and feeling like I can't be me. It's annoying as you are doing everything you normally do but it almost feels a bit in slow motion. It's not brilliant if I am honest.
Coming off the tablets was a bit of a long exercise. Due to it's nature, stopping paroxetine with no warning can lead to withdrawl symptoms so I came off it a tablet a week meaning the time without medication got longer till eventually I was on none. It was an interesting process. In the gaps where I'd not taken a tablet for a day or so, I'd feel really light headed. In fact during the first week free of meds, I was at a friend's house moving a box upstairs for them and got so light headed that I nearly fell backwards down the stairs.
That was about 9 months ago. Of course the anxiety has not gone away but I am at a point at the moment where I can say that I don't need medication to function like I did then. However it was a viable option for me at that time. Something within me chemically needed addressing to alter the balance in my head. I am happy to accept that now. I know that I am not crazy but I was ill. How do you best treat some illnesses? With medication.
Now meds are not the be all and end all of treatment for what's wrong with me and, if honest I should have started counselling alongside taking these tablets rather than getting it now so long after. I can't change that now obviously.
The thing I will say to people is don't be scared to discuss taking medication with your GP. Just because you talk about it doesn't mean you have to take it but if you think it will help you then don't be afraid. I want to get well, you do too. Even if you do pop, you can always reach a point where you feel that you can stop.
Saturday 13 June 2009
This is Panic Update 13/06/09
Hey guys and girls, just a quick update on a couple of bits regarding what's coming soon in the blog, some outside bits and pieces and your involvement in TIP.
Blog posts to come
Upcoming stuff in This is Panic itself will see posts on relationships of the romantic kind, God, family (both my own and the one I intend to have, this may be one, possibly two). Thee's no set order at the moment as to what will come next, it's more how the mood takes me.
When I start my counseling I may incorporate thoughts of that into the original TIP series or I may start a different series for it. That's as yet undecided so please let me know your thoughts on that.
Outside Interests
Obviously thanks to those of you who have taken to the time to read the first 4 posts and luckily others seem to like it as well. A couple of emails flying around has resulted in me being asked to write about TIP for an anxiety focused publication read by sufferers and medical professionals alike. I'll give out more details on that as and when the article is written and published in the magazine.
Audience Participation
In the introduction to This is Panic, I said I wanted people out there to get involved so this is me mentioning this again and there's a couple of ways you can do that:
* Write something as a guest writer for the blog:
Now you may have already done this on your own blog or you might want to write something totally new. Either is cool. I can't pay you sadly (I don't do this for money) but if you send me something and a link to your blog or the original post then you'll get full credit. I believe in everyone getting full credit for what they write. If editing is required then we'll discuss it first. I will never publish edited work before discussing it with the author.
* Ideas for links
If you have ideas for links to sites that may be interesting to people then let me know. I'll post the link on the blog. The only thing I will say is no publicity for your own blog this way; if you want to publicise your blog then I'd ask you to write something please.
* What do you want to see?
I am one guy and my brain will only go so far. If you want the blog to address any points or topics at all that I have missed then say. I'm not a pro or anything so I need help as to where to go from time to time and I want to address all aspects of this. I said that I love the intake of information so the more I have to do the better I think.
Thanks guys, part 5 coming sometime next week probably.
Blog posts to come
Upcoming stuff in This is Panic itself will see posts on relationships of the romantic kind, God, family (both my own and the one I intend to have, this may be one, possibly two). Thee's no set order at the moment as to what will come next, it's more how the mood takes me.
When I start my counseling I may incorporate thoughts of that into the original TIP series or I may start a different series for it. That's as yet undecided so please let me know your thoughts on that.
Outside Interests
Obviously thanks to those of you who have taken to the time to read the first 4 posts and luckily others seem to like it as well. A couple of emails flying around has resulted in me being asked to write about TIP for an anxiety focused publication read by sufferers and medical professionals alike. I'll give out more details on that as and when the article is written and published in the magazine.
Audience Participation
In the introduction to This is Panic, I said I wanted people out there to get involved so this is me mentioning this again and there's a couple of ways you can do that:
* Write something as a guest writer for the blog:
Now you may have already done this on your own blog or you might want to write something totally new. Either is cool. I can't pay you sadly (I don't do this for money) but if you send me something and a link to your blog or the original post then you'll get full credit. I believe in everyone getting full credit for what they write. If editing is required then we'll discuss it first. I will never publish edited work before discussing it with the author.
* Ideas for links
If you have ideas for links to sites that may be interesting to people then let me know. I'll post the link on the blog. The only thing I will say is no publicity for your own blog this way; if you want to publicise your blog then I'd ask you to write something please.
* What do you want to see?
I am one guy and my brain will only go so far. If you want the blog to address any points or topics at all that I have missed then say. I'm not a pro or anything so I need help as to where to go from time to time and I want to address all aspects of this. I said that I love the intake of information so the more I have to do the better I think.
Thanks guys, part 5 coming sometime next week probably.
Wednesday 10 June 2009
This is Panic 4 - sleep and relaxation
I had a random thought that sleep almost seems out of fashion in some circles. We live in a world with 24 hour everything where we're almost encouraged to just keep going and going. For me though sleep really has a place. Being over tired makes me more susceptible to attacks which means proper sleep and being able to relax is important. Does this always work? Yes and no.
It's possibly anxiety related, possibly not but I really struggle to switch off at the end of the day. My brain seems to live at 100 meters/second and I have a love for learning and obtaining information. Then again, look at me; I speak and read English and German fluently as well as basic Dutch. I taught myself how to fix basic computer issues. I can quote most of all 8 series of That 70s Show but if you ask me to turn off completely? If I'm honest, I'm not sure it would work.
When speaking to my doctor recently he asked me "do you worry?" On the whole I have many concerns about the world. Anyone who knows me will probably agree with me when I say that I give a damn. Some will say possibly too much and that I shouldn't try to right every wrong. The issue for any of us is to find a balance. (I seem to be saying that a lot recently) and I seem to be able to sleep knowing that people are suffering in the world. The real switching off issue for all of us occurs in our personal lives, the issues that we can't escape and this is where the overlap with the sleep issue comes with regards to my anxiety.
OK so none of you really need lessons from me as to why we need sleep but if we can't sleep because of anxiety or because we can't relax properly or for any other reason then it will really mess you up.
I generally have always managed to sleep well and have less episodes at night than during the day but when I have episodes at night it can become a bit of a cycle. I am over tired and can't switch off so I worry so I don't sleep so I get over tired.
When I can't sleep like this it can be really scary, possibly more so than during a day time episode. For me its because I know what I am meant to be doing (i.e. sleep) but can't do it. In a night time anxiety attack, the gambit ranges from really mild to feeling "if I shut my eyes then I won't be opening them again."
Now I hope you never experience that feeling but it has happened to me before. The annoying thing is that right now, I can reason it out; I am nearly 25 years old and bar something really out of the blue I will not die in my sleep but in that moment, reason doesn't apply. All you have is an impending sense of your own demise. That is all you feel.
As I said these night time attacks have happened to me before and I have my own coping mechanisms that I find helpful:
* Take your mind off it - I mentioned in a previous post that I cease to worry when my mind is on other things. Now obviously at 2am you don't want to put on Lord of the Rings and zone out but a short rest bite is good. You Tube has lots of stuff on it or I use my personal favourites www.thatguywiththeglasses.com, www.spoonyexperiment.com and www.cinemassacre.com
If the net is not accessible then maybe an episode of something on a dvd. Loads of American shows are 20 mins if you remove the ads so it's a good length of time to chill out in. Remember, you can't hyperventilate and laugh!
* Drink something soothing - NOT ALCOHOL! As wussy as it may sound to you guys, herbal teas work. Peppermint and camomile are really good for bad nerves. If you don't like tea then warm milk in the microwave for 2 mins and add honey. That or a cool glass of water. Don't chug it though, remember to sip slowly.
* Rescue Remedy - I actually think this stuff does work and it's available in Superdrug so it's easily available. It may be all in my head but I can feel myself calmer having taken it. I'll say this though, don't over use it. It'll lose it's effect and become a habit that every time you have an attack you'll reach for it which isn't good. Rescue Remedy is always my last resort when having an attack.
Now that's how I work and the best thing to do is to find what works for you. That said these ideas really have worked for me so I highly recommend them. Finding what works for you can take a while but it's really worth it.
These, as ever, are my foibles so I can't speak for anyone else and in terms of its frequency it's minor but the impact they have on me and my health is major. I need to work on my relaxation techniques and trust me, when my councilling starts it's the first thing I'll be mentioning but at least when my sleep suffers I have methods to counteract what is happening. It's all part of the process.
Sweet dreams everyone.
It's possibly anxiety related, possibly not but I really struggle to switch off at the end of the day. My brain seems to live at 100 meters/second and I have a love for learning and obtaining information. Then again, look at me; I speak and read English and German fluently as well as basic Dutch. I taught myself how to fix basic computer issues. I can quote most of all 8 series of That 70s Show but if you ask me to turn off completely? If I'm honest, I'm not sure it would work.
When speaking to my doctor recently he asked me "do you worry?" On the whole I have many concerns about the world. Anyone who knows me will probably agree with me when I say that I give a damn. Some will say possibly too much and that I shouldn't try to right every wrong. The issue for any of us is to find a balance. (I seem to be saying that a lot recently) and I seem to be able to sleep knowing that people are suffering in the world. The real switching off issue for all of us occurs in our personal lives, the issues that we can't escape and this is where the overlap with the sleep issue comes with regards to my anxiety.
OK so none of you really need lessons from me as to why we need sleep but if we can't sleep because of anxiety or because we can't relax properly or for any other reason then it will really mess you up.
I generally have always managed to sleep well and have less episodes at night than during the day but when I have episodes at night it can become a bit of a cycle. I am over tired and can't switch off so I worry so I don't sleep so I get over tired.
When I can't sleep like this it can be really scary, possibly more so than during a day time episode. For me its because I know what I am meant to be doing (i.e. sleep) but can't do it. In a night time anxiety attack, the gambit ranges from really mild to feeling "if I shut my eyes then I won't be opening them again."
Now I hope you never experience that feeling but it has happened to me before. The annoying thing is that right now, I can reason it out; I am nearly 25 years old and bar something really out of the blue I will not die in my sleep but in that moment, reason doesn't apply. All you have is an impending sense of your own demise. That is all you feel.
As I said these night time attacks have happened to me before and I have my own coping mechanisms that I find helpful:
* Take your mind off it - I mentioned in a previous post that I cease to worry when my mind is on other things. Now obviously at 2am you don't want to put on Lord of the Rings and zone out but a short rest bite is good. You Tube has lots of stuff on it or I use my personal favourites www.thatguywiththeglasses.com, www.spoonyexperiment.com and www.cinemassacre.com
If the net is not accessible then maybe an episode of something on a dvd. Loads of American shows are 20 mins if you remove the ads so it's a good length of time to chill out in. Remember, you can't hyperventilate and laugh!
* Drink something soothing - NOT ALCOHOL! As wussy as it may sound to you guys, herbal teas work. Peppermint and camomile are really good for bad nerves. If you don't like tea then warm milk in the microwave for 2 mins and add honey. That or a cool glass of water. Don't chug it though, remember to sip slowly.
* Rescue Remedy - I actually think this stuff does work and it's available in Superdrug so it's easily available. It may be all in my head but I can feel myself calmer having taken it. I'll say this though, don't over use it. It'll lose it's effect and become a habit that every time you have an attack you'll reach for it which isn't good. Rescue Remedy is always my last resort when having an attack.
Now that's how I work and the best thing to do is to find what works for you. That said these ideas really have worked for me so I highly recommend them. Finding what works for you can take a while but it's really worth it.
These, as ever, are my foibles so I can't speak for anyone else and in terms of its frequency it's minor but the impact they have on me and my health is major. I need to work on my relaxation techniques and trust me, when my councilling starts it's the first thing I'll be mentioning but at least when my sleep suffers I have methods to counteract what is happening. It's all part of the process.
Sweet dreams everyone.
Sunday 7 June 2009
This is panic 3 - going out
Having done living with it and working with it, there's the other really important aspect of being alive; the social aspect.
Now I personally feel I've been lucky. If you take more than a cursory glance over stuff on the internet, anxiety and panic disorders can be coupled with agoraphobia (fear of being in a setting where there's no easy means of escape and wishing to stay in a safe place). Being agoraphobic means people won't leave the house as they won't feel safe away from where they are safest, i.e. their own home. There was a recent story on BBC News about a woman who left the house for the first time in close to 30 years. That's what agoraphobia can do to you.
I have never been scared to leave the house. People will talk about the fight or flight reflex, I generally flee. When I have panic attacks I generally struggle to sit still unless I am forced to sit down or if I am in control enough to do it. I will generally try and get to somewhere we I have a clear point of access to the fresh air which normally means going outside.
Also as you those of you who have know me...well more than 5 minutes will know, I am a social person who has always enjoyed getting out of the house and seeing people. Also, many of you will testify to me being a somewhat twitchy person who struggles to sit still...ergo how could I stay in the house for long periods at a time without going stir crazy?
However when I do go out I do suffer from my twitches that I've mentioned before. I am more susceptible when I am very tired, overheated or incredibly overstimulated which can happen in large crowd. In large crowds if my mind switches off from my issues then I am fine. Case in point; Wembley, 80,000 people for the NFL game and I was fine. Compare that with me being in the cinema watching "The Wrestler" and the sight of Mickey Rourke's character having his heart attack caused me to have a very minor attack of my own.
When I am in town doing some shopping I am generally alright for the most part. Southampton is actually a relatively spacious town centre with no cars due to its pedestrianized nature and there's a park nearby. If I ever do get very twitchy there are many ways for me to escape the crowd and get a moment to myself.
Going out at night though has never been much of an issue for me for some reason. I think maybe it's because when you go out to a pub or club or wherever you reading this hangs out at night, you expect different things. You expect noise and crowds and heat so I think I've been able to adapt to it. The one thing that happens to me normally if I do get twitchy and I've had alcohol is I will burp...a lot. This actually happened a week or so ago (though it was coupled with me being very tired and having eaten a delicious but hard to digest dinner) and it was so bad that I was awake till 4am because I couldn't stop burping. Even if it's just a case of reflux (I've had stomach issues in the past that have been coupled to my anxiety sometimes, other times not) to be burping for close to 4 hours will make anyone anxious.
A lot of people who know about my condition do know how to handle me if we are out. A good friend of mine is a very talented qualified nurse knows what to do with me and taught me a few techniques as to what to do with myself. For example, you can't hyperventilate and laugh. So if you see me sitting down somewhere sucking out of a paper bag, tell me a joke.
The struggle goes on and please don't take it personally if I have an attack around you or while talking to you. If you really want to help, just remember, this will all pass with time. I'll get there. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go out somewhere.
Now I personally feel I've been lucky. If you take more than a cursory glance over stuff on the internet, anxiety and panic disorders can be coupled with agoraphobia (fear of being in a setting where there's no easy means of escape and wishing to stay in a safe place). Being agoraphobic means people won't leave the house as they won't feel safe away from where they are safest, i.e. their own home. There was a recent story on BBC News about a woman who left the house for the first time in close to 30 years. That's what agoraphobia can do to you.
I have never been scared to leave the house. People will talk about the fight or flight reflex, I generally flee. When I have panic attacks I generally struggle to sit still unless I am forced to sit down or if I am in control enough to do it. I will generally try and get to somewhere we I have a clear point of access to the fresh air which normally means going outside.
Also as you those of you who have know me...well more than 5 minutes will know, I am a social person who has always enjoyed getting out of the house and seeing people. Also, many of you will testify to me being a somewhat twitchy person who struggles to sit still...ergo how could I stay in the house for long periods at a time without going stir crazy?
However when I do go out I do suffer from my twitches that I've mentioned before. I am more susceptible when I am very tired, overheated or incredibly overstimulated which can happen in large crowd. In large crowds if my mind switches off from my issues then I am fine. Case in point; Wembley, 80,000 people for the NFL game and I was fine. Compare that with me being in the cinema watching "The Wrestler" and the sight of Mickey Rourke's character having his heart attack caused me to have a very minor attack of my own.
When I am in town doing some shopping I am generally alright for the most part. Southampton is actually a relatively spacious town centre with no cars due to its pedestrianized nature and there's a park nearby. If I ever do get very twitchy there are many ways for me to escape the crowd and get a moment to myself.
Going out at night though has never been much of an issue for me for some reason. I think maybe it's because when you go out to a pub or club or wherever you reading this hangs out at night, you expect different things. You expect noise and crowds and heat so I think I've been able to adapt to it. The one thing that happens to me normally if I do get twitchy and I've had alcohol is I will burp...a lot. This actually happened a week or so ago (though it was coupled with me being very tired and having eaten a delicious but hard to digest dinner) and it was so bad that I was awake till 4am because I couldn't stop burping. Even if it's just a case of reflux (I've had stomach issues in the past that have been coupled to my anxiety sometimes, other times not) to be burping for close to 4 hours will make anyone anxious.
A lot of people who know about my condition do know how to handle me if we are out. A good friend of mine is a very talented qualified nurse knows what to do with me and taught me a few techniques as to what to do with myself. For example, you can't hyperventilate and laugh. So if you see me sitting down somewhere sucking out of a paper bag, tell me a joke.
The struggle goes on and please don't take it personally if I have an attack around you or while talking to you. If you really want to help, just remember, this will all pass with time. I'll get there. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go out somewhere.
This is panic 2 - work
Originally posted to Facebook on 1st June 2009
Firstly, thanks for reading my first rambling effort and for the kind words of Liz and Karis. You are both right that this doesn't define me. However it is part of me for the time being and I think it's important for me to talk about this. If this helps me and other people understand this, me and what this can do to people, then somewhere it may help.
Working knowing you're susceptible to panic is an odd feeling. For me personally, I have had 1 attack at work. I was tired and stressed in September 2007 and in the middle of a phone call, I went. I put the phone down as I was hyperventilating and I followed the formula that I had before and ended up at the walk in centre. I noticed all of my usual triggers mid call and was off before I could really stop it.
Actually to be fair whilst stress in known to induce panic attacks, for me the nature of being busy at work actually helps you not think about it so hard. With my brain occupied with stuff at work, it means I am not worried about the things that make me panic or cause attacks. With my current role where there a lot of things to do in a day, this can be helpful but as I am quite full on and don't like leaving stuff not done, this last week I ended up exhausted which caused me to be anxious for a whole weekend.
For me that is a problem that is partially related to this. I am lucky that I have inherited my parents' work ethic which means I enjoy working hard to get the job done. The thing is that because I am so full on and perhaps because I am inclined to health related panic triggers, I am starting to wonder if my threshold for consistent and continued stressful working is lower than some people. It's hard to tell because we're all different but I went pretty flat out for about 3 weeks before my boss came to me and, in the most polite way possible told me to "bugger off". Without subjecting people to similar stresses, it's hard to tell.
The one big thing for me is actually making sure people know about my condition. Even working in a hospital as I do at the moment, I need to make sure people know what is happening to me because I need to make sure people do the right things. If you watch someone have an attack, it does look like and mirror some of the symptoms of a heart attack. The last thing I need is someone trying to give me CPR mid attack...or a defibrillator.
Honesty is the best policy and I'm not really ashamed of my condition. It's acceptance rather than pride that I feel. To be able to take steps forward, I need to know what my problem is. I am currently sitting and waiting for my referral to counseling to come through so hopefully because I am trying to be diligent about what's wrong with me, I can get to the bottom of what causes this.
I can and will always want to work and have been able to through A-levels, university and actual jobs with this because that's who I am and I like being active and doing stuff though it will always be tempered due to my issues and my stubbornness. The difference being that this problem, God willing will end one day. My desire to move forward will not.
Firstly, thanks for reading my first rambling effort and for the kind words of Liz and Karis. You are both right that this doesn't define me. However it is part of me for the time being and I think it's important for me to talk about this. If this helps me and other people understand this, me and what this can do to people, then somewhere it may help.
Working knowing you're susceptible to panic is an odd feeling. For me personally, I have had 1 attack at work. I was tired and stressed in September 2007 and in the middle of a phone call, I went. I put the phone down as I was hyperventilating and I followed the formula that I had before and ended up at the walk in centre. I noticed all of my usual triggers mid call and was off before I could really stop it.
Actually to be fair whilst stress in known to induce panic attacks, for me the nature of being busy at work actually helps you not think about it so hard. With my brain occupied with stuff at work, it means I am not worried about the things that make me panic or cause attacks. With my current role where there a lot of things to do in a day, this can be helpful but as I am quite full on and don't like leaving stuff not done, this last week I ended up exhausted which caused me to be anxious for a whole weekend.
For me that is a problem that is partially related to this. I am lucky that I have inherited my parents' work ethic which means I enjoy working hard to get the job done. The thing is that because I am so full on and perhaps because I am inclined to health related panic triggers, I am starting to wonder if my threshold for consistent and continued stressful working is lower than some people. It's hard to tell because we're all different but I went pretty flat out for about 3 weeks before my boss came to me and, in the most polite way possible told me to "bugger off". Without subjecting people to similar stresses, it's hard to tell.
The one big thing for me is actually making sure people know about my condition. Even working in a hospital as I do at the moment, I need to make sure people know what is happening to me because I need to make sure people do the right things. If you watch someone have an attack, it does look like and mirror some of the symptoms of a heart attack. The last thing I need is someone trying to give me CPR mid attack...or a defibrillator.
Honesty is the best policy and I'm not really ashamed of my condition. It's acceptance rather than pride that I feel. To be able to take steps forward, I need to know what my problem is. I am currently sitting and waiting for my referral to counseling to come through so hopefully because I am trying to be diligent about what's wrong with me, I can get to the bottom of what causes this.
I can and will always want to work and have been able to through A-levels, university and actual jobs with this because that's who I am and I like being active and doing stuff though it will always be tempered due to my issues and my stubbornness. The difference being that this problem, God willing will end one day. My desire to move forward will not.
This is panic
This is the original post from 29th May 2009
Panic and anxiety is part of who I am. I do not intend it to be this way forever but I want to explain what this is.
It is the part of me that when you look at me is afraid. I suffer from a feeling that I will drop down dead of a heart attack or a stroke or that I will catch meningitis or I will stop being able to breath. I have a nervous habit of cracking the bones in my neck, arms and legs. I also suffer from a strange sensation that when my hair follicles open on my arms, it hurts. I mean it really hurts like I'm being stabbed with a needle in the area. This is not nice on my arms but especially not on my chest either.
That's just the initial wranglings. When that feeling sets in I am not sure what way is up or down.
When I have a panic attack, I will literally be scared that at that moment, my life will end. I will get shooting pins and needles up each arm and into my face and chest. I will proceed to hyperventilate which generally requires me breathing in and out of a paper bag until after about 10 mins or so, my breathing returns to normal. I am then very drained both physically and emotionally but I return otherwise to normal.
I do not know why this happens. I wish I did and could rationalise it all away so that I never feel like this ever again. I know when it started...I was 17 when I had my first attack. It was so bad that my thumbs locked into my palms and I ended up in A&E on a bed with a paper bag and not knowing what the hell had happened to me. That was about 8 years ago and whilst their frequency waxes and wains, they have not left me yet.
I was on medication for 8 months for it as well. The tablets helped in the long run but I felt a lot more subdued on them, like there was part of me that made me Anthony Russell being inhabited. When I started on them, I was in such a bad place that I was afraid of the medication that was meant to help me because of the side effects. Imagine the most tired you have ever been and multiply it by 10 then factor in the tablets cause insomnia. That said, Star Trek the next generation at 3am on BBC2 kept me sane and stopped me going totally insane.
That said I have learned a lot about myself through it. It taught me that being a man is not about machismo filled rubbish but facing the fear that I have and trying to move forwards. I cannot look back and wonder why me about it because there is no reason to pinpoit why it happens to me or anyone else or why I had to take drugs for it for so many months. It serves no purpose and provides no answers.
I'm not doing this for a sympathy thing but I wanted to explain it. It just occurred to me that I never really had. This is who I am for now and what I am working to change that.
Panic and anxiety is part of who I am. I do not intend it to be this way forever but I want to explain what this is.
It is the part of me that when you look at me is afraid. I suffer from a feeling that I will drop down dead of a heart attack or a stroke or that I will catch meningitis or I will stop being able to breath. I have a nervous habit of cracking the bones in my neck, arms and legs. I also suffer from a strange sensation that when my hair follicles open on my arms, it hurts. I mean it really hurts like I'm being stabbed with a needle in the area. This is not nice on my arms but especially not on my chest either.
That's just the initial wranglings. When that feeling sets in I am not sure what way is up or down.
When I have a panic attack, I will literally be scared that at that moment, my life will end. I will get shooting pins and needles up each arm and into my face and chest. I will proceed to hyperventilate which generally requires me breathing in and out of a paper bag until after about 10 mins or so, my breathing returns to normal. I am then very drained both physically and emotionally but I return otherwise to normal.
I do not know why this happens. I wish I did and could rationalise it all away so that I never feel like this ever again. I know when it started...I was 17 when I had my first attack. It was so bad that my thumbs locked into my palms and I ended up in A&E on a bed with a paper bag and not knowing what the hell had happened to me. That was about 8 years ago and whilst their frequency waxes and wains, they have not left me yet.
I was on medication for 8 months for it as well. The tablets helped in the long run but I felt a lot more subdued on them, like there was part of me that made me Anthony Russell being inhabited. When I started on them, I was in such a bad place that I was afraid of the medication that was meant to help me because of the side effects. Imagine the most tired you have ever been and multiply it by 10 then factor in the tablets cause insomnia. That said, Star Trek the next generation at 3am on BBC2 kept me sane and stopped me going totally insane.
That said I have learned a lot about myself through it. It taught me that being a man is not about machismo filled rubbish but facing the fear that I have and trying to move forwards. I cannot look back and wonder why me about it because there is no reason to pinpoit why it happens to me or anyone else or why I had to take drugs for it for so many months. It serves no purpose and provides no answers.
I'm not doing this for a sympathy thing but I wanted to explain it. It just occurred to me that I never really had. This is who I am for now and what I am working to change that.
Welcome...this is panic
Ladies and gentlemen; This is Panic.
T.I.P. started as one crazy rambling on Facebook in May 2009. I am 24 and since the age of 17, panic attacks have been an unfortunate part of my life. They are something I am working on removing from my life and I am looking at ways to do that.
The original T.I.P post was me trying to do what makes me feel better, rationalise everything that happens to me in my head. The original This is Panic series of notes is an ongoing project that is helping me to do two important things:
1. To try and explain to people about something that people are scared to talk about; the impact that anxiety disorders, panic disorders, phobias and the like have on people and the ones they love.
2. It's a cathartic process for me. The more I think about this, the better I feel I understand me and my condition.
I don't want this to be about me but about all of us. Beating this condition is not just something I am doing but many people.
If you care for someone with attacks and want to explain what you've done, let me know. I want you to write for the blog.
If you suffer from attacks and want to vent your feelings and fears in a constructive and entertaining to read way, let me know. I want you to write for the blog.
If you are of a medical disposition and want to explain about the condition on a greater level in a way that will appeal to the masses, let me know. I want you to write for the blog.
This will never be a definitive guide on how to beat something that affects millions but if one person reads this and feels better about themselves because they feel that they are not crazy or alone then this is worth it.
This is Panic; it affects us but it will not define us.
T.I.P. started as one crazy rambling on Facebook in May 2009. I am 24 and since the age of 17, panic attacks have been an unfortunate part of my life. They are something I am working on removing from my life and I am looking at ways to do that.
The original T.I.P post was me trying to do what makes me feel better, rationalise everything that happens to me in my head. The original This is Panic series of notes is an ongoing project that is helping me to do two important things:
1. To try and explain to people about something that people are scared to talk about; the impact that anxiety disorders, panic disorders, phobias and the like have on people and the ones they love.
2. It's a cathartic process for me. The more I think about this, the better I feel I understand me and my condition.
I don't want this to be about me but about all of us. Beating this condition is not just something I am doing but many people.
If you care for someone with attacks and want to explain what you've done, let me know. I want you to write for the blog.
If you suffer from attacks and want to vent your feelings and fears in a constructive and entertaining to read way, let me know. I want you to write for the blog.
If you are of a medical disposition and want to explain about the condition on a greater level in a way that will appeal to the masses, let me know. I want you to write for the blog.
This will never be a definitive guide on how to beat something that affects millions but if one person reads this and feels better about themselves because they feel that they are not crazy or alone then this is worth it.
This is Panic; it affects us but it will not define us.
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