A year with Panic attacks.

I wasn't planning on sharing such a personal post so early in this blog. But somehow the timing is right. It is the anniversary of my first panic attack, so in many ways now seems good.

I'm partly writing this for myself, possibly by writing this is my way of putting a line under the whole thing. But also I found on my worst days, that knowing that I was not the only person struggling with this, that it is simply a thing some people have to deal with, it somehow made me feel less alone and a little less broken.

*What I write here might be quite triggering for some, I will be trying to explain exactly how it feels.

So what is a panic attack anyway?

Glen Sannox - A place that is good for my soul

Experiencing a Panic attack is the most 'painful' intolerable bodily feeling that I have ever experienced. A panic attack is what happens when your body goes into fight, flight or freeze mode, your body literally thinks death is imminent and goes into survival/brace mode. A feeling that is hard to explain, if you have experienced your body in that mode, then you will know. Its not unlike that feeling when you trip over, those few moments when you are battling gravity and it feels like your stomach has fallen out, only the feeling in a Panic attack is amplified and lasts longer. For me, I freeze, to others I look like I am just sitting there perfectly fine, but inside my heart is hammering, my muscles are braced and I feel absolutely overwhelmed with terror. It consumes me completely.

The fun beginnings. 

The irony how my panic attacks started has not been lost on me, an unplanned training exercise perhaps. You see I am actually training to be a Counsellor. In a particular session at Uni, we were looking into Trauma, and our own experiencing of it. As you can imagine, not a joyful experience, but having done a lot of self exploration, I was pretty comfortable with this, until we started exploring forgotten/blocked out trauma. Sometimes if you experience something traumatic, your brain will block it out as a way to protect you. At this snippet of information, I distinctly felt something deep within me disconnect. Two days later, I had my first panic attack.

The limit.

It all escaleted slowly to begin with, the first panic attack that I had was at a Chinese buffet, and because of that food became my initial trigger, not all food, but rich food, or too much food would send me into a panic attack. And then because with such food situations there were usually people, social situations became my next trigger. From there, my safe circle became smaller and smaller, more and more things became triggers, until I got the point where nowhere was free from panic attacks. I got to the point where i was just living within a panic attack. I ended up spending weeks curled up in bed just going from panic attack to panic attack, literally unable to do anything.


Recovery. 

At this point I knew I needed help. I went to the Doctors (with much difficulty) who gave me two options, counselling or medication. Having already had a huge amount of counselling, plus my counselling training I knew this option actually wouldn't help at this point. My mind was ok, it knew what was going on, my mind was actually being rather sensible about the whole situation, it was my body that was not listening. So I opted for medication in an attempt to regain control over my body.  I chose to try Propanol, its a beta blocker drug which basically stops adrenaline. I was incredibly lucky that this worked for me, and had few side effects, it basically blocked the panic attacks. Although it blocked the panic attacks, I still had very intense anxiety, but I was able to start doing things and proving to myself that I could do things again without having a panic attack.

Isle of Arran.

Once I had the panic attacks under control, I could then start to explore within myself the reason for them in the first place. Although I have experienced some shitty things and experienced trauma, non of these occasions seemed to be the reason why my body was reacting out so much now. It was like my body remembered something that my mind could not. A blocked trauma,or perhaps even a trauma from a previous life. I have no idea, but in acknowledging that there is something there, even if I did not know what, really helped my recovery.


And Now

So as I write this, its been months since I had a panic attack. I am pretty much off the medication and almost much back to normal (not normal). Its been a very interesting learning experience, and I am in a lot of ways glad to have experienced it. If my going through this hell means that I can be the right kind of help to someone else dealing with it, then its absolutely been worth it.

For those of you reading this, who are experiencing or have gone through any kind of mental health difficulties, you guys are so bloody strong, and I have so much respect for anybody who is surviving when their body or mind behaves like it is their worst enemy.

Anyway I think I have rambled on enough now. I hope you 'enjoyed' reading this. Oh and if anyone is wondering, I can eat Chinese food again!