Panic disorder

[spirifera]

Hi all!

I´m new here and I just want to get in touch with the community and see how it works.

I´m 32 years old, and I´ve been dealing all my life with anxiety and temporal phobias which somehow have injured my life quality and personal relations.

I never thought they were so serious until I had the worst panic attack I´ve had in my life. I was dealing with prolonged stressful situations and I live abroad in a country in which I don´t speak the language.

I started to feel difficulties to breathe but I never gave importance to it, since I was all the time busy working and studying.

Once I decided to visit a lady who I met months before in a village close to the city I was living in. I went to the woods for a walk, I ate delicious food and I was also swimming which I love to do. Suddenly I started to feel strange, a bit dizzy and then when I was coming back to the city I had a hyperventilation episode inside the bus...I wasn´t able to breathe, my hands were completely immobilized and I wasn´t able to feel my face. I was able to call my friend and ask her to talk with a young woman who was behind me. She spoke English very well and she asked the driver to call an ambulance. The bus stopped and she was helping me to breathe and stay calm, but I was so scared that I finally fainted.

I woke up inside an ambulance and they took me to the closest hospital in another town. I was hospitalized one night and the diagnosis was a panic attack.

What has been the most difficult thing for me is that I have serious problems to express to my relatives this situation. In addition, the attention I need to receive is not the best since I´m a student with a scholarship and this term I´m in an exchange in another country in which my insurance doesn´t cover therapies.

If I want to receive the therapies required to treat my disorder I will have to pay lot of money for a private therapist which is not an option at this moment.

All this situation has made me feel more annoyed with the fact of being a foreign, a student, and a woman. I know I have a condition that is making my life more difficult and I feel that society doesn´t see me in equal conditions as a person who needs a doctor because has diabetes or another common disease.

This situation has somehow made me isolate of the world. I pass most of my time alone and I only feel comfortable attending my lessons at University and staying at home. Is difficult for me to be in crowded or noisy places, make new friends...

I know that I need a professional person, and an empathic environment around me but I don´t have it. I found Ada by coincidence... however I´m not a US citizen and I live in Europe

[Tbine]

Hello, i can relate to your situation, more so the isolation and being misunderstood because of a condition with no visible bandages or crutches.I also thought that a licensed therapist is the answer to solve my issues,. But that is a normal belief, because of course they know so much more than me regarding these problems. I couldn't be more wrong! If i had relied on my therapist and psychiatrist to help me, i would of died years ago. Not to speak for ALL of them, but there are a few facts to consider here. One, finding a "good" therapist is like finding a "good" mechanic, plumber, carpenter,etc. It comes down to finding one who is "genuinely" interested in helping their clients, and not just there to fill up an hour of your day with " tell me how you are doing lately" or "tell me what's going on in your life that makes you feel this way" and then writing you a prescription in the "hope" that this will be all that you need.

[Tbine]

There is nothing wrong with therapy, it does help to have a "sympathetic ear" to listen to you, but to overcome what is wrong with you, only YOU have the power to do this. I myself put ALL my faith in my therapist, doctors, etc. And it was the biggest disappointment to me at the time,. I was totally devastated and overwhelmed when i then realized " these people can only do so much" i don't have the money to pay for a "specialist" in cognitive behavioral therapy for my social phobia, which began as panic attacks and the fear of having one in the public. The good news here is that YOU, like i did, with never-ending persistence WILL overcome it ALL. Start by practicing Deep Breathing whenever you have 10 spare minutes each day, is better but a few days a week is good too. I can explain it too you in another message if you like. Because this one is already a small book ! Lol. Let me know.

[spirifera in reply to Tbine]

Hi, thanks for your reply. So far I´ve had issues to find the right way or at least something that makes me feel better or confortable to start treating my disorder. Is not easy when you are living abroad, and most of people around you don´t take it as something they can be emptahic with. I´ve tried some therapists but for several reasons I don´t follow a constant treatment.

[Tbine in reply to spirifera]

I understand . But i figured that for now, you would benefit greatly from learning to deep breathe after reading about your hyperventilating episode. Which is something i never wanted to happen to me when i had panic attacks so i practiced deep breathing until i no longer had to because it became automatic to me and constant, without effort or thought. But anyways,. Good luck to you .

[spirifera in reply to Tbine]

Thanks a lot I´l try it