Hello everyone, I have recently been diagnosed with GAD (generalised anxiety disorder). I've been having overwhelming panic attacks, they make me feel like I'm going to collapse. My legs go weak, I feel faint, my heart thuds, chest pain and sweating. These seem to happen mostly when I'm out or in a social situation, have no idea why, I'm usually a social person and love to go out, but since feeling like this I've been indoors alot and obviously this makes me feel very low.
Anyone got experience in this? What helped? Xx
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Pheebs93
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I know exactly what you mean, I had felt the same. It's so strange because things that once we're enjoyable now cause panic.
I think it's just part of depression / anxiety. For me the thing that has helped most is medication (antidepressants). They help enough to help me help myself and develop through therapy and relaxation techniques.
Know that you can and will recover though, this is just a bump in the road of life xx
Hi Pheebs93,I thought my panic attacks would go away on their own but they didn't.
Reading self help books didn't help 100%.
My doctor recommended antidepressants to calm down my nervous system and to work with a therapist on managing the PAs.
I found that bringing on a PA in a safe controlled therapeutic environment and allowing time, about 90 seconds to pass, then the worst was over. Apparently your body always wants to return to its previous state.
I learned that you can have several PAs one after the other rather than one long one.
This is a simple explanation of the process to get you thinking about engaging in therapy or taking the self care approach to PAs.
Talk to your doctor to work out what's going to be best for you.
What you are describing are the typical sensations of a panic attack which is caused by the surge of adrenalin in your body and prompted by your anxious thoughts that happen so fast you are most likely not even aware of them. Panic and anxiety can be caused by repressed emotions/trauma from your past and fears about your present or the future. They can also be caused or contributed to physically by your hormones, thyroid, adrenals, caffeine and poor diet.
Learning what they really are, why and how you have them and how to constructively deal with them is the key to healing them. You may even find medication helpful at least temporarily. What helped me was learning that anxiety/panic can't harm you and that it is a paradox, the more we resist it and struggle with it the more it persists so the solution is to surrender to the panicky sensations and don't believe the anxious thoughts and let the adrenalin flow through our body and dissipate. I found it relatively easy to get over the panic attacks but it took longer to resolve my anxiety. Anxiety is our bodies built in defense system that is basically malfunctioning now that you are an adult and no longer need protecting and you need to desensitize yourself to it.
I recommend the DARE Anxiety book and youtube videos for how to deal with panic/anxiety and the youtube videos of Dr. Claire Weekes and the book At Last a Life and Beyond by Paul David.
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