Panic Attacks and Anxiety affect different people in different ways, but a common thread runs through them all. An unnamed and unreasonable fear that something terrible's going to happen.
The symptoms can take many forms. The fear of going to a party. In my last article on this subject, I mentioned my dread of having to go to ballroom dancing classes. Before I went to the first one, I'd lie awake at night, sweating, finally falling into a dream-filled sleep around dawn. Then I went to the first session and thoroughly enjoyed it. All those hours of suffering for absolutely nothing.
But my mind didn't learn its lesson, and so many people suffer in the same way. One thing I feel is vital. You must come to the realization that you're not alone. I didn't realize this when I was only 18 years old. I didn't realize this for many years, in fact.
Personally, I really don't know the causes for these attacks. This is something you must discuss with a psychiatric professional and despite all the admittedly excellent advice to be found on the Internet, you shouldn't do anything without first consulting a doctor.
For instance, I take certain medications, but I wouldn't dream of writing about them, of telling what I take. They work very well for me, but for someone else, they might be tantamount to poison.
A good question is; can you help yourself? To a degree, yes. If you're suffering undue stress, confront it and see if there's a way of lessening it. If I feel frightened about, say, travelling somewhere, which is a sure fire way of causing me great anxiety, I sit down with a pen and paper and write down the things that might happen.
We'll crash the car. Have a blowout. Lose our way. Won't be able to find a motel room, etc., etc. Look at all the people on the road. A tiny proportion will have an accident. But why us? The tyres on the car are new, so why should we have a blowout? Motels? Good grief, there are thousands of them. Lose our way? We've driven the journey many times. Why lose our way now? This is what I've found. Confront my fears and while they won't necessarily leave me alone completely, they will be lessened.
To touch on the causes again for a moment, I can't remember a time when I wasn't plagued by these feelings. I wish I could be more helpful here, but of course there are excellent websites that really can help you in this respect.
To sum up, the most important thing is to seek professional help. I can't stress this enough. As I've said before, it isn't your fault that you have these diseases, but it most certainly is your fault to do nothing about them. There are two excellent resources that I list below that I'm indebted to for some of the information in this article that are very well worth your looking at.
I'm indebted to HelpGuide.org and the Anxiety and Panic Resource Site for some of the information in this article
