While you are sitting down, or standing up or washing the dishes, walking the dogs or putting your socks on, what is it you are thinking about? Why is it that we all feel so miserable and dissatisfied with life. Why is it that we feel anxieties that affect our lives. What is it deep down in our minds that makes us feel that way? I've just started this notebook recording my feelings and the times that I feel anxious. What I'm also adding though is what I may have been thinking at the time, or just before the anxiety attack. I'm wondering if there are things on your mind before an attack and if any of you have noticed what they are? Do you think those thoughts have started your anxiety attack?
For me, the problem is that I'm not in the present. I'm not not washing the dishes of walking the dog, I'm in the future thinking about all the things that could go wrong. It helps if I start counting backwards, or occupy my mind with something else. Exercise also helps, but I must admit I don't do it too often
I'm afraid my problem is not being able to let go of the past.. for example. . I cannot be in a car for more than 10 miles. I have a safety zone. I can't forget how it feels to have a panic attack and not being able to control it. My worst senerio is the car. My symptoms start to be coupled with claustrophobia and than my anxiety attack turns into a can't control ,can't stand, can't breathe , can't see, can't feel my fingers, i'm about to die feeling g comes... you know...that thing that mental health professionals like to call " a panic attack ". Panic attack my ass... we are about to die and you call it a "panic attack"..!!!. That's how I feel anyway. In a way though... I guess there is a certain fear of the future too. Because I automatically assume that if i'm in a car for longer the 10 minutes... than the experience will come.back. My doctor once told me that that is where panic disorder develops.. the fear of the fear. That's basically whats on my mind before an attack occurs sometimes. At the exception of fighting with my husband.
That is strange. Both of you say that it could be fear of the future. As well as you saying the problem is the past for you @Concernedgal it is for me too. But I get a flash of an image in my mind of something in my past. It could be a bad event or a good event that I remember. It comes as a flash image though and it comes with a lot of pain. Not physical pain, but like the invisible part of my body hurts. It hurts as much as a thousand bullets would hurt. Or a thousand knives. I'm trying to recognise what it is I'm consciously thinking about at the time or just before. But I can be completely engrossed in something else entirely when it happens. Then these flashes of images send me into a body shake nausea, can't get my breath mode. I think when you say the fear of the fear, I can relate to that by I am afraid where the image is going to take my thoughts to next. Maybe to a memory that hurts. But then again, this is a fear of the future. I have a fear of a future thought. Ha ha, wierd huh? We are all three afraid of the future. It is the future that makes us anxious. Even though I would say that it is the past that gave me anxiety.
The past started it definitely. But, the thing is about anxiety and depression is that the pain you feel... cNt really be described becausee it's pain that is down deep into our souls.. it's a different pain .. a pain of not understanding and not being able to fix it line you can if you feel pain from a headache. I'm a fixer.. and it drives me crazy that I can't fix me. You know what i'm saying?
The past events in my life are what started it with me too. Even though I'm going for therapy I am wondering if I will ever be normal again. I'm getting emotional flashes which really hurt and I don't understand how. I don't get what to do about it either. This therapy is a last ditch attempt to fix myself and God willing, it will work.
