Anxiety and panic

Hi @Marren84 and welcome to the forums 🌻

Your experience of panic has been so overwhelming and pretty confusing for you by the sounds of things too. It can feel really bizarre when panic tends to arise out of nowhere. You've been doing all the right stuff with practicing mindfulness and seeking support. When you've tried out therapies like EMDR and CBT, have you found them useful in understanding and managing your experience?

Please feel free to jump in on any existing discussions on the forums that are of interest to you. You can find relvant content by using the search bar above. If you feel up to controducing yourself to the community, you can do so here too.

Look forward to seeing you around the forums 🐼

It can feel like a bit of trial and error with therapeutic approaches for sure. If panic and anxiety still feel very much like they're getting in the way of doing what you want to do, it might be worth trying out a different counsellor. It can be exhausting to start over with somebody new but it might just help.

You mentioned you'd tried some self help stuff too. If that's something you're still intersted in, there's a great resource for managing panic here. Not sure if it's of interest to you but I thought I'd drop in some links where other people have shared their experience of panic and anxiety too:

One on Anxiety

And one on Panic

Hope there's something of use there. I'm sure the rest of the community will have a whole lot of wisdom from their experiences too. Take care @Marren84 🌷

Hello. I wanted to recommend something that has helped me tremendously in the last month or so. I will tell my personal story after the recommendation so you don't think I'm just trying to advertise some BS. Follow The Anxiety Guy on youtube.

I have been struggling with depression, anxiety, and panic attacks since December 2017. I had panic attacks and anxiety in the past but just thought of them as a one time thing and never really had them too much. In December of 2017 i was hit so hard with all these symptoms. I (and my neurologist) believe it is from a head injury I had 1.5 months earlier where i fell on the back of my head, got knocked out, and had to get staple. I am a cop and i could definitely not function on the job, or off the job for that matter. I was crying so hard and was so sad for no reason and just wanting it to end. The panic was so bad and the anxiety was so strong I wanted to escape my body. I don't experience the desha vu thing you mentioned, but my memory does get very cloudy when going through anxiety and pannick. I initially refused to start meds but then I realized i absolutely needed help because I didn't want to go on anymore. Fast forward 8 months later with no real answer of what to do from doctors. I have done a little bit of counseling but pretty much gave up on it because i felt it wasn't helping at all. I began watching the Anxiety Guy about 1 month ago and have greatly improved. I still have the anxiety and intense sensations that are very uncomfortable sometimes, but now knowing that nothing is medically wrong (ie no heart problems, not having an anurism, etc) and knowing that I have made it out ok everytime has helped me to stop the anxiety in its tracks and not to continue the downspiral of panick. Sorry im so long winded but hope this helps.

@BandS338 - so glad to hear you are getting good results with this Anxiety Guy Ap. I think anything that can help reduce the symptoms is worth trying. .

I had great success with EMDR - Where one session was focused purely on my panic attacks. I went from multiple attacks a week to maybe one a year. I can now feel them coming on - and can stop a full episode from occurring. @Marren84. I know you have tried EMDR in the past, without my level of success. But don't give up.

Keep trying new things. And as @Former-Member said, sometimes a different psychologist will work better with you at trying to reduce your attacks and there symptoms.