How to manage my bad anxiety attacks

hello and welcome @Snoopy88

well done for reaching out for support as that can be quite hard. Managing anxiety can be quite tricky and its hard to do it alone. i wondered if you have any supports like your gp and a psychologist to help you work through whats causing your anxiety and how to improve your ability to work?

ive got 2 threads in mind which ill link here which have some coping strategies on there to help give you some ideas.

the main things that help me are medication, relaxation methods to slow my breathing and release muscle tension and distraction methods that keep my mind active.

Coping strategies

Coping strategies 2

Hi Snoopy88

Welcome to the SANE forum! I’m sorry to hear about the anxiety attacks you have been experiencing.

It sounds very distressing for you and I am so glad to see you reaching out for support. I was wondering whether you have heard of mindfulness and tried practising mindfulness meditation? It’s a great way of dealing with anxiety. Whilst it takes a bit of daily practice and the results may not be immediate, extensive studies have shown that mindfulness meditation is a very effective way in dealing with anxiety.

I appreciate that grounding techniques like name things you see and hear, and breathing exercises, don’t seem to work for you. But perhaps you can try a guided mindfulness app that gradually trains your mind to focus on the present and distract yourself from the anxiety you are experiencing?

Maybe you can start off by doing one of the 5 minute exercises daily and keep practising — it gets easier and more satisfying the more you do it.

If you’re interested, there are courses and apps out there – see What mindfulness app is right for you? Maybe give it a go or have another go at it if you have tried it before?

Perhaps some of our forum members have had some good results in using mindfulness to cope with anxiety? Or maybe can share some other helpful techniques?

Take care,

Mika

Thank you @outlander for your message. I was seeing a holistic counsellor and it didn’t work out I was seeing her for over a year. And it didn’t help at all. I’m going to start seeing a clinical psycologist. I hope she can help me to overcome anxiety. Mine gets really bad when I have it. It lasts for about 5 to 6 hours. I’ll try out the strategies you have given me thank you. I’m also on high dose of medication it’s not helping me in July I’ll be starting a new medication and will be in hospital for it. I do hope it helps me with my anxiety otherwise I dunno what else I can do keep asking them to try out different medication. I feel so paralazyed when I become anxious. Can’t do much. I really hope to god there is a cure for it

Hi @Snoopy88

welcome to the forum 👋

i dont have any advice as such but can just draw on my experiences knowing that everyone is different. I haven’t experienced anxiety attacks as such but I have/do experience emotion regulation problems that have often left me feeling paralysed and unable to function for days at a time.

Currently I’m feeling more able to get through them. I think accepting this happens and is part of me has helped me come to be better at living with it rather than fighting against it if that helps. I also think when you find the right psychologist that you connect with you may find it easier to work through too.

Dont give up. Sometimes these things take a really long time to overcome. Sometimes not so much. I wish you all the best for working through this towards a better life for you. 😊

Hi @Snoopy88, it looks like you are doing the right thing by reaching out for new calming techniques. What sort of office work do you think you'd like to do? Perhaps you may find the office environment less stressful which may help you control the panic attacks.

Hi @Snoopy88 🙂

I feel your stresss, I have anxiety issues but for ages I didn't realize those strange unexplained illogical fear and later terror issues I have are called anxiety.

A few things I've learned to help cope with those situations.

DON'T HIDE IT.

Yea don't bottle it up because if those around you don't know your going to suffer in silence and believe me it festers big time.

Talk with your Dr, your getting medication so your probably already doing this.

Once I got past the fear of talking with people about my anxiety it opened up outside help.

I'm saying outside help because in fear your by your self and its all in my head and I'm alone in there with a monster that I'm feeding and its taking up all the limited room.

First time I asked for help I was at a McDonalds and went to the bathroom in a rush because my bladder thinks I need to go regularly these days so I rushed in.

On my way out I found myself on one side of a door looking through the glass window so you don't open onto anyone on the other side but I could see the self serve order taking machines, it was the first time I had encountered them but their just as scary as teller machines which I can't walk past so there I was trapped unable to open the door.

Lucky for me a young McDonalds girl came through the door took one look at me and asked if I was OK so I explained my fear and she took me out through the kitchen and out the back door totaly avoiding my fear.

Occasionaly I still use those toilets but I'm not taken by surprise because I know the machines are there so I'm expecting them and i'm never going to use them so I can reason like I'm not going to sit in all the chairs there and they become just as insignificant.

Yea reason the situation and plan how your going to handle it, surprises are unpredictable but you can plan around what you know.

Its not helpful thinking of what your afraid of as the enemy because when your afraid of an inaminate object then my brain does like a double take of the situation and starts into a loop which brings my fear around in a repeating loop so I've learned to snip that thought process in the bud by thinking of them as illogical inaminate objects rather than the enemy seriously theres no way you can win an argument with a wall so no point talking to it, thats how I handle it now.

Defining exactly what it is thats bothering you.

Anxiety I've learned isn't the issue its a symptom.

In my case banks have caused so many stresses that the fear of banks compounded and expanded to teller machines and then to web pages.

I had asked the bank for help and didn't get it even got a worse situation like having the bank look at past payments made and they decided that I didn't need a 25yr mortgage I could afford a 15yr P&I which completly failed to address that I was asking for help and disregarded that I was behind in recent payments with the result I fell behind even faster and the next time it was addressed my mortgage was shortened to 10yrs which was like twice what I couldn't originally pay.

My issues with the bank could have been avoided, I was punished because every time I talked with the bank how they treated me got worse and changes made to agreements put us in a worse situation every time so I ended up not talking with the bank so it wouldn't get worse and then I couldn't open bank snail mail then email and that compounded to not checking any email for months.

I even stopped answering the phone, you could say I had isolated myself to avoid the problems and life went to hell.

To cut a long story short today my bank has a special number that I can call and imediatly talk with someone, theres no waiting and no advertising and if its not imediatly answered I'm to hang up and not wait and they will call me back within minutes.

Pity they can't cut the 1/2hr endless music self advertisng BS for everyone but the bank I hate is trying to help and make things easier for me.

I won't ever have to go into a bank branch.

I never have to use or go near a teller machine.

And when I need to deposit cash like when too many of my lawn mowing customers pay cash the bank has made arrangments that my local service station can take the cash having a safe and my debit card can be refunded which deposits the cash received into my bank account.

The bank has also made my banking page less busy which means no advertising and only minimalist features and simple and it even has enlarged print, some days its hard to hate them when they are trying very hard to make my life easier.

I'm glad I got over my fear of talking about things just wish I had done it sooner.

It came out OK with the bank way too late to prevent a life of hell but it now can't get any worse.

One of the places I shop at woolworths switched over to self serving registeres and the first day I realised I was faced with 2 lines of scanning machines and not a human in site.

I ended up leaving a full trolly and walked out and have never shopped there again.

You could say I'm voting with my feet and I don't feel guilty not one bit because they have replaced people which upsets me and I can't be the only one that feels this way.

In time I'm sure you will learn ways to cope with anxiety, its always going to be with you for the rest of your life but you will learn to cope.

Your here asking how to cope so I'd say your off to a good start, all the best wishes.

@Gardener hi thank you for your reply. I tired talking too people at work about it. But they just ignore it and say you will be fine. At the moment it’s really hard to talk to them because I don’t get much response. Also I had a fall out with a work colleague and I’m really scared of her. At the moment she’s not working in my department but I’m scared she might come back there. My partner thinks I should quit my job and look for another job. Because that might be what’s causing my anxiety. But I’m scared to do another job because I’m not confident enough. I’m working part time I wouldn’t be able to do full time work at the moment. He said I should than ask for transferr to work at a different store. I went and asked the store near my home but they said they are not hiring try again with us later. I just feel like crying. I want this anxiety to go away. I tried the breathing exercise it was hard to do at work. I had to call my fiancée to pick me up because I was so anxious to catch the bus home. I really want this anxiety to go away and be normal again.