How to have a panic attack like a pro

This morning I had a massive panic attack, over nothing. I had to go back to bed and try and get over it. Since I promised to always be honest on this blog, I am going to try and explain it. Because its not always as easy as getting a plastic bag and breathing into it

It started with this tight feeling in my chest, my normal fight or flight response is to fight, or just to hit someone. So when I am alone dealing with a toddler, I have to try and cope, however this time all I had to do was go wake my partner and then curl up in bed and hope it would go away.

So we have tight feeling in chest, then I get hot, as in burning hot, and then I can go freezing, meanwhile I still have the tight feeling, that feels like my breathing is being restricted, so I try and do slow breathing through my nose and out through my mouth.

Then I have the thoughts, and this is more complicated to explain, because they race through my head, but also they stop for a brief second and they are not pleasant thoughts. Its a bit like, if you have ever done it, where you wear a velcro costume and you run really fast and stick to the wall. Still not sure, I found a video

 

But imagine the man is Usain Bolt  and these thoughts can range from I don’t want to be doing this again to a few pills is all it could take to end this to if I cut myself the pain will end.

So far we have tight feeling in chest, going hot and cold, racing thoughts that seem to stick and then the sick feeling.

Personally I get angry as well, if something is not going the way I want it too, and I find my senses seem to increase, so I can hear a mouse squeak 5 miles away sort of thing (I can’t but hopefully you get the point) I hate having anyone close to me, which makes me, you guessed it, angry.

Now with me, at times I can get all this down to a manageable degree, but the problem with that is its still there, like now, I still have the chest tightening, its nowhere near as bad, but it could take one little thing to bring the whole lot back in a split second.

Other times I can’t and when that happens, we have tears, sometimes of desperation, sometimes of anger and sometimes of just pure fear. I have on a couple of ocassions thrown up, but that was when I was really bad. And I have also had where I can’t control my breathing and can’t breathe and need to use a paperbag, but for me my anxiety doesn’t seem to work exactly like that.

And despite the tongue in cheek title, I would like to say this is how my anxiety affects me, everyone will probably experience it in  difference way, it could be similar, it could be completely different