It’s only been happening at night. For the past few days, around 6 or 7pm, my chest starts to feel heavy, I feel like I can’t breathe, and my body begins to go numb. My mind immediately tells me I am either having a stroke or a heart attack. I announce to my husband that I am feeling this way and advise him to call an ambulance if I pass out or start seizing. He looks at me and I can’t tell if he’s thinking, “This is really it this time. She is sick and she is going to die,” or, “I can’t believe we’re still at this point. I can’t believe she still doesn’t recognize this is a panic attack after 18 years of suffering from anxiety.” I think it’s the former and start to comes to terms with the idea of my life ending at 45 years old.
But when I wake up the next morning and the pain, heaviness, and numbness is gone, I think, “Ok, it was another panic attack,” only to revert back to thinking I’m dying again when the symptoms return the following evening. This dance has continued for the past several nights. As I sit here writing, I am rational. I know what I have been experiencing is symptoms of anxiety and panic. And I am telling myself that I will not succumb to that panic again, not tonight.
I know there are a few things that I need to do to combat this. If I can’t prevent the feelings from coming up, which I most likely cannot, then I can at least manage them when they do so that they don’t take over and render me frozen and incapacitated. I remind myself that when/if the panic and anxiety returns tonight in the way I know it to surface, there are steps I can take to mitigate it and overcome it.
- I will remind myself that this is “just” anxiety. As soon as I feel that feeling in my chest, that heaviness, that discomfort, I will say, “I know what this is. I have felt this way many times before and I know this is how the anxiety presents itself for me.”
- I will check my breath. I will take three deep belly breaths, breathing in deeply through my nose and breathing out steadily through my mouth.
- I will remind myself I am safe and healthy. After I have acknowledged that what I am feeling is anxiety and have taken three deep breaths, I will tell myself, “This is anxiety and it will pass, just like it always has.” I will repeat this as many times as I need to until I feel a little calmer.
- I will continue to breathe deeply and avoid shallow breaths. Shallow breathing will only exacerbate the anxiety and the symptoms I am experiencing. I will repeat telling myself I am safe and healthy as many times as I need to until my brain registers it to be true.
- I will stand up and move around. Oftentimes when I experience a panic attack, I am on my recliner in my living room. I am starting to recognize the pattern. I will have had a busy day and most likely feel overwhelmed for one reason or another. When I finally sit down for the evening, the anxiety tends to surface and if I am not busy running around doing things, it comes up. So, I will get off the couch. Sitting still during an anxiety attack only exacerbates it for me. I will go for a walk outside, walk on my treadmill, wash my dishes, or put on some music and clean something. The movement will help distract me from the immediate panic.
- I will face the reason for the initial panic. As helpful as distraction techniques can be in the moment of a panic attack, once that panic attack has subsided and I am not in the midst of it, I must try to get to the root of the attack. It is not always readily noticeable and will take introspection and reflection. One way to accomplish this is to write. I used to use a dedicated journal to writing either during or after a panic attack to try to get to the root of the anxiety. Sometimes, I write during the attack. Sometimes I can’t and use distraction until I am able to write. Writing during an anxiety attack can be very revealing. I am able to get into my head at that often irrational moment and when I reflect on it, I can recognize I was being irrational and am able to identify what I was feeling in that moment. I then write afterwards to try to understand where that panic comes from and why I was so consumed with it at that moment. There are times I am successful in identifying the issue. Other times I am not, but writing about the anxiety either in the moment or a short time afterwards helps to bring awareness to the feelings and to the patterns that may be contributing to the attack, so that I may begin to process them.
- The final step is to comfort, support, and validate myself. An anxiety attack can often be exhausting and leaves my body feeling like lead. I used to beat myself up after a panic attack. I used to be mad at myself for not being able to stop it, for being in the same position after all those years. Now, when I do experience a panic attack, I give myself a hug. Yes, I literally wrap my arms around myself and squeeze! I know that giving myself a hug is helping to comfort that child who needed that hug and comfort many years ago but didn’t get it. I tell myself that I am healing and that the healing journey is not linear. Healing does not mean I will never have another anxiety attack. It means that when the anxiety comes, as it inevitably will, I will not let it consume me. I will recognize it, I will deal with it, but I will not let it control me or incapacitate me anymore.
Overweight, Anxious, and Done 