Anxiety and Panic Attacks Can Never Hurt You

Panic attacks

Do not occur often or for long periods of time; usually mild

Anxiety attacks

Occur frequently enough to effect normal daily activities and can cause people to start limiting where they can go and what they can do

This is not just an article describing the signs, symptoms, and description of panic attacks or anxiety disorders. I am a sufferer of Generalized Anxiety Disorder and want to share with you what has best helped me through my affliction. If you are a sufferer of anxiety or panic, I’m sure this article will be of use to you and I know its long, but that’s because I want to take the time and explain everything that will make these better.

I know that most readers who have anxiety disorder or attacks are already aware of the symptoms. Because everybody’s anxiety is different, though, there are so many types of symptoms that sites can’t usually name them all. Every time I would feel a new symptom my mind would think disastrously, “They must have overlooked something. There really is something wrong with me.”

This is called catastrophic thinking, when your mind runs to the worst thought possible with every ache and pain. Below is a list of every symptom I have experienced so far. You may have experienced only one or maybe many of these, but I know when I felt a new symptom I hadn’t read about I was relieved when I found an anxiety site that listed it.

• Dizziness
• Fatigue/Extreme tiredness or lack of energy (Because your muscles have been tense and working very hard to support your fight or flight response)
• Sweating
• Shaking (Muscles becoming tired)
• Trembling
• Loss of thoughts or ability to control motor functions
• Thirst or Dehydration
• A feeling of detachment from reality and your own body
• Shortness of breath
• Pressure on the chest
• “Tunnel Vision” or excess focus on one particular thing around you while everything else fades or blurs
• Feeling like you are going to die suddenly at any moment
• Feeling of slowly dying
• Feeling that your body is deteriorating
• Nausea
• Feeling of a stroke
• Feeling of a heart attack
• Feeling like your losing control of your mind and you are going crazy
• Sensitivity to light and sound
• Sore muscles
• Cold sensation, which is usually followed by a:
• Warm sensation, mostly felt in the head
• Nightmares
• Depression
• Numbing or tingling in hands
• Feeling like you may hurt yourself or others
• Feel like you may lose control of your bladder
• Constipation
• Diarrhea

It is obvious that when a person experiences symptoms like these often that life is going to become a challenge. It makes it even tougher to focus on overcoming anxiety when others can’t understand what you are going through. Anxiety is often misunderstood for laziness or irresponsibility because others can’t see the painful or overwhelming struggle the sufferer experiences. I am writing this article because I currently struggle with this life-inhibiting disorder.

Medication has not helped me and has only made my symptoms worse. I would take my medication before I fell asleep and be woken by extreme anxiety. My doctor said that the medication I was given at the E.R. covered my anxiety, only for it to skyrocket when it wore off. Keep in mind that everyone’s is different, so I do not wish to say what’s best for you because I am seeing more and more each day how big of monster it can become. Okay, so here’s the weirdest thing I’ve been told about anxiety:

Any pain or discomfort you experience during a panic attack is only your perception of what is happening to you. In other words, you are unknowingly creating it! Also, Panic/Anxiety attacks can NEVER hurt you no matter how unbearable they feel. You are not damaging your body.

Trust me; I know what you’re thinking. “That’s absolutely ridiculous! The pain I feel is very real and I would never create something like that for myself. It felt like a blood vessel literally burst in my head or I could feel reality slipping away right in front of me. I felt as though I were being suffocated. I felt like I was going to die right there. And how could that pain not damage my body?”

I had the same reaction until it was explained further. When someone comes up from behind and scares you, your body produces the same reaction as when you have a panic attack. Adrenaline is sent surging to your heart and through your blood. Your heart nearly jumps out of your chest. You feel a tingling sensation all over. But it only lasts for a few seconds until your body realizes it was just your best friend trying to scare you.
This is a very important comparison when you feel that your blood is pumping too hard or that you are really going to suffocate. Your body is healthy and could only produce such strong symptoms if it were in good shape. In fact, there would be something wrong if you didn’t have this fight or flight response, or the body’s way of reacting to danger.

Before I was enlightened as to the anatomy of a panic attack, I really felt at a loss of control or hope. The feeling of detachment from reality and my body was ever-constant and I felt like I was slipping into either death or insanity. I thought I was going to be pushed by a psychiatrist into some sort of medication that could possibly make it worse and I could be on for my entire life, and I couldn’t have been more wrong.
My psychiatrist told me that he could give me medication if I wanted to cover the symptoms up for a couple of months, but that there was indeed nothing to cure because the fight or flight response plays an important role in your own survival.

It tells you to slow down at a red light because you know you would get hit if you didn’t. It tells you how save yourself if there is a mountain lion staring you down. It’s driven by fear, so what you have to do is not fear your symptoms or the possibility of them coming on while driving or grocery shopping.
The idea that you are creating the pain that is interfering with your life is not an easy idea to cope with, especially when the experience is so real to you. Here’s an example to show you what is meant when I say that you are creating this pain and discomfort.

As I have mentioned, panic attacks are your body’s fight or flight response activating for seemingly no reason. Your body lets loose a flood of adrenaline to keep you on edge for any danger you might experience. When you flee from whatever triggered your panic attack, you have now told your body that it was appropriate to feel frightened. So if it is social events that cause your panic attacks and you allow yourself to run and hide from that situation, you confirmed to your body that there was indeed a physical threat from social events and you were lucky to escape with your life. The longer you avoid these triggers, the more your mind confirms that there was danger there and you were saved by the response.

The first thing you must do is confront the triggers or trigger places of your attacks. As said, you are only telling your body that the obviously wrongly activated alert was right and that whenever you confront this, you must protect yourself. This is obviously a silly idea when your triggers are things such as the grocery store or even your friend’s house. How ridiculous is it for your body to react to inanimate objects as though they were a bear or shark?
Closing in on the solution:

When you are on a rollercoaster you are experiencing the same symptoms, only you waited in line for two hours to feel them and are excited about them. You have been waiting for that pump of adrenaline, the sweaty palms, the dizziness caused by loops and turns. IT IS THE SAME EXACT FEELING; you just reacted differently therefore receiving a different experience. When you haven’t been waiting in line for that feeling, when it comes on out of the blue, your body can find no outside danger and reacts by focusing your attention on the inside. It is said that whether or not you develop a “disorder” with anxiety depends greatly on your reaction to the first attack. Did you dismiss it and remain calm or did you think that something catastrophic was happening to your body? I was the latter; I ended up in the E.R. twice, had two doctors tell me I was perfectly fine, and yet I still couldn’t convince myself I was healthy. Knowledge of what your body is actually doing to cause your symptoms will diminish most doubt you still have left.

Finally, the Solution: Learn what your body is doing to cause your symptoms.

Shortness of Breath

Every muscle in your body is tense during an attack, especially those in your chest which puts pressure on your lungs. Remember that you are getting plenty of air; another symptom that I will go into is actually causing that dizziness.
Fatigue/Extreme Tiredness: As described, every muscle in your body tenses during this fight or flight response and is equivalent to several hours of hard labor, which causes your lack of energy.

Body Soreness

Your muscles get so tense, in fact, that they can tear just like they do when you work out. Keep your mind on the positive- you just got a workout!
De-realization or Attachment from Body: When you are breathing shallowly your body does not let out carbon dioxide properly. This slight buildup in carbon dioxide causes that weird feeling of reality.

Dizziness

Same reasons as above
Rush of blood to or warmness of the head (Feeling of stroke): Your body sends blood to the muscles that are tensed, including a sheet of muscle which covers your skull, very suddenly causing that warm or pounding feeling. So that feeling, and even the most minor of headaches, is not actually in your brain, they are caused by that muscle tensing or receiving blood. Also remember that no matter how intense this feels it CANNOT HURT YOU.
Rapid Heartbeat: The adrenaline your body let out makes your heart beat fast. A good thing to keep in mind during this symptom is that if your heart can pump that fast, it must be healthy.
Trembling/Shaking: your body can only sustain a full-on fight or flight response for so long before your muscles get tired. When the experience is prolonged, they begin to get tired and weak like if you just pushed yourself to run a half mile longer after you already felt tired.

Tunnel Vision/Noise becomes loud

This can be compared to when you are talking in front of a group or class and all you see is the audience because you’re so nervous. During an anxiety or panic attack your body goes into super-attentive mode and starts focusing on one thing or area in particular. This is why sounds can be loud, sharp, alarming, and so on.

Feel like you cannot remember things or that you are losing your mind:

Your body is so focused on having to survive that your brain cannot focus on trying to bring things to mind. It kind of “forgets” about all the words you’ve learned, what you did yesterday, and such only when you are having one. Your body feels that surviving is much more important than your thought process at this moment, so talking and thinking about anything but survival becomes difficult. This is temporary and I can assure you that you are not losing brain function or your sanity.

There are symptoms I did not cover, but I think you get the idea. Knowing what your body is doing to cause these symptoms is important so that you can assure yourself that you have no health problems. Also knowing that the pain and discomfort is only because of your own reaction will make you feel much less like a victim. Therapy and group meetings are very important to do on top of this because it will help you see others like you experiencing the same thing and it will remove any doubt left in your head about your health. Don’t try to do this on your own, you need support! Thanks so much for reading this and I wish you only the best in conquering this phantom opponent.