Anxiety and panic attacks start to get hold of me... help me to revert this!

You say,

"Every night, even if i elevate my head, i feel a discomfort, a weight in my chest/belly, even if i do stretching, yoga, eat well.."

I have chest discomfort, also, and find that a heating pad helps that. It enlarges the blood vessels and rushes more oxygen and nutrients to the injured area. Do you have a heating pad?

I keep mine plugged into the wall by my bed.

When I was about 28, I was out of a job, away from people, in my apartment by myself and was getting in such by shape nerve-wise, I knew I should see a psychiatrist. I was the youngest child and never had learned to solve my own problems, always counting on my older siblings and my parents.

But now here I was living by myself and having big problems and I didn't know what to do. I knew what to do, but I couldn't do it. My negativity was coming home to roost.

It got worse and I finally got to a psychiatrist. Turned out I was bipolar.

Turned out my mother's mother was bipolar, so I inherited that, because it can skip a generation (my mother didn't have it). In my mother's mother time, 1930's, 40's, they didn't have any medicines for emotional problems, and she spent some years in a state mental hospital 100 miles from home.

Today, and for the last 50 years and more, they have many very effective medicines. So I've seen, or heard about, a lot of change.

As a bipolar, I'm on Lithium for my mania and Mirtazapine for my depression. And it has been really helpful for the past many years.

Have you ever considered going to a psychiatrist?

I appreciate the response, as it gives a good indication as to where you are in this situation.

I once had a problem in which I didn't know if I should move from where I lived or not.

I had once seen a true crime TV show where the detective was looking at a crime and said that the original police group should not have concentrated on suspect A, and ignored subject B. That the police should have run a "dual investigation" and investigated both subjects.

So I applied that to my problem of, should I move or should I stay? In other words, look into the possibility of moving by calling different apart. complexes as to price, etc. But also, improve your situation at your current address, so if you decide to stay that will be possible.

I decided to stay, and the improvements were already done.

In your case, you have a dual situation. One physical and one emotional. Why not work on both?

Why not go to a general practitioner about the physical problem, and a psychiatrist about the emotional problem?

You don't have to take any medicine that the doctor might recommend, but it would be good to get his or her opinion, and also to have a psychiatrist in case you needed one.

Another thing that might be going on is that you might have negative feelings about the outcome of this. That you might be looking to stay with these problems rather than solve them. If you were raised in a negative household like I was, you might have a negative outlook on things, on problems.

As in "no way am I going to solve this problem."

You could be holding yourself back, as I was for many years.

Were you raised in a negative household?

Tim Tam said...
I appreciate the response, as it gives a good indication as to where you are in this situation.

I once had a problem in which I didn't know if I should move from where I lived or not.

I had once seen a true crime TV show where the detective was looking at a crime and said that the original police group should not have concentrated on suspect A, and ignored subject B. That the police should have run a "dual investigation" and investigated both subjects.

So I applied that to my problem of, should I move or should I stay? In other words, look into the possibility of moving by calling different apart. complexes as to price, etc. But also, improve your situation at your current address, so if you decide to stay that will be possible.

I decided to stay, and the improvements were already done.

In your case, you have a dual situation. One physical and one emotional. Why not work on both?

Why not go to a general practitioner about the physical problem, and a psychiatrist about the emotional problem?

You don't have to take any medicine that the doctor might recommend, but it would be good to get his or her opinion, and also to have a psychiatrist in case you needed one.

Another thing that might be going on is that you might have negative feelings about the outcome of this. That you might be looking to stay with these problems rather than solve them. If you were raised in a negative household like I was, you might have a negative outlook on things, on problems.

As in "no way am I going to solve this problem."

You could be holding yourself back, as I was for many years.

Were you raised in a negative household?

I appreciate the way you think.

Tim Tam- Yes I am able to use positive thinking in soliving a problem.

Tim G.

How did you learn positive thinking?

Were you raised in a positive household?

What is your situation now? Anxiety? How is that going?

I have one grown son. Is it your lifelong goal to have children?

Are you asking that in connection with getting help from my child in case I am ill? Well, that's a good possibility.

Well, as they saying goes, "A son is a son until he takes a wife. A daughter is a daughter for life." My son is a son, so getting help doesn't apply.

But I'm use to calling help agencies, so help is help, no matter where it comes from. And I have a good neighbor, and a helper who has been very reliable. So I could probably get my 3 meals a day, thanks from knowing these fine people.

Hello Tim Tam ,i have a daughter she will be 19 next month
what medicines have u been on and from how long

Tim G:

I can't even imagine a positive household. Apparently, I passed negativism onto my now grown son because he and I can't be in the same room together.

No stranger feeling than, "I've created a monster who is out to destroy me."

You said, "I learned positive thinking by practicing positive thinking. I was raised in a positive household."

I was 50 when I learned positive thinking from reading a column in the newspaper. It was written by a woman. It spoke to me. I've been telling people about it ever since.

I look back at the mistakes I made when I was negative and in a way, I can't believe it. Which is what I'm trying to get people to avoid now. When I see others walking down that same road as I did, it really gets me.

You're talking about how much medicine has helped you, I can give you some history of that. My grandmother, my mother's mother, was bipolar which is where I got it from. My mother didn't have it, it can skip a generation.

So my grandmother had bipolar, she just didn't have any medicine, if you can imagine, which you can't. It was in the 1930s and '40s and early 50s, and they had no medicine for emotional problems. They had a mental hospital in every state (see the movie "One Flew Over the Coo-Coo's Nest" with Jack Nickleson.

It had no medicine, but it had high walls. It was 100 miles from her home. So instead of being treated at her home, like we are, she was treated at the mental hospital, which had no medicine.

When she would visit in people's homes, she would look through their medicine cabinet, and anytime she saw some pills she would take some of them. Maybe, one of them would work for her. They didn't.

So whenever we take our medicine, yeah, take it for granted. It wasn't always like this. We were born into the right era.

Let's just say I have grandchildren.

Which is how I spend much of my time, writing family history and putting together photo albums for my grandchildren, for my grand nieces and nephews. Yeah, there ain't much going on this time around.

I have "Oh, my gosh!!" reactions to things to. I panic and my thinking slows down. Just the other day, I had a health food pill I needed to take, but I only have 3 mg. tablets, and I needed 1 mg. and I was out of the 1 mg.

My first reaction was to panic. It was a sleep aid tablet and I didn't want to take more than I needed. Then my positive thinking kicked in and actually overrode the panic, and I said, "Cut the 3 mg. pill in half, and just pick out the pieces that look to total 1 mg."

And I did. And the next night I did the same thing. Then the next day, the neighbor who had been saying the 1 mg. sleep aid pills would be at his back door by delivery, came and said, "Oh, those pills were delivered to my mailbox, not the back door as I said on the phone a couple of times. "

So, I was very proud that I had not panicked but that, again, that my positive thinking had gotten through my confusion and concern, and turned a panic situation into a solution.

That I had solved the problem on my own, using the brain that I have, by switching it to positive by saying, "Think positive" before going into the problem.

I never thought of myself as a panic person until you wrote that about your family. That's the first time I've even thought of that. I just thought, my adrenalin gets to going to fast, I can't think. But again, my positive thinking l slipped through that and solved the problem.

A time when it didn't slip through, I don't drive much and took a daring adventure with my dog to a nearby neighborhood. Like going to the moon for me, all the way to the next neighborhood. And driving. My dog and I took a walk around the block and I can't find the keys to the car. I freaked, and I just a few minutes ago realized this is the panic like you said you family did.

I went knocking on doors in the dark of complete strangers asking them to take me home to the next neighborhood (with a busy 4-lane in between and I couldn't cross it). One did, I got in my kitchen, calmed down, looked in my top shirt pocket, not my pants pocket, and there were my keys. There was no problem, I just panicked.