Anxiety attacks

I have anxiety attacks. I have for years. One of the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is the most debilitating thing.

I actually feel like I am dying when I am having one. A few times they have been so bad, that they mocked a heart attack to a T. I had to take nitroglycerine, but it wasn't a heart attack. Stress tests proved that. Well, you would think that logic would solve the issue. You would think that I would be able to tell myself that it is ONLY an anxiety attack, but that isn't how it works.

Anxiety attacks defy reason. They defy symptoms. They defy me. I continue to fight the battle with them. This morning for example, I had myself convinced that I had a brain tumor. It is funny when I write it. Literally funny, but during the panic attack, the short circuit in my brain tells my reason that the headache that I have between the right ear and the right side back of my head is brain cancer. It tells my brain this and the brain reacts with alarm.

It is the fight, flight or freeze instinct. I know this so well. I freeze when I am scared. It comes from being told to be quiet or I'll kill so and so. Or I will hurt so and so or I'll kill you. Well we all have the instinct, but mine is hypersensitive. Don't you LOVE that word: hypersensitive. Therapy-speak for you rely on it so much because you relied on it for survival. There were several bogeymen in my life and it made my brain act like one. WOW. That is a revelation. My brain 'learned' to act like a bogeyman was always here. That way, I would always be on alert and nothing could ever hurt me...Thus, I am hurting myself, now. How can that be? How can something so wrong be inflicted on you and then you learn to inflict it on yourself. It doesn't make sense; yet, it makes perfect sense. And that is the sad truth of it. It is a loop without end.

Well this morning was such a morning. Pain in my head. Fear in my heart. Couldn't breathe. Well, I am supposed to talk myself down from it. The problem is I have always countered the problem with eating. Stuff it down. It is also a survival instinct. "Don't tell. Don't tell. They will be killed if you tell. You will die if you tell." That is my brain on trauma; no panic room to run to-no safety net. Just pure fright. Want to know what my battered brain is thinking? Where were the lions when I needed them? Why didn't lions come and chase off the villains? Ah, but that is the loop getting going again! S-T-O-P! I am in control.

The self-talk doesn't always work, so I have to enlist someone to help talk me down or just listen. In a way, it is better that I have to TELL someone what is happening. I was told not to tell and now I have to tell. It is calming. It doesn't always work, but when it does, I am filled with a sense of peace and well being. I wish that it would last longer. That is my immediate goal: make the peace last longer...More than an hour...More than a half a day...More than a day... More than two....And so on.

Some day I will feel good for stretches. Is that normal? Do people really feel happy and peace for stretches? That is what I want to experience. Nothing extraordinary...Just a stretch of peace and calm. No worries. I just want a stretch without worries. It could happen. It can happen. It will happen. Self-talk engaged. Have a happy day.