I wont go into th ereasons why on here but I had serious anxiety attacks...and i mean serious. I understand what it feels like to be paralyzed by fear, to have that fear stop you doing anything...literally anything. The docs will happily get you addicted to diazepan just to get rid of you, DONT TAKE it, it is a horrible drug to get off of when you are up on high doses.
Beating the fear requires undertanding what it is and what it isnt. It is a chemical reaction to a thought, often triggered by a past event. It isnt necessarily a reaction to a real a nd immediate danger.
I found myself shaking in fear on rides, especially as I got further away from my 'safe place'. It restricted all aspects of my life until I decided I was no longer going to tolerate it anymore.
I decided to distract my mind 100% of the time, get involved in activities that made my mind think outside of it's usual parameters. For example I would stop riding regular loops I knew well and go get deliberatly lost and make myself find a way back. That took incredible willpower to fight against the fear, but when I had to concentrate on getting back while my mind was occupied the fear was gone..totally gone. It returned when my mind became idle again.
The only thing that changed in that time was what I was thinking about. The external factors (traffic, weather etc ) remained tha same. This told me I was allowing my thoughts to convince me there was areal danger out there when there wasnt. The fear wasnt real.
I learned that the brain has an amigdala (sp?) that controls the fear response. Trouble is God messed up when he designed it in so much that it cannot re set itself to a normal fear level after it has been set at a higher fear level. So for example after a real shock, the event that caused that shock is long gone, but the amigdala doesnt reset itself so the fear level is maintained artificially high. Hence we sense fear when no real danger exisits.
So How to re set this amigdala?
Ans:
BEHAVE like a fear free person. Face the things you percieve to cause you fear and do so in a calm way.
Conciously force yourself to stop shaking, to breath normally instead of fast etc. Once I changed my physical behaviour from that of a panic stricken animal to that of a calm rational man and kept my mind diverted 100% ofthe time, the fear subsided and went away.
The amigdala only responds to behaviour, not thoughts. You cannot just tell yourself to be calm, you have to behave and act in a calm way...act out the role of a calm person if you like.
One other thing, anti depressant meds. Some of these can have the side effect of increased anxiety, citalopram being one of them. I think GPs often do not differentiate between anxiety and depression and treating one can affect the other adversly.
Even now however the fear returns occassionally. Often on the bike when I am day dreaming and my mind allows the traumas back in. I have my own way of forcing it back out.
I visualize fear as a big playground bully, you know th eone that preys on weakness? In my mind he is a big devil looking creature. When he arrives, I front up to him and tell him to 'f*** off in a very strong way. Then I immediatly distract my mind and think other things. Telling myself that the only thing that changed was my thoughts. There is no more danger around me than there was yesterday or the week before, so the fear isnt a reasonable reaction to my situation, which is in fact ..safe.
Another thing that helps me is not constantly talking about fear/anxiety with people (this thread being an exception right now). That is why I feel counselling isnt a helpful thing for extreme anxiety/panic attacks. It jus tkeeps your mind revisiting whatever it is that fgreaked you out so bad in the first place.
I now have a zero tolerance appoach to unreasonable fear. Dont get me wrong, a reasonable level of fear is acceptable...it is designed to keep us safe...but recurring panic attacks are not reasonable...or proportionate.
JMHO.
.
