I remember my first debilitating panic attack: I was fifteen minutes into my 7th grade History class, the day after Halloween. I started feeling sick and sat for an hour in the bathroom, waiting to throw up and trying to talk myself into going back to class. Unable to stand it, I had my dad pick me up from school and didn't go back for the rest of the year. Until two months ago, I used to have to take extra clothes with me, because my panic attacks would cause me to sweat so profusely, you could literally wring water out of my clothes. Of course, I didn't know I was having panic attacks, but rather, I always felt like I was "broken."
I don't remember ever not being afraid, even when I was a little girl. I hated school and would do whatever it took to stay home: my doctor got frustrated with me and thought, for a while, that I was "faking" to get through the "tough teenage" years. I visited specialist after specialist after specialist, but everyone kept trying to tell me I was fine. Finally, I quit going to doctors and tried counselors instead. I found it extremely difficult to trust them and would often lie just to get out of their office; let them believe I was progressing when all I wanted to do was pull my hair out, lock myself in my room, and just die.
Finally, at the very end of an eighteen month service stay in another state, I had a "melt down" so severe, I started hyperventilating to the point I almost passed out.
When I returned home, it took me six months to be brave enough to get into a Panic and Anxiety specialist who diagnosed me with Agoraphobia. I felt so relieved to have a name to my dysfunction after well over a decade!
But that relief has slowly morphed into absolute frustration. My treatment was mostly "cognitive therapy," which I hate some days. Sometimes it will take me nearly a half hour to figure out I'm having a panic attack - I'm so used to them, in a sense. And by then, the last thing I am able to concentrate on is how slow and even I can count my breaths or how to counter my "error thinking." I would get frustrated when my counselor would ask me what my thoughts were that triggered the attack and what I was thinking during the attack. All fine and dandy except my mind is racing so fast, all I see or "think" is a rush of color. Come to find out, I have ADD also, so concentrating is already difficult without anxiety to fuel a scattered mind.
Again, I've stopped counseling and decided to try the internet. I was so happy when reading lesson one; for once, I found somewhere that said there didn't necessarily have to be a "trigger" in order to have an anxiety attack. Finally! I can't wait to start these lessons, though I'm still a little wary about the cognitive part.
Is there anyone out there who's been frustrated with cognitive therapy? I've been doing it well over a year and a half and really struggle with it. How have you been able to make it work for you?
I want to get better and not be afraid anymore, so I'm willing to keep trying cognitive therapy because so many people say it works. I just need help figuring out how.
