CAPTION: This picture is one of my bffs in the whole wide world, Chesa, and I, in the provincial hospital of Romblon. They were really nice to me, but the bathrooms were ghastly and lots of accidents were happening because of the festival… but they took better care of me there than they did in Medical City. :) No joke. Anyways, this is me hooked up to the dextrose (I had heat exhaustion, triggered by dehydration and no brekky - all my doing) after my panic episode had ended. So the valium had kicked in already.
Hello. My name is Cathy and I suffer from panic attacks. Yes, I have Googled “Panic Attacks Anonymous” to see if they have any chapters here in the Philippines (they do not). I have also considered seeing a psychotherapist about my attacks since I first started having them last year (September 2008), but since psychotherapy isn’t covered by my insurance (SUCKS!) and it costs anywhere from Php 3,500-6,000 per session here in Manila (That’s my yoga money. I don’t think so.), I decided to just get to the bottom of things on my own.
I can control my own brain. I’m a smart girl. I can DO this.
My first panic attack happened when I was being stubborn and refused to let Jay take me to the hospital after a severe bout with LBM. It was my second day and I think I had already gone to the bathroom a good 12 times, was severely dehydrated and malnourished but just thought that everything would be fine the following day (all this time, I barely drank and ate, I just slept).
Around 4am on my third day, I started seeing stars. I felt disoriented and nauseous and irritable and just all out of sorts, and I think I was probably crying on and off. Jay tried to get me dressed to go to the ER, but I told him that I wanted to wait until it was at least 6am. But when I crawled back into bed, I guess I realized that, hmmm… I’m severely malnourished and dehydrated! I feel like total sh*t! This is not healthy for me. But by then, my brain was putty, and because my brain is not usually putty, I started crying, probably forgot to breathe a couple of times, and then bam!
I was in my own little hell. It was my first panic attack. It started with these tingling sensations in my feet, hands and face. And then by the time Jay got me dressed to go to the hospital, my face was just all whack. It looked like I was having a stroke and everything was lopsided. I looked like The Joker.
The ride from our place to Medical City (10-15 minutes) felt like an eternity, and as we drove past Julia Escriva, I really and truly believed that I was having a heart attack and that I was going to die. My hands were firmly balled into a tight fist and I couldn’t control my muscles anymore at that point. I couldn’t sit still, either, so I looked like I was having an epileptic fit along with a stroke. Not a pretty sight.
After months and months of researching, I finally figured it out thanks to a friend who mentioned the word “adrenaline” over lunch on Holy Thursday. And after more research, I found out the following:
Adrenaline causes the heart to pump extra blood. This extra blood gets pumped into your major muscles to increase your ability to run fast and to increase the strength in your arms. Extra blood also goes into your brain to give you heightened abilities to respond to the emergency.
It takes three minutes from the time that your brain sends the emergency signal (when having a panic attack) until your body is fully adrenalated with extra blood in your large arm and leg muscles and in your brain. In that three minute period you experience your heart pumping hard and extra blood flowing throughout your body. As long as your adrenal glands keep getting an emergency message, they continue to produce and release additional adrenaline. Once your brain stops signaling an emergency, your adrenal glands hold the adrenaline instead of releasing it.
It takes three minutes for your adrenal glands to fill your body with the adrenaline response. It also only takes three minutes for your body to stop the adrenaline reaction. If you stop a panic attack as soon as it starts, the reaction only has to last for three minutes.
I have been rushed to the ER three times since my first attack, and because ER doctors are usually there just to treat the symptom and not the cause, all they’ve done is just give me a form of Valium or Xanax to take the edge off and, in the first and fourth case, they’ve hydrated me, told me to relax (duh. Really? You got an MD for telling me that?). But no one has ever equipped me with coping mechanisms, which I guess is what a psychotherapist would do, but again, I believe in my own ability to control my brain, if only I had the right tools.
(You can tell that I don’t have faith in doctors :). Well, I actually have this theory that, like in every profession, there are specialists and then there’s everyone else, and there are good practioners and then everyone else; so I don’t trust and believe in all doctors because most of them are so ready to prescribe, prescribe, prescribe and shoo you away from their sight.)
So I’m thinking, if adrenaline is what turns the FEAR/PANIC into a SEEMING reality, then I have to do everything I can to STOP the adrenaline from being pumped into my blood (stop the adrenal glands from filling my body with adrenaline), which causes me to hyperventillate, causing my muscles to tighten, making me irritable, fidgety and out of control.
And whattadyaknow? I found these 4 steps to do just that, thanks to this hypnotherapist who broke it down nice and simple, on her site:
1. RELAX (so hard to do when having an attack - I’ve heard this before and really HATE hearing it)
2. STOP NEGATIVE THINKING - this is totally new for me. No one has ever said, Hey Cath, replace the nega thinking with positive thinking, which is equally potent and can actually do you wonders!
According to Patti McDermott, the hypnotherapist:
Stop negative thinking by shouting the word “STOP!!!” really loud inside your head. By shouting the word “STOP” you are interrupting the emergency message that your brain is sending to your adrenal glands. Often people having a panic attack get into an endless loop repeating the same catastrophic thoughts over and over in their head. Interrupting this endless loop gives you the opportunity to replace the scary message with a calming one.
No one has ever even told me to tell myself to STOP IT. I’ve had doctors and well-meaning people say “It’s all in your head, it’s all in your head, everything is fine.” But that does NO GOOD. I KNOW it’s all in my head :). But all I can think about is the pain I felt during my first attack, how scared I was, and how in my CURRENT attack, I’m beginning to FEAR that I am headed in that same direction.
I really identify with this STOP tool. I used it today, when I got a bit lightheaded in church because I got up from kneeling too quickly, it was hot, early in the morning, etc. I started to feel clammy and then I told myself “STOP! You are in a SAFE place, everyone around you is here to worship, you felt loopy, and now you’re absolutely FINE. LET IT GO.”
It worked!
3. USE COPING STATEMENTS - I did that today! Yay me! I think I have to write down a few more so that I always have them in my wallet and can eventually memorize them, but lately, I’ve been turning to prayer, and it’s made me feel more… supported in the world, I guess :).
Jay and I stopped going to mass because we just felt like the priests were all stupid, and I’m sorry, but for the most part, people here just go to mass out of habit and don’t really do any meditation or soul-searching. And we only really identify with the lectures of more cerebral and modern priests like our priest, Fr. Francis, but he’s like, a pop star, and always out of town, traveling, lecturing, working.
But now I realize that church is really more about fellowship, and that sometimes, being in a place where everyone is there, collectively, to try to at least be good for an hour, feel blessed - that’s pretty powerful. It’s a positive energy that affects everyone and I feel that when I’m in church, riding on the shoulders of people of Faith. Church, Jewish temple, mosque, secular get-together - it’s all the same.
The Dalai Lama said that not everyone should be Buddhist, and that if you’re born Catholic or Muslim or Jewish, you should stay in your Faith. I was born to a Muslim mother and a Catholic father, but raised as a Catholic, and although I disagree with a few Catholic teachings, I like the idea of Jesus Christ, of this ideal who we all can lean on, turn to, aspire to be like, all the while knowing how extremely flawed we are, but hey - we can try, right?
I just like the idea of being good. I didn’t like it before, I’ve been a bit of a cynic the past 4 years, and I think my panic attacks are symptoms of this … yuckiness :) that just wants to come out and not be there anymore.
I say this as I prepare to bring to the hospital my aunt who is - although no one likes to say it in my family - dying of cancer. She is dying, and I know that she’s scared, tired of the fight. But I just want so badly for her to know that she is loved and to be at peace in knowing that the life after - a new incarnation perhaps, or a life as an angel, a life after… - will be better. I just know it. And I want her to know it, too. But while she is here yet, I want her to feel loved, secure, and comfortable.
When put up against her fight, my panic attacks just seem so… well, I don’t even think about them.
4. ACCEPT YOUR FEELINGS - I used to tell Jay not to tell our friends and family about my attacks because I was embarassed by them. I am quite proud and after years of living by myself, well, I’m not used to feeling vulnerable, sickly and weak. But I know that I have to change my thinking and accept that yes, I am vulnerable, but we are ALL vulnerable. And that now, I’m 30 and married - I can give myself license to lean on my partner, who will tell me that 30 is not like my years in my 20’s, when I could starve myself, go binge drinking, dance the night away, not sleep, and ace my exam the next day (and then repeat the cycle).
I’m not old! I know this. But I am not 20 anymore. I just don’t bounce back as quickly or wholly as before - and it’s cool with me now that I’ve really come to accept that I have to treat my body with a bit more care. I’ve been pretty reckless - no more of that.
*Gives self a huge bear hug, physically and emotionally*
I guess the #5 on the list would be PREVENT the attacks by eating right, exercising and just surrounding myself with the good stuff. 3 meals a day don’t do it for me, and it’s rare for me to finish an entire meal. So I’m following this grazing method wherein I’m eating every 2-3 hours. I definitely FEEL better with this method, but let’s see what it does for my energy level after a few weeks.
All right. That’s enough sharing for now.
Happy Easter. :)
