What do I do?

[Guest_71150139]

I’ve got panic disorder, ADHD and depression. I have been doing mindfulness, breathing, therapy, changed my antidepressants, going to see my psychiatrist next week for a medication review for the ADHD meds I stopped after having a panic attack that took me to hospital.

I’m privileged to be able to do all these things, but I still feel the world will be better without me and I crave to not be here….

i just don’t know where to go from here. I am exhausted and don’t feel like I can fight this anymore.

[Merricat]

Hi

You are dealing with alot of emotions right now so it's no wonder you feel exhausted and ready to give up but some how most of us just keep going because of hope I think.

Sometimes there is nothing much you can do but wait it out.  Do you usually feel better after speaking to your psychiatrist?  If you don't have friends and family to talk to try ringing Lifeline Crisis helpline as they are very good at just listening to your fears without any judgement.   

Are u sleeping okay?  Often when our mind is in overload we become so aggitated that we often don't get a good night's sleep which can make everything seem more unbearable.

I truely hope these feelings pass soon.  I know it's scarey right now for you as these feelings can be so unpredictable and it can take just one insensitive comment and it throws you out completely.

I wish you well but I know right now you probably feel that's impossible.

Warmest regards

Merricat

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Guest_71150139,

It's really tough what you are dealing with. I can hear how stuck you feel at the moment and I know that feels horrible. I've experienced panic attacks which have now subsided. I can try sharing what has helped me in case it helps.

One of the first things that helped was understanding that my autonomic nervous system was kicking into overdrive from a perceived overwhelming threat, even if logically I was not actually in any danger in that moment. I learned that my body was trying to protect me. So as much as the panic attack feels like your body is against you, it is actually trying to help you. Just this understanding alone helped somewhat. I still couldn't stop an attack once it was unfolding, but I could see the processes in my body and allow them to subside in their own time.

The next helpful thing, along with having done a lot of reading and researching to understand what was happening to me, I started working with a therapist trained in somatic approaches. With her I have learned to work with my body and I've become much more in tune with patterns/feelings/sensations in my body at a subtle level, rather than dissociated from my body as I was before. So this higher level of presence with myself, facilitated by a compassionate therapist helping me to learn this by being really co-present with me, has enabled processes of resolution in my nervous system to happen so that recurring panic attacks no longer happen.

In my case, panic attacks were largely linked to past trauma events, so through somatically processing those events my body has completed responses it didn't get to complete at the time. Thus my body isn't playing out a panic response over and over like before. Before it was really trying to repeat something it thought it had to keep reacting to, but now my nervous system knows it doesn't have to keep doing that. But I think we can inherit a predisposition for things like panic attacks too and I can see how much I absorbed my parent's anxiety patterns growing up. I've found one of the best ways to alleviate this is through new experiences that disconfirm those childhood experiences - basically experiences that teach us that safety and peace can be experienced.

I have found mindfulness helpful in the more distant past but what I found with an accumulation of panic and trauma in my system over time was that I needed more movement-based approaches. I did find a really good restorative yoga teacher at one point who was so gentle and compassionate, and those gentle movements actually did much more than just mindfulness on its own. I think the body often needs reassurance, not just the mind, and when the body feels safe it feeds back into how the mind is working. I've also done something called myofascial unwinding which is a naturalistic approach of letting the body move however it needs to in space - letting the mind go and the body move instinctively. The more I've developed these somatic skills the better I have become.

If you are feeling unsafe at all, I can recommend calling the Suicide Callback Service on 1300 659 467 or Lifeline on 13 11 14. The SCS in particular were very helpful for me when I was really strongly activated. They were very grounding and brought me back into the present moment and things de-escalated a lot. But I have also had some very supportive and grounding conversations on Lifeline too.

As impossible and stuck as things might feel like right now, they can most definitely change. I've really seen big changes in myself having been very stuck before.

Take good care and sorry for the long post! I hope that wasn't too much info. We are here to chat further if you want to.

Warm wishes,

Eagle Ray

[therising]

The warmest of welcomes to you at this incredibly challenging, stressful and depressing time in your life. I feel for you so much as you try and make sense of the way forward.

I've found one of the most powerful questions a sensitive person can ask at any given time is 'What am I sensing exactly?'. Without a helpful answer, there can be a sense of hopelessness and frustration. With the right answer comes a revelation that can liberate us in some way, while helping us graduate to a greater sense of self understanding.

I know a variety of sensitive people who are all sensitive in similar ways yet have specific sensitivities in a number of other ways. One thing most of them have in common (myself included) is the ability to sense what's naturally stressful, naturally depressing, naturally inspiring and so on. While that's pretty general stuff, the ability to sense what your chemistry or physiology is doing is next level. The ability to sense other people's feelings or emotions is also next level stuff. An example of that one would involve being pretty zen, when you walk into a room of highly stressed people, and all of a sudden you're feeling their stress running through your nervous system. While my 22yo daughter struggles with certain aspects of ADHD and my 19yo son struggles with certain aspects of high functioning autism, I can relate to some of their sensitivities. Sensing a lack of structure and grounding, sensing the impact of inner dialogue and being able to feel sound are just a few elements.

When it comes to sensitivity, I've found a different way of looking at it to be...I have the ability to sense so much but no one's shown me how to better understand, fine tune and master this ability, so it's feeling pretty out of control. It's feeling more like a curse right now.

I can't help but wonder whether you can sense what's causing the panic attacks or whether they just come from out of the blue with no obvious reason. Personally, I used to get silent migranes that would set off my nervous system something shocking, leading to what would appear as a panic attack. Not also easy to know what it is we're feeling or sensing.