Hi, just got back from seeing Therapist.
We were talking about my driving phobia, anxiety about the children hurting themselves so overcontrolling them all the time, and anxiety about having to say certain things to certain people.
I never actually have a panic attack but I feel generally anxious ALL the time and sometimes intensely anxious - heart beating too fast, not breathing properly, feeling dizzy, hot and cold, shaky, paralysed with fear, can't concentrate.
- PAPER BAG TECHNIQUE - He gave me a couple of paper bags with his name and contact details on! I've heard the paper bag thing before and dismissed it and thought "I'm not doing that, I'll feel like a twonk". He said it is really useful though because you don't have to use a load of will power to will yourself into calming down, it is a purely 'mechanical' 'fix'! He said carry the bags in your handbag and before you get to the stage where you might have a panic attack, seal a paper bag over your mouth and nose and breath as normally as you can. He also said do it where nobody can watch you if you feel stupid.
He said when we are anxious we breath faster because this is a primitive reaction to danger/stress left over from prehistoric times when we might have to run away from or fight a beast or play dead (freeze) so that the beast loses interest. If we were going to run or fight we would need the extra oxygen from breathing faster but because we often don't run or fight when we get anxious now, the oxygen builds up in our blood until there is too much and this causes the physical symptoms of panic.
Breathing through a paper bag stops so much oxygen getting in, then the bag holds some of the CO2 we breath out so the level of oxygen in the bag drops and we breath this in. The level of oxygen in your blood will gradually lessen and the physical symptoms of panic will lessen.
- EMDR TYPE TECHNIQUE - Therapist explained that one side of your brain is where your emotions are and the other side is where your logic is. While we are asleep, during rapid eye movement sleep, the eyes move alternately as a method of stimulating one side of the brain and then the other alternately. This helps the process of information going from one side of the brain to the other and back again in order for the brain to process the feelings and thoughts and make sense of them. He said that one side of the brain controls the opposite side of the body and the other side controls the other side of the body. Therefore if you stimulate each side of the body alternately you will stimulate your brain to process your thoughts and feelings quicker (this is what EMDR therapy is basically). He said that if you are anxious and you are having anxious thoughts, if you pat your legs alternately while you are thinking about the thing that is making you anxious, your brain will be stimulated to process the thoughts and feelings and make you feel less anxious.
He got a woman to do this on a plane when she was terrified of taking off and he said she felt ready for taking off by the time they reached the runway!
- COMMON SENSE - With the worry over the kids he said if you trust your instincts you DO KNOW what things you should stop your kids doing because the consequences could be too dangerous. With other things which have some risk that they might hurt themselves but they wouldn't be injured for life or killed, if you want to make yourself let them do it and not overcontrol them he said if you let them do it once and they are fine, it won't feel so bad next time, and even less scary next time etc because you can see that they did it and nothing bad happened so nothing bad is likely to happen. He suggests looking at what other people allow their kids to do and whether their kids are ok doing those things and says that some things people will be wrong about letting their kids do but if you trust your instincts, when you feel really strongly about it, don't let them do it! I suppose this is just common sense which I find hard to see! I suppose I've got to think "What is the worst that could happen?" "Would it be life changing if that happened?" - if not then let them do it.
Kids will only learn about some dangers by having little accidents and it is important that they learn this while they are children so that they can cope in the real world. Therapist said you are doing them a disservice if you don't allow them to learn this.
- DON'T BURY YOUR WORRIES - Therapist said if you bury your worries and don't deal with them it will make you generally anxious. He always talks about 'honouring' your feelings and using them as 'signposts' as to what you need to do next. Eg. I need to tell my family that something they are expecting me to do I am not going to do because it will cause me too much stress to do it and the thing isn't important enough to put myself through that stress. I am dreading telling them and don't know what to say because I'm scared of them being angry and upset or thinking I am a drip. Both alternatives, doing the thing, or not doing it and explaining why, seem scary so I have put off thinking about it and it is making my whole mood generally more anxious about everything else! Instead we have worked out what I could say to explain that I am not going to do what they want me to do and the best way to say it so as not to make them angry. Now that I know what I am going to do I feel a bit better and once I've actually said it I will feel a LOT better.
I just tried the leg tapping thing while thinking about all the things I want to get done today. I was feeling overwhelmed that there might not be enough time and that if I don't get these things all done DH will be angry with me when he gets home or other bad things might happen etc. The anxiety was rising. I tried doing the tapping while thinking about the things I have to do today and I did calm down a bit. It could be first time 'luck' though so I will keep trying it at other times and see if it works.
If all this verbal diarrohea can help anyone or spark any ideas they find useful I'll be glad I posted.