Dizzy,

 

This is a tough question to answer.  I am not sure if there is a cut and dry answer to your last question at the end of your post.

In some cases of anxiety and panic like the ptsd suffered by combat veterans I feel without the right treatment and no one seems to know what the right treatment it for these veterans. I feel the their condition my be permanently disabling. It really depends on how long they were in theater. These opinions of mine are based on personal experience are are not proven facts though.   As for straight anxiety and panic I do not think it is a totally disabling and can be managed with the correct treatment.  There are so many different reason why a person suffers with these disorders. Everyone has their own past history in life so I do not think there is a cut and dry answer to your question...

 

Red

I would imagine severity dictates whether it is role transition or agoraphobia. If it bothers you but you can do it, it is roll transition, but if you can not do it, it is agoraphobia. Does it matter, you still have to treat the fear either way?

Your last question you answered yourself. Since it is all the what ifs and thinking on the fear of panic attacks that brings them on it would seem you need to do thought exposure, if you have adequate coping skills in place so you can do it.

There are people that never go back to work, but I think they are worse than you. Some people work for ever on medication. There is a lady where I live that does. Of course she doesn't handle hazardous equipment. How bad you want to go back to work dictates if you can. If you really want to you will find a way, Either on meds or by doing this program or both.

I drove heavy equipment for two years on Valium before I did not need it any more. I wasn't as good on it as I was off but I still functioned. It was sort of exposure.

There are in my opinion only two ways it can be a permanent handicap. One is if it is an actual disease, and even at that on medication it might not be, and the other one is if you just give up. Like you said if it is just how we think. Perception of the situation, negative or positive.

Have you tried rolling with the attacks? Just let them happen and ignore them. They are usually shorter and less severe than if you fight them. Eventually they become ho hum. Truly.

Good luck.

Here for you.

Davit.

My attacks have been getting so much better with the help from this book called the Happiness Trap . I think it helped my anxiety more than anything else. it's $10 on amazon

 

It's just so good. It teaches you how to reprogram your thoughts and understand them better and minimize emotional effects of them. 

I had an intense panic attack yesterday. The reason was I had two days without an attack (first time I was able to do this in years) and I lay on my back and started to think well it seems that I have some control over my attacks. Then I started to think if I stop the attack, as I was able to do for the last couple of days what will happen if I go back to work and start having them again, and this caused an attack. Work is where I eventually explode at and after awhile ended up in the hospital. So then, in my mind I had a verifiable thought that caused an attack. Most of the other thoughts that I have had have been through the negative thought challenge. So now, I figured that my attacks come from being afraid of going back to work and exploding again and I think this is why I had such a severe attack because I was relating it to my work situation. The actual truth of the matter is that they laid me off and spent a long time at home going to see a therapist and talking about how I feel and I kept bringing work up and the inability to support myself. He would say and how does that make you feel; my answer was anxious but at the time I did not know the symptoms that came along with anxiety and panic attacks. So I am thinking that I definitely had anxiety at work and it affected by the quality of my work, but I did not actually blow up until I started looking at all the things that made me anxious  like the inability to support myself, at the time I did not know that there was a disability pension. Unbelievably at first I was actually happy I was laid off because I did not have to experience that pressure of work and my anxiety or attacks towards it. So again I am thinking that although I had problems at work and was laid off I did not explode until realized that I could not live on my saving for ever and that I did not want to go to work because this is where I felt sick all the time. I am wondering is this part of my exposure that I need to do because I am actually doing it right now by working part time at home. I have realized a lot about what causes me anxieties towards work and I am working to reduce their effects. The last question I know you are going to say a doctor has to answer but my CBT said go back to work and I asked my GP if he thought I could do it and he said no. So is it the case that there are some people who will never be able to achieve there goals because of the severity of the anxiety and attacks or should everyone that is trying to change the way there are thinking eventually lead towards going back to work (in my case). The question in a more refined manner is there such thing as a permanent handicap (anxiety and panic) and if there is how this could be so if it is just because of the way we think, which can be changed.

Dizzy