Sunny

Thank you for your advice on how to make the positive thought more reinforcing. Thinking about them and adding a visual aspect to them is better than just thinking about them alone. I am a very visual person with an active imagination for being able to catastrophizing. When I first started school they noticed that I could not read and write, but they kept pushing up in grades until I was in grade 6 and could barley read. All through my early grades I was forced to leave class and go into a private room and try to read out loud to an adult who was supposed to be helping me. All I can remember is every time I read I was told that, it was wrong. I think this is where I stated to develop negative thinking because I couldn’t wait to go to kindygarden, but once I had a reading problem I did not want to go to school ever again. At this time they were going to send me to the ranch a school for people who couldn’t learn and probably would end up in a trade (and I am not saying there is anything wrong with a trade because I enjoyed woodworking). At this time my mother went berserk and demanded that they test me, and so they did. The next thing I know I going to a special school for the learning disabled and the teacher there must have known me better than I did, because she helped me by not making me read to her she chose the books for me to read and I figured it out for myself and went about four grade levels in one year. So I went from being an idiot to expectations of me going to university which I did. I am not telling you this story for sympathy I am telling it to show how young I started learning negative thinking. Perhaps the situations are different for people but maybe we all start at an early age. So along with anxiety attacks I have developed anxiety to writing, reading, and spelling things that are required for my job. But one interesting point they never told me my IQ but they did say that I was in the top of imagination and abstract thinking. Both of which can be used very successfully to develop anxiety and for catastrophizing.  So in conclusion I was not asking for your age because I am too much of a gentleman to ask a women her age no mater how young or old she is, I was just trying to say that I had developed negative thinking at a young age like you and had not started to try to change me thinking until about a year ago.

Dizzy

Davit

Or anyone with more insight then I have

I was reading your blog and I noticed that you’re trying to find the trigger as am I. I have determined that when in bed I will say “I think I am going you have a panic attack” and then I do. One thing pulses me is why do I keep saying these words one day I did no self talk while I bed and did not have an attack. I also challenged the thought above and I came up with 7 other sentences that would trigger an attack. So using Occam's razor(philosophical term) which states instead of finding an answer for every sentence I find one answer for all sentences. The answer I came up with is that it is anticipatory attacks. When reading though the sessions I think I remember the session saying there is a thought perhaps a behaviour and an sensation and hen a thought and then an attack. So I noticed that when I said this triggering sentence I had a sensation of a foggy brain. Unfortunately I went to a CBT before joining this site and he taught me a breathing technique similar to this web site that should with practice stop the attack. This was both good and bad in that at one point I had full control over the attacks and reduced any of them to less than a minute. But I know realize (perhaps rightly or wrongly) that I was reinforcing the trigger sentence by noticing the attack trigger sensation and then assuming I was going to have an attack and I would immediately start breathing to stop the attack. The two previous days when I said I was going to have an attack I recognized the sensation (foggy) that indicated that I was going to have an attack. And as the site says are you sure you have to have an attack after the sensation. This led me to two successful days of saying the trigger sentence, and then getting a foggy sensation, but I managed to stop it there and not have an attack. Until today I woke up and said the sentence twice and was able to stop them as before. Then I don’t know what happened I can’t remember saying anything or having any sensation but I just burst out and had an attack. Of course I used to treat this as a bad experience trying to find what I did wrong, but know I am changing this experience to a more positive thought as to what can this teach me. As Socrates said an unexamined life if not worth living, to which one of his students said, do you know yourself now? And he replied I know that I know a little more than someone who hasn’t examined there life. So to get to my dilemma I had the attack and I have had so many and now that I don’t have the typical thoughts that the typical panic attack is supposed to have, like I going crazy, I am going to die. What I noticed that I was saying is why the heck did I fail this time, and tempermental lingo (I will explain in a moment), was ever time I could feel I bit of pressure in my head I go angry, then I tried to start box breathing and it attack got larger in intensity and I got angrier the attack continued and the pressure started to go on my left side of my head, and I got mad at that, I kept trying to thing what can I say to stop it. This is how much the attack does not scare me I am able to visualize my happy space and calming space neither of those worked and again I got angry. At this time I probably gave up trying to do anything and just watched it until I decided it had enough. I go to an anxiety group and what tempermental lingo means is the angry feeling we associate fear. Like why cant I stop this, I must be defective because I can’t gain control, I am ashamed of my normal human imperfections, all of which can be coined in another way but the premise is that anger can have the same sensation as anxiety. And as the author tells it the anger during an attack tells the person how long and how much he must suffer from this attack. So how ever you want to catalogue my negative thoughts I believe they have the same affect. So my question is I was just looking at session 1 and it says if you go looking for the attack (or sensation) you are likely to find it. Which is what I did today before I had the attack I was feeling the top of my head looking for heat (because that the way it feels after an attack) only I was looking for some consequences to my first two triggers that just produced a foggy feeling and there was none. This astonished me because I had the second foggy feeling for quite some time and I could not believe that there would be no consequence from it (typically dizziness is consequence of an attack and head pressure). So another question is why do I keep say these sentences when I know there is no danger and I know they trigger an attack? But I also think if I don’t somehow beat this in another way then to stop saying triggering sentence then I give the sentences power over me. I noticed that you were looking for the trigger and in your attacks do you have any suggestions as what to do with mine.

Dizzy

Anyone with success in box breathing

As the session on relaxation said anxious people don’t breathe from there diaphragm, while as far as can remember I have not breathed from my diaphragm for 30 years (at least intentionally). I had seen a CBT therapist before coming to this site while a made progress in that the panic attacks did not bother me as much they still leave me with an on edge felling every day. Since seeing the therapist I started box breathing and as the session said I became dizzy within a few moments. The questions I have are one, I now can box breathe without dizziness but it takes me a while to get results (IE. I have to do it for longer than 5 min), so I am doing anything wrong if I do it for longer than 5 min? Here is my thinking on it, if I do it for longer than 5 min than I am setting myself up for my body or mind to learn that it takes longer than 5 min to reduce symptom. On the other hand if I do it for 5 min and get no result I feel as if I have failed (I know negative thinking). According to my previous CBT I should get to the point where it only takes a few breaths to get rid of anxiety symptoms (again I saw this as a failure because I wasn’t able to achieve a 5 min reduction in symptoms). By doing it longer than 5 min I can some results, which is more than my initial attempts which produced nothing, this gives me some sense of accomplishment. Two my major symptoms are dizziness which was initially caused by starting boxed breathing (as your session suggest), when I have achieved results my body calms down but nothing happens in my head IE. no reduction of pressure or dizziness. My thinking on this is that genesis of my anxiety attacks happened when I lost my hearing and had severe vertigo, so instead of I thinking I going to die of a heart attack, or I am going to faint, I attributed every symptom to my loss of hearing and, consequently my head symptoms are still my main area of attention (I am trying to reduce attention to symptoms in my head). I think this is why I am unable to get a reduction of symptoms in my head because I still give my head symptoms to much power by paying attention and maybe because I am complaining about my lack of ability to reduce symptom in my head this is also giving to much attention and power to the symptoms. So the question is what does it feel like to have success and does your whole body experience it, or is the reduction in symptoms just as personal as an anxiety attack in that it I different for everyone. Three, I seems to have this thought in my head that if I have a lot of symptoms I cannot get rid of them all at once, this is my experience, I get a reduction of symptoms after 5 min then I go longer to get a further reduction, so does a successful person get rid of all symptoms in 5 min, or is it again a personal thing and everyone is different. Finally I am still of session 3 but my old CBT told me do the breathing when I have an attack to stop it, so far I have not noticed this in your plan of dealing with panic attacks, (and unfortunately my CBT said I was supposed to stop attack this in a couple of breaths, and I did for a while but thing changed and then I could not). My negative maladaptive thinking on this is when I have a higher intensity I believe that I cannot stop it with box breathing. Again negative thinking around the attack because I was once able to reduce the attack to moments and not know. (According to him this is the behavioural part of stopping an attack which ignores the cognitive part of it). Perhaps this is a question for one of the educators do you recommend boxed breathing as an behavioural technique during an attack of does it just become a crutch that we would rely on and cause us not to seek out the negative thinking associated with the attack.

Dizzy

Sorry for the extremely long post but I needed to unburden myself, as I was taught that a man does not complain and talk about his feeling or fears. I have not talked with any clarity about my fears and problems until a year ago. I find it now somehow cathartic in that when I lay everything out I usually gain insight that I had not had before.

I have questions that will help me to decide on what exposure work I should do. To start a bit of background I developed Labyrinthitis a loss of hearing and had extreme positional vertigo, this is when I developed my panic attacks. Every time I would turn slightly to my left I would experience vertigo and panic attack associated with the vertigo. The way I dealt with this was to tense up my head and left side of face and neck. After awhile I stopped having panic attacks but kept the tension in my head. At this time I did not know what anxiety attacks were or anxiety I was emotionally immature. So as I went through school as you can imagine I developed anxiety to a lot of things. However I did not realize I was developing anxiety to this thing because my fear would manifest itself in physical symptom. As you wrote in your sessions I Google every physical alliment and justified it with known medical illnesses. I did not look for anything exotic justification my main justification was allergies, since I had headaches all the time particularly in my sinuses (and yes I did go to an allergist and prove that I had them). As I went through school and university I developed anxiety toward more and more situations (I am told that when you have anxiety and panic attack you tend to color everything you do with a sense of anxiety). Through high school and university I would prepare (or do home work less and less) because I order to concentrate I would have to tense up my head even more to get rid of the inability to concentrate. I have to add a little piece of information hear when I started school I was diagnosed with a learning disability for reading, writing, grammar and especially spelling. So my excuse for my in ability to concentrate through high school and university was my learning disability. I developed anxiety towards reading and writing and spelling and an assortment of other things.

 Then I graduated and went to work in a CA firm where I passed the professional exams and worked for a year and a half. When I worked at the CA firm I developed a burning sensation in my face every time I went to work and it would stop when I left work at this time I self-diagnoses that I had chemical sensitivity to my environment and that’s what caused the burning in face and sinuses. I was so on edge from this situation that I developed agoraphobia to the building all day all I wanted was to get out of there and get some relief. But I did not quit my job I kept working until I got laid off. As you can imagine this was very distressful to me, but on the other hand I was able to not go to work anymore (which gave relief “avoidance”) where I now know I was experiencing anxiety. Then I started to see a therapist after being checked out by an psychiatrist and they believed that had chemical sensitive and deduced that I was an perfectionist and not in touch with my emotions. So I spent years talking to the therapist and I ended up talking about my fear to go back to work because this is where I experienced most of my distress at the same time I realized that I was running out of money and how was I going to live. This continued examination of my anxieties caused me to end up in the hospital where a new psychiatrist diagnosed my disorder, that all the tension and pain in my body was just in my mind (in other word I was delusional). Yes I have been re-diagnosed with a mood problem and not delusional by a professional. You can imagine what that diagnoses of delusional did to me, on the up side of things I was able to get disability from the government and I decided that doing nothing for the rest of my life (not working) was what I was going to do.  I applied for social housing and stayed home with my father pretty much doing nothing all day. The drug the psychiatrist gave me got rid of the pain from my body but it did not get rid of the anxiety and depression. I then developed irritable bowel where I would spend 5 hours a day going to the bathroom about 5 to 6 days a week. If you look up irritable bowel you will find that having anxiety and panic attack can certainly make it worse. You can imagine what fun I was having now and I still had anxiety an inability to concentrate and would not engage my mind with anything meaningful (except that I became a board member of a mental health agency and did some part time work). But every time I sat down at the computer to do work I would develop irritable bowel and not know why (the reason I have in my mind now was the anxieties that I had built up from my learning disability from school and university and at work). This is when I developed a serious complication to my medication that was prescribed to me and I decided, against my psychiatrist wishes to go off it. Then all the tension came back into my body and I had an epiphany that I was suffering from panic attacks an anxiety (I read somewhere that its easier to face fear my creating physical manifestations rather than dealing with the emotion, but as they also said if you continue to do this eventually you will explode like I did and end up in the hospital). This is the time my I decided that I had anxiety and panic attacks that resulted in tension and pain in my body. So I spent a year meditating and I gradually got rid of all the pain and tension. But know I am faced with having to deal with panic attacks and anxiety and all the negative maladaptive connections I made in my past. I no longer think that allergies cause me headaches or sinus problem I fact I drive around with my car windows down during allergy season, I am not entirely sure just how much learning disabilities I have and how much can be explained by anxiety. (The proof there is when my anxieties subside at night all of a sudden I can spell better and write more fluently). I do not think that I have chemical sensitivity anymore. One last thing I have also been diagnosed with Dysthymia a constant state of depression, but to be entirely truthful I really don’t notice it as much as I notice the anxiety. So know that I have got rid of all the tension in my head I have started to have panic attacks in bed just like I was having when I lost my hearing.

Two question here did I learn the panic attack from my Labyrinthitis as you have mentioned the way we learn panic attacks is by association. Evidence for it is attacks generally happen when I turn in bed (as when I had Labyrinthitis); evidence against this is the attacks do not 100 % of the time happen when I turn in bed. Evidence for is Labyrinthitis the attacks are always in the morning time, that is when I have my most vivid memories of attacks from Labyrinthitis.  I also have considered the possibility that they come from the time when I went into the hospital because I was worried about getting a job at that time because to do so I would  having to face my chemical sensitivity of an office. Evidence for this is that I would wake up in bed and lay there for quite awhile then I would start to feel my muscles tensing up and causing pain. It is also possible that the pain was from a MDD episode made worse by anxiety. Trying to diagnose the problem myself does help me solve the problem since I can’t go back in time and be properly diagnosed. In CBT you teach us that the problem we should focus on is now but how do you reconcile that with learning to panic in a certain situation from the past. So forward looking I still have the same danger (of worrying about going to work again), only this time the danger is not being able to concentrate and realizing that I have anxiety towards everything I would have to do read, write, spell and function in an stressful situation and have time pressure to perform. Basically I have just switched one problem for another the old chemical sensitivity, with new panic attacks and anxiety. The difference is that this time I know what my problem is and I can work on it where in the past I felt like a victim of sensation from chemical sensitives. I know that anxiety problems are often co-morbid with depression and I wondered about how much my depression could contribute to my panic attack. To me I think I am challenging my depression because I stopped the medication and am now facing my fear and have tools to do it with, I no longer have a sense of hopelessness because for the first time I am doing self help. I think the main source of my depression was the negative thinking I had, blaming my loss of hearing and allergies for all the pain I had in my head. And losing my job was a result not being good enough because of my learning disability. This learning disability thought does not come out of nowhere I have been stigmatized with it all my life. (I will give one example I wrote a paper on environmental accounting at the time it was an emerging issue, I got my paperback and my professor wrote on it this would have been an excellent paper if it was not for the grammar, now I will tell you the mark I got perfect in every category but got 1 out of 10 for grammar). All my professors knew I had a learning disability, why did he not say this is a great paper and if you would like I can show you where your grammar mistakes are. I know the saying people do things that annoy use not to annoy us; I doubt that he said those comments to annoy me it’s just how I perceive them. I have challenged all these thoughts that I have expressed here but I keep having panic attacks. From reading other people’s posts it is probably too early to expect the panic attacks to go away. But I was wondering how I expose myself to panic attacks in bed I could go right now a lay in bed and turn as much as I wanted to and not produce any anxiety attack. A more recent thought I have considered, is do I know that all my confusion is related to anxiety, I go to a support group and there is a member there who is always depressed and he tells me that he often finds it hard to concentrate. I have spent at least 3 decades in this state I do not know what it it's like to have a clear mind, however on the side of anxiety my thinking becomes more clear as the day goes on or perhaps the farther I get away from the panic attack of the morning. So my other though was don’t wait to get well to do something do something to get well. I have been exploring doing some volunteer work or helping people that can’t afford an accountant to stop them from going into bankruptcy. So if my panic attacks come from Labyrinthitis memory I don’t know how to gradually expose myself to them, but to simply go to bed every night and challenge the negative thinking I have towards them. On the other hand if my attacks are from the perception that I have an in ability to work because of my confusion I have devised a plan for that.

 Another question I have I read one of the councilors post and they said how much do you get out of worrying about the same thing. My problem with thoughts are that I keep analyzing the same things to death, not really worrying but I keep looking for the best solution for a client problem and often when I continue to analyze the same thing I come up with a better solution to the problem. I have tried brain storming but it doesn’t work for me sometimes the best solution will come when in bed trying to go asleep and then the answer just pops into my mind. I think that this is a sense of trying having the perfect answer. But I also notice when I go for a walk and am not thinking about a client my thoughts will go to the future or past and then I challenge them right away. I am trying to practice mindfulness and am taking yoga where I try to concentrate through the whole session about my breathing and what a particular position feels like. This has taught me how maladaptive my behavior has become because when I do a particular stretch that is supposed to be stress relieving my head tenses up immediately. So the things I notice about my thought specifically are they are not in the present is mindfulness useful or am I perceiving a problem where this none. I think I may be trying too hard to find everything that is documented as anxiety related. Is it possible that I notice the self talk more now because I am always looking for maladaptive thoughts?

So to sum up I went from Labyrinthitis and allergies as the sum of my entire problem to learning disability as the cause of me developing more anxiety to panic attacks and depression as the source of my confusion and as a danger to returning to work. This is all or nothing thinking isn’t it. I have defiantly developed a propensity towards negative thinking and all ways trying to find the reason for everything. Perhaps my confused state is just something that I going o have to live with and has no answer.

I have gone through session 1 to 3 taking a week or more with the sessions. I also have been to CBT and challenged negative beliefs, according to therapist he said, “That he never had any one finish the book or know so much about anxiety and panic attacks”. These are his words. I did not believe them I did believe him about finishing the book but not knowing about panic attacks and anxiety. The reason I did not believe him as he set the goals for me to achieve from our sessions. My most important goal was to stop having attacks. His goal was to return to work and ignore all the symptoms I had, and if I did have any anxiety that I was to use breathing technique to stop all sensations. I noticed that in Panic Centre you set your own goals, which allows you to have a sense of accomplishment. After he set the goals for me, I was unable to stop panic attacks and breathe away any sensation. However, in a support group I go to the general mantra is, “The rate of recovery is in direct proportion to the amount of discomfort you are willing to bear and to function normally while bearing it”. The only knowledge you need for this is to realize that the symptoms you have are distressing but not dangerous and they come from anxiety. I think one of my problems is I have so many negative thoughts that I challenge them right away and then never revisit them. I have considered going over my journal, sifting though, finding all the negative thought challenged, and putting them on a separate piece of paper. Perhaps some of negative thoughts are just the same theme but said in a different way. When I was at the CBT therapist, I had identified my negative core beliefs. However as I keep coming across new thoughts I think my negative core beliefs are changing not because I got rid of it but because I had the wrong one to begin with. About the pain when going of the medication it returned, but I mediated all the tension away and with the tension gone, the pain went with it. I think one of my core beliefs or negative thinking problems are in the past as I have said I would blame all my problems on one thing or another usually with a physically manifestation. In other words, I was picking up twigs when I had a log in my eye. Therefore, now that I have finally realized, at least to some extent that my problems are fear based I pay too much attention to my confusion. My therapist said, “You give it to much power to your confusion by paying attention to it”. I agree with him, however since I have just recently noticed that my problem is fear based I seem fascinated with how screwed up I am from it. I have Google all sorts of things such as a learning disability are disguised by anxiety. That when I lost my hearing and developed vertigo if you Google it says, that this can be a major source of panic attack. I have also Google that I constantly have sever tinnitus in one ear and some in another and I think they said that people with this condition are 70 percentage more likely to develop depression. Finally I my support group another mantra labels people like me as intellectual tiring to find a reason for everything when you should take an average view of life and not find fault with everything that happens. Davit, you are write that I probably have to accept my disability I have even said this to some else, interesting how I can give advice but cannot take it home with me.

dizzy

Davit

I am asking for some clarification or some more information on what you said. When you talk about coping techniques what specifically worked for you. As far as I know the coping, techniques I have available are to try to relax, box breath, and progressive relaxation. I also exercise and do yoga and try to practice mindfulness.  According to panic centre self-care activities are; Do activities you enjoy; Practice relaxation; Speak with family and friends; Exercise; Read. Aside from  what I have here, I am wondering am I missing something and if I am, is it because I am on session 4 or have you come up with other techniques that work for you because they are personal in which case I ask that you not share them. However, if you have some generic kinds I would sure be interested in knowing what they are. When you say, “instead of trying to fix one I fixed how I thought” are you referring to fixing triggers (as fixing each one) and you corrected how you thought about the triggers and how you perceived them, is this where you found all your negative perceptions. I think I found the answer when you said instead of fixing every situation you fixed how you thought about them I am assuming (a trigger is a situation). Finally, did you look for core beliefs as a staging ground because it seems to me if you fix a core belief where quite a few negative automatic thoughts come from then you have addressed all the negative thoughts by dealing with one big one? Happily awaiting your answer and do not over tax yourself when you get a chance I would like to know what you think. I think we may have stayed away from the original thread a little but I would appreciate hearing your responses anyway.

Dizzy

Davit

From your post, I noticed that you said that I am a fool for believing the core belief, I hope this is not what you actually say, and is your way just to reinforce to me about core beliefs. I am trying to remain positive and if I would say that I am a fool for believing in negative core beliefs it becomes a negative thought to me because, I am blaming myself for developing them. I the support group I go to one of the problems anxious people have if that they always tiring to be perfectionist or at least this is so in my case. The author of the book says to take the average view and not put yourself down for making mistakes. This is something that I always did, but I am not doing it as much as I used to, so I don’t put myself down for have a negative core belief I accept that I have it and accept that it part of the human condition and I am trying to change my core belief. One other thing that I have been considering trying, is rather than trying to get rid of an core belief it may be smarter to create I opposite and positive one instead of trying to get rid of the false and negative one. I think this suggestion works for people like you and me, who are older and are tiring too change the belief, because it seems to me if I had done it when I started having problems (I.E. I would not have developed so many negative thoughts), and such a strong core belief (that comes from reinforcing it over a long time). I see the advantage to challenge your core beliefs when you are young and just starting to developed belief. I have also just come to the realization of what I am not doing and should be doing, and that is that I would challenge a negative thought or core belief but it would end there. I may even have believed 100% in the new thought, but I am not reinforcing it by saying it ever time that negative thought comes to mind. In my group, the major thing the author says is that we are probably afraid more of the sensations of fear then we are of the situation. I fact this is how I developed many of my false core beliefs because I did not realize that the sensations I was experiencing were from fear, however I don’t believe that this is the situation for everyone. So one mantra is “sensation are distressing but not dangerous”, this thought hold true for me because as I have said before I took all sensation in my body an attached a physical aliment to them, or now I see them is an impediment to working.

Dizzy

Davit

I in no way inferred from your explanation that you were calling me a fool. I was just trying to say that saying this to yourself, is to me kind of a negative thought. But I can definitely see how things can get misinterpreted especially when feeling are involved.

Dizzy

I woke up in bed and had a head full of tension from working out, earlier in the day. When I woke up at 4:30 I let the tension release (a release of tension to me feel like an intense amount of unreality, yes I realize that this is not how most people’s experience with release or tension but I told both doctors assured me that, that is just the way I am currently). It caused self-talk as if I cannot handle this and I am going to have an attack (none of which produced an attack). Then I turned to lay on my right side where I let the pressure continue to release. I said nothing then all of a sudden, I had an attack 5:30 am. I then went back to sleep and woke up again around 8:30 am. This time I let the tension release again causing the same unreality as I first described from this morning attack I had no thoughts about having an attack, all though I had a startle reaction to a change in sensation but still no attack I got up at around 9:30 am. During the release of tension at 8:30 am I was confident that I was not going to have an attack. My question is, is there a greater vulnerability to attack when tired and waking up early in the morning or is it my perception that there is. I can justify how I may have come to this perception and it is that the bulk of my attacks happen early in the morning. Therefore, I have made a false connection to being vulnerable in the early morning hours. However, I also know that this is not the case 100% of the time. Either way I have to change my perception but do I change, it to the vulnerability is all in my mind, or to when you have very little sleep you are more vulnerable to an attack. My guess is your answer will be a combination of the two. I also looked up another members problem with sleep, and growing anxious about it, I however been taught about the myth if not getting enough sleep. It became true to me by one, to see if you remember any dreams then you have got some sleep, and two I wake up tired but gain more energy as the day progresses, if I did not have enough sleep I don’t think this would be possible. Three worrying about not getting sleep just causes you not to get any so I do not worry about it anymore. A phrase I came by, that there is more right with you then there is wrong with you. If you got no sleep you would be dead, also does your body tell you when it is hungry, do you not eat then; does your body tell you when you are thirsty, do not drink; and hopefully does your body tell you when is tired; and do you not get some sleep eventually.

Dizzy