Hi, love trees

I am sorry I have not responded to your post that you left on my thread until now. One thing an educator said to me was to practice sleep hygiene. She mentioned a few suggestion about what I could do I think she realized like you I am not getting much sleep. So as usual, I looked up sleep hygiene to see what the various things I could do. One of the things mentioned (nothing to do with attacks) was to get out if bed when you are not sleeping. The reason given was that you begin you associate the bed with not sleeping when you stay there ruminating. After reading this, it occurred to me that this is how you and me could expose ourselves to lower anxiety and not have an attack. I have been getting up if I wake up at 2:00 am and I start writing all the things that I would be normally ruminating about. Alternatively, in your case the thing you dreamt about that are causing you to wake up with anxiety. By the way It is quite normal for people to experience bed time attacks it’s just that we are on a site dealing with agoraphobia and are less likely to come across people who have attacks in bed because they get them from going outside.

In here lies one of the clues if an agoraphobic can relate panic attacks to going outside then the same relation for you and I can happen in bed. If you were to get out of bed and have the thoughts about being alone would they cause an attack out of bed. Maybe a better question is does the thought of dying alone cause an attack in bed. If it does not then challenging this thought is useful but is not getting to the reason for panic attacks.

This is where you and me may be getting confused about core beliefs and there influence. A true core belief will come from being a child and having a parent tell you constantly you are stupid and no good. If the parent or someone close to you keeps saying this as a child, you do not have the ability to challenge it so you accept it as true because you do not know anything else.

I am not sure what Davit means by core belief does he mean the clinical meaning as mentioned above or does he mean a trait that you have developed in your life. If you have been reading the educators, writings about self-esteem this could be a trait you have without it being a core belief.

One of the traits the people with panic attacks and anxiety in the toolbox mentions relationships. This is where you could find help on the feeling of dying alone. Perhaps you do not have a social network to gain support from, so you view your life as empty. This belief was probably developed thought years of avoidance of social situation but I do not believe it is a core belief from child hood unless someone told you as a child that you are worthless and going to die alone. What I am trying to get at is that you can work on relationships, which will increase your self-esteem. Both these things may be the result of having attacks but are they the cause of the attacks. It is as if you were searching for the thing that caused us a 10 in emotional upset. The most distress brought up from my past and writing it down because we figured that there had to be a strong emotional reason for the state we are in.

You could see if expanding your social network would give you more self-esteem. The more self-esteem you have the more you are to look at life as a challenge that you can adapt rather than doomed to die alone. Both these things can be worked on without challenging negative belief. I now realize why I am the way I am and I do not need to know why all I need to do is start facing my fears about relationships. If you face your fear, the fear will go away. This is possible where Davit mentions core beliefs by changing the one (not having enough social support) impacts your self-esteem, your sense of purpose; bring some structure to your life. The list really goes on depending on who the person is.

There is nothing wrong with looking in you past and challenging negative thoughts that you still have or that apply to a new situation in life. To get to our goal is to stop the panic attacks and I think you have to concentrate on the thought when in bed that are causing the attacks. If the thought about dying alone is the one then expose yourself to it.  Perhaps instead of waiting in bed for the thought to cause, an attack you can out of bed before it the attack happens and do exposure yourself right then even if it causes you a 10 on the anxiety scale. If it does not cause an attack then I think you are reducing the effect the thought has on you. I have learned that exposure cannot always be the exact way you want it to be. So maybe exposing yourself to a 10 every morning you get up from bed before it causes an attack you will reduce it after weeks to a two. If you accomplish this then you have accomplished you goal of reducing anxiety towards the thought. Then if you want, you can try in reinforcing the lesser anxiety state by thinking about in bed the thought that caused you a 10 and see if you have an attack happens in bed. This would be another form of exposure to the thought once you have reduced it to a two.  This is what an agoraphobic does gradually expose himself or herself to a situation until it does not cause an attack.

Another place to look for an answer if the but statement, this statement is sure in me. I go to a support group where I live and the author says you ignore the initial improvement. Which was the case in me when I have an attack it is generally low in intensity “but the effect last the day”. Notice the “but” statement, I will give you another one I can stand the attack “but” it causes me to feel confused all-day and dizzy. Therefore, I cannot work because I will make mistakes. This is another place where traits that all of us in my group have some of them are perfectionism, being afraid of making a mistake, finding the right and wrong in everything and usually insisting we are right. This for lack of a better word could be a core belief. However, someone did not telling me that I am wrong all the time that I keep making mistake from childhood when I did not have the mental ability to see what the person was saying was incorrect.

You can see where the fear of making a mistake comes from if you are a perfectionist. Working on these traits by saying all I have to do is my average best not mediocre but my average best is in fact tackling a lot of myself talk during the day. Another one is I finding the right and wrong in my boss because she did not do thing the way I would have I have. I saying excuse her for the sake of my mental health and drop the right and wrong in many situations every day. These things cause me anxiety, or anger which simulated anxiety, by stopping them it leads to a more peaceful day. However, these thoughts do not cause an attack in me.

I think the “but” statement is causing me to have an attack, because the genesis of my attacks cause confusion and the way I dealt with it for 25 years was to tense my head up. There lies the danger for me I am still experiencing confusion only this time I do not want to deal with it by tensing up my head so that I can think for another 25 years. However, using the challenge sheet is tensing up my head temporarily such a bad think because what is different now is that I know where the confusion comes from and I do not have to be afraid of maintaining tension because I have tools to relax and abdominally breathe. Also with the tools that I mentioned above, I will not get as worked up as I did before about trivialities of making a mistake.

One final point is that you should look up the sleep hygiene because I also found in there that supposedly exposing yourself to sun light in the hours 6:00 to 8:30 in the morning you are resetting you sleep rhythm clock. This will give you a better night’s sleep. As with all things on the internet, I found another site that said this was unnecessary. However I did it for three days and on the forth I actually slept into to 6:00 am for the first time in a while. I do not expect you to try this I merely suggest you look in the sleep hygiene sites for things you can try. Guess what not getting up at the same time everyday is, “avoidance”. I have not felt well for a long time and have developed a poor sleeping habit by not getting up the same time every day.  

To sum up I believe an educator told you to go back to session 1 to 3 because this is where we find the thought causing an attack. This is where you can challenge the thought. You should stop looking for the most distressful emotion or thought as the cause of an attack. If it is not present in bed when whatever you are thinking at the time gives you the attack. I am not saying to disregard distressful emotions but first get rid of thoughts associated with the attacks. You may find that the distressful thought of 10 of dying alone will dissipate if you stop the attack. We tend to color everything we think of when were in an anxious or depressed state with that emotion. I am saying feelings are not always facts.

One last thing I think Davit is right on is that sometime exposing ourselves to the 10 of die alone will lead to an epiphany that never occurred to you before because it was being blocked by dying alone.

Your friend

dizzy

Tina

The view of my core belief I expressed before came from a so-called expert in the field my therapist. He told me I no uncertain terms that core belief come from childhood when as you say you cannot express yourself at the time to get what you need. I notice a lot of talk about right and wrong in what to do to address panic attack. I know people that go through 18 sessions with a CBT and come out with no attacks and maybe a few in the remainder of their life. So attacking core beliefs is not always necessary to get rid of panic attack for everyone. To say that everyone has to expose themselves to their core beliefs to get better is a core belief of what need to be done to get better. If you thought all you needed to do was to address your relationship problem to get rid of a panic attacks then this is a core belief and it should work. Davit, do not get me wrong I believe that I do have to but not all people do. Just like medication different type’s work for different people.

What would you say if you were not a child but an adult unable to express his need because he does not know what they were could a negative core belief come from that. In addition, I have had anxiety all your life, could not having the anxiety cause some of the core beliefs the longer you let it go untreated. For example in your case about asking someone out and, you thought you were unlovable could the thought that you were unlovable come from trait anxiety all the time tainting every experience? I have had this discussion before and been told rejection is a part of life but if you are anxious all the time are you not likely to taint this rejection in a negative way. Therefore, the trait anxiety causes your negative core belief.

What if you know things happened in your child hood but could not remember them happening I am not talking about abuse. Could this be a problem area because I know that I developed an anxiety towards reading when in school but I cannot remember developing it?

I have expressed the thought that too much searching in your past may be counterproductive an educator said you do not always have to know why to change it. Case in fact as a toddler I used to bang my head against everything I am sure I can find an article that says banging your head is normal. Or I can read into my life that as far as I can remember I had anxiety, so was I trying to express my frustration when I was a child because I could not express myself or was I just a normal child banking his head for no particular reason.

If you were to ask me, I would say I could not remember why I did it but I can look for negative core beliefs, look back, and say I must have had a problem even then. Further evidence for this belief is I was told that I cried all the time. I am no expert but can this not be what is called colic. I just looked up Wikipedia about colic babies and it says there is no identifiable reason for it that medical science can tell use. It leaves clues behind about what it does to a family and how the family or mother might mistreat the baby from being distressed all the time. Another piece of information is that my father told me he saw my mother dragging my brother by the arm because he would not do what she wanted. Since I was home alone as a baby without my father being there is it possible that she did something wrong. I doubt abuse but I know there probably was no parental attempt to calming the baby. If I am right I cannot remember so how can I challenge this thought that I have deduced from hindsight. One last statement I always felt as if I did not have my mother approval or love.

Therefore, if this is the case to I tie to go back to when I was a baby and try to find a core belief. I have been reading a book on nuro-plasticity and it says that even thought you might not remember now you still have the memories even as I toddler. The author gives an example of how one of his patients lost his mother when he was young and he need up regressing into a child like state when he had an epiphany that he felt the loss as a baby but not as an adult.

Finally just how far do we carry this core belief thing, because as one person said I might think I am going to have a bad day once in a blue moon a negative thought but if I was otherwise mental and physical all right then every negative thought cannot be related to a core belief.

Dizzy

A have a question has anyone has experienced this or not. I have had attacks going into a building and before I used to think, the attacks were due to (sick building syndrome). However, I do not believe this anymore. Before when I was going into buildings I could not find a place where I would experience a lesser exposure as in the session toolbox, it was into the floor of the building or nothing would happen. Today I noticed that I started to experience symptoms before I went into the building they happened in the underground parking lot. I pretty much have an attack every day in the morning so I used to attribute any change in symptoms as reminisce of the attack from that morning. However, today I noticed that symptoms for the first time as possibly anxiety about going into the building, which may lead, I my thinking to an exposure plan. Is this a good thing or a bad thing because I think I was not experiencing and anxiety before going into the building before today? Therefore, have I correctly identified and become aware of the anxiety towards going into the building or have I made it worse because I would always go in no matter how I was feeling and have therefore increased my anxiety towards going into the building. I am not sure how to put it in agoraphobic terms, but I think agoraphobics are afraid to go outside because they had an attack there and have associated outside with an attack. So now that I have identified it is me doing causing the attack and not the building and now perceive that going into a building causes me anxiety where I thought I did not before. In one sense, I am getting in touch with my feeling but in another way, I am more anxious then before when attempting to go into a building so in sense I am more agoraphobic. My question is this good thing or not. I can guess the educators response to be, how do you view it, it is my perception of how I view it, notice Davit that I used one of your words “perception”.

Dizzy

Davit

I am really trying to gain knowledge from what you are saying.  I am trying to use the lack of control perception in the building or my bed. So to go back to the building how would I go about this on my diary, I can see that saying I have chosen to go into the parking spot etc. but this seems to me to be exposure planning. How can I do exposure to the lack of control in a diary?

The second core belief is that I am always wrong; I caught myself when I was trying to do boxed breathing saying this is not the perfect breath. So maybe 1 out of 10 are the breaths are perfect and one can see how this tool does not work for me. I am not sure that the belief is refined enough to explain many other core beliefs. It also explains how, what my CBT said, was not to do breathing for an hour before bed, because this will cause anxiety. So sometimes, I am just sitting in a chair and relaxing all my muscles and I think this is wrong because either I am trying to hard or I am trying to control the amount of tension in my head before I go to bed. I even caused a panic attack with the thought that once I was in bed and I was about to turn and said I will just lie here; then I said no that avoidance and that caused an attack so I perceived I was doing CBT wrong. Then in the building yesterday, I was explaining the new theory of how the universe is perpetually starting from a big bang and then diffusing in to nothing, which creates the situation for another big bang. Someone said to me that I know a lot and I said back to him the more I know the more in know that I do not know. The social worker then said to me he was complementing you accept the compliment. Which again comes back to my core belief that I am always wrong? Which leads me to another trait in me is that I look for praise in others and then when I get it I think it is insincere I guess because I think I am wrong all the time.

Could you please give some guidance on how to change my perception of this belief? I do not believe in listing all the time I have been right because as you said you cannot get rid of a core belief but you have to bury it. I am not sure but I do not think the 10-question page will solve it either.

I went looking in the internet for core belief and could not find where they say what not a core belief is. When I typed in core belief is had several options such as core beliefs, “s” on the end; or core beliefs worksheet. Could you be more specific do I type in just core belief with no “s” or with an “s” or something else?

Dizzy

I discovered something that I was doing when answering the daily results from the symptom tracker. I believe that I have been answering the symptom tracker with symptoms that I have after getting out of bed that are caused by a panic attack. Here is my example usually when I have an attack in bed I notice heart pounding and pressure in my head and occasionally a burning in my back. However, when I get up from bed I notice that my muscles have tension in my back legs and maybe head, I notice that I am in some sort of dizziness, light-headedness, hot flashes from relaxing, a feeling of unreality, an inability to concentrate. I do not know what to make of this finding except that I have the above symptoms through most of the day. Another thing that I know is that when working out, or getting excited I experience the same symptoms again (yes I have read session seven). Am I misinterpreting the symptom during the attack from the symptoms I get from after the attack. I know that confusion can be from anxiety or lack of sleep but could it also be the from having attack, so am I attributing symptoms that I have after I get out of bed that could have another explanation or are they cause by the attack. I guess what I am asking is that I do not have an occasion to realize what happening in bed because I am lying down so I do not feel the muscles tension until I get out of bed. Does anyone else notice this experience. The reason I ask is in my support group about anxiety the author says the patient ignores the initial improvement by saying yes I do not experience this symptom anymore but it is the light-headedness that drives me nuts. I have I similar compliant that I am always fighting confusion and or light-headedness all day, but my heart is not pounding all day like during the attack (nor would I expect it to).

Dizzy

Thank you for your thoughtful replies. I do have other physical things wrong with me and I asked the doctor about labyrinthitis in the ear. I asked my doctor can panic attacks affect my labyrinthitis, and he replied does it matter. I guess what he was telling me is that since this diagnoses is one of exclusion (by determining what you do not have) then he probably cannot answer and I have to figure out what is what for myself, either way none of it is dangerous. I also went to him because I got pressure in my head when working out, and he did blood test and blood pressure test and determined that there was nothing physically wrong. I guess the point for me is where the site says you get the symptoms from other experiences and I think this is definitely me. If I sneeze out of my left nostril the wrong way I will get head pressure (just kidding). I cannot find a lot of objectivity in things I do because having this for 25 years I have managed to ruin just about anything I do by attributing incorrectly my anxiety towards it, that came from not knowing what was going on.