rohit
Vincenza is right about a therapist, an hour a week, one on one can give you a lot of answers. In the mean time you have us.
Remember panic always opens up Fight or flight. Always... That being the key, how you treat it dictates how long it will last, whether it is normal panic from a new situation or a self inflicted panic attack. A trigger is just a trigger, making it a panic attack is due to a series of learned conditions.
There are two ways to use fight but only one works. Getting angry is true fight. Fighting it in the form of trying to not accept it is actually flight. Yoga is a relaxation technique if done right as relaxation. Done wrong it is flight and will prolong it.
Accepting it is the first key. Accepting it will happen again is the second. Using coping skills such as all of those you mentioned can be the third if; and this is important; if you are using them to relax and let the fear go. Not as a hiding place. If you are doing yoga and checking continuously to see if the anxiety is there then it will be. But if you accept that it is there and use yoga, or any of your relaxation techniques as relaxation and have faith that they will work then they will. Have patience, this new way of thinking (CBT) takes time to get established in your mind like all new things.
Knowing that you will probably be back where you started when you go back to work is like knowing an enemy is over the hill. It gives you something to prepare for and a better chance of winning the fight.
To answer your questions. Anxiety is a learned condition based on a genetic predisposition to it based on how your family is. It is a small grain of knowledge that comes as a survival skill when you are born. It is part of your DNA characteristic. How you build on it dictates how it will be. It can be changed, for better or worse. This is why not all children of the same parents are the same. Other than twins which have closer DNA.
Anger. This is because you are turning the anger towards yourself because you have a situation you don't know how to cure. Turn the anger towards the anxiety instead. Use it for fight rather than flight. Accept the situation and fight it not yourself. Accept it is there and then do all the relaxation things as that, relaxation not hiding. (I'm not supposed to tell people they are hiding)
To use one of Shari's analogies. You can tip toe around the dragon and do that all your life or you can take a big stick and beat the crap out of it and chain it up.
You are fighting something not entirely of your making. (core belief)
CBT lets you sort out the thoughts in such a way that you think more positive and can better handle anxiety to the point where it doesn't bring up the unwanted symptoms and if they do surface you have the tools to make them go away.
Is this confusing? Anything I can expand on with examples from my own journey?
One suggestion, worry less about it and relax more. It takes time but with diligence it goes away. As an Engineer you must know that for something to work it has to follow a set of rules. Deviate and it falls apart.
Another thing that will prolong this is pressure from family or friends or yourself to not be like this. Put these pressures at the bottom of the list and get better first. They will disappear with the anxiety.
Davit.
