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Panic attacks while sleeping

10 years ago 0 +0 / -0 219

I have been unable to log in and finally the site has let me. Hoping I don't get logged out before I finish posting this. I didn't have a panic attack last night again. Yeah, go me!

Red,

The book you mentioned that I got from amazon has been an eye opener. A very good read for people pleasers. I will check out the sister sight you mentioned for core beliefs.

Davit,

No reply from the contact us yet in regards to email. I'm trying to hurry my typing on here as it has been logging me out quickly prior to not letting me stay logged in to reply.

The past two days have been good as I haven't awoken to a panic attack. I'm starting the very last auxilliary session today if it allows me to stay logged in.

10 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6252

There is no substitute for what a good therapist can do for you especially one with personal experience with panic. But not everyone can do this. My therapist fits this category besides having paperwork. And she is tough. If she thinks what you are doing is a waste of time you will be told. No head patting with her, her object is to cure and that she does very well.

Davit.

10 years ago 0 +0 / -0 2508

Hi JayDee,

I enjoyed reading your post this morning. Thanks for sharing your positive experience with the new book you are reading. I have a copy too and am going to start reading it next.

The book In Sheep Clothing is where I started and after reading it I knew I just had to know more. Next I found myself reading the book that I am just finishing The Disease To Please. Which I am working on now.

I have been coming to this site for many years now and the CBT program has helped me tremendously and it still does even so I found I needed a little more once I started to understand what some of my core issues were. There is a sister site to this one called The Depression Center. It goes into core beliefs in a way that the panic center doesn't. The session there are more en depth.

The books I am now reading in my search for knowledge are written by licensed experts in the field with decades of experience so I trust what they are saying. One thing I learned from In Sheep Clothing is that people at not always what they seem to be and to not believe everything I hear or read. The forums are meant to be support groups and the members are not trained experts so when I come here and read I do what one of the Educators for the site advised me to do when participating in the forum..

She said to..Take what you need and leave the rest..This has proved to be excellent advice..

Red...

10 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6252

Okay

This is a good site with good information and work sheets but it just can't cover every situation. The ask an expert doesn't get enough use either. Besides it isn't available often enough anyway. Information is only information but the more you have the better decision you can make. People differ in their situations too. CBT is changing thought patterns and any program that teaches that is good. I wanted to go farther and know why. But some of the information I've been interested in isn't covered here. Because it isn't necessary to know to do CBT. And there is only so much room. I wanted to know more than just how to fix this, I wanted to know why I had it in the first place. Some of the answers were surprising. I absorb information like a sponge.

Davit

10 years ago 0 +0 / -0 219

Davit,

I sent a request through the contact us at bottom for your email address to Ashley.

10 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6252

I can trace my first core belief to a birthday party when I was three. My mother made a mistake and it coloured my thinking from then on. Core beliefs are often installed by other people. Unintentionally usually because they don't understand what they are doing. Attachment theory explains this. Now that is another eye opener worth reading if you think your condition could stem from your childhood. If you want to discuss anything off site ask Ashley for my Email address. You can contact her through the "contact us" at the bottom of the page. I'm just a member but my Therapist gave me a lot of information not commonly known. Some very new in fact. Like the triangle that is showing up on the internet now but not always accurate. Core beliefs are interesting because they are the rules we live by and therefore very set but changing situations can give them a whole different meaning and this change can set off a whole wrath of hidden anxiety. Things that were suppressed because a core says to but now a different situation overrides that core and you are off on a panic ride. It can be a real roller coaster ride if there was a lot of suppressed stuff and if you were a people pleaser there could be a lot, some even still hidden. You may feel you need to keep some hidden and that is a mistake because it will stay in associated memory as a negative instead of being changed to a positive. It will keep you from getting as close to 100% as you could. This is why 80% is considered good. Everyone has some skeletons.

I have buried most of mine, I intend to bury all of them with my positive shovel.

Davit

10 years ago 0 +0 / -0 219

Davit,

I did indeed use a sewing needle to pop each balloon. I started a journal that is more detailed and personal since I don't think the forum is a place for those details. Without being too vague I will try to explain. Since I have been reading the book Who's pulling your strings, I have started to realize numerous things about when my panic attacks started and I have even gone back so far as to when I was first diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. Its been enlightening to see the pattern. This pattern also stems from being a people pleaser. This has been good because this CBT has taught me how to recognize what I missed when a previous situation/event occurred, what I felt and thought at the time.

Now, I am able to change the suppressed memory when it arises in my thoughts. The visualization really helps. It's just a matter now of when and how these suppressed memories occur.

10 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6252

JayDee

Almost three years ago while in hospital trying to die from a massive infection my heart rate wouldn't go down so they put me into a coma to work on it. They would bring me partially out of it to check vitals. Never quite surfacing. During one of these I sang a love song very well to my then girl friend. I don't remember doing it or the words to the song but the ICU nurse said I did. I don't remember those three days but then Coma's are like mini deaths.

My point is that anything in memory is available and everything is in memory even if it is so far buried it is hard to find.

But as you have noticed negatives do pop up too easy. People do want to help but if they don't know how they can make it worse. Also because survival skills are negative you will see the negative first and if there is a buried negative you have suppressed it will pop up as you have seen. This trigger as you have described can only be experienced and understood by some one who has experienced it.

I like your visualization because it supplies answers and answers are what you want. You quilt right, did you use a needle to pop them. That would be the pleasant positive you would use. When ever possible use a positive to remove the negative. Shari used to see her anxiety as dragons of all different colours and chain them up so they could exist but not reach her. Another person used to see them as dogs and turn them into puppies because she liked dogs. Liking dogs was the positive. Hating dogs would not have worked. Shari liked dragons see.

Now some are going to say this is only a distraction but it isn't. Because you are using a positive to counter a negative you are actually changing thought patterns.

If you can say no this is good because you realize that no matter if the trigger is external the reaction is internal (comes from your memory) so you are the one who has to change it. There are times when a cup of tea does more good than a hug.

Associated memory can be so fast there isn't time to say "no this isn't the answer". Writing can help. But mostly grabbing a thought even a wrong one and stopping it can slow down the other thoughts. It will also condition you to stop them rather than let them recycle.

It is good that you post these things because few people understand what is happening or how to deal with it. There are a lot more people reading than posting so you will never know how many people use your techniques or are helped. Accomplishment is a positive even if you don't know you are doing it.

Passive/aggressive is a condition where a person suppressed something to keep from rocking the boat till it happens too often or pops up again as it did in associated memory. This is why they mention being assertive. Now this doesn't mean rocking the boat. You can be assertive with yourself, not accepting the aggressive feeling you have to a situation. This works if you can't talk out the problem.

I think you are doing very well with CBT and it will only get better.

Davit.

10 years ago 0 +0 / -0 219

I found the answer or at least hope I did. I was not awoken by a panic attack last night while sleeping. I had printed something from another post on here and had read it numerous times throughout the evening. When my spouse came home from work and read it, he made a comment about if I wake up terrified, I should let him know. At that point, hundreds of thoughts and memories ran through my mind including my last few bad dreams. Unfortunately for him, this was a bad thing. For in my memory, there was a comment he had made to me about 6 months ago. The comment was there, hovering in big neon letters. I turned those neon letters into imaginary balloon letters and popped each one as I told him no, I can handle it.

10 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6252

JayDee

Yes that visualization worked the very first time I tried it and is a key to reducing the severity of the attacks to the point I do it automatic and they disappear. It is a combination of two associated memories. There is a very large culvert going under the road by me that I used to sit in when it was hot. A fairly large creek runs through it. I also got my drinking water there for a while. The other is from a movie where some comic animals are crossing under a road to avoid the cars that they call owls. So I take this terror the animals have and transpose it onto mine and add the large culvert and the pleasant activity, so I have an answer, from the animals plus a pleasant activity. In this case my fear of being stuck in a culvert is neutralized by making me as small as the animals so I can sit in it instead and safely look at the world and feel the pleasantness from the big culvert. This does work. And because both these memories are associated memories and not primary ones needed for sleep they cycle back to associated memory to bury negative associated memory and be available first instead of a negative that is now buried. The more you do this the farther the negatives get buried in associated memory and the less likely to panic when searching for answers to the trigger causing the panic. I have woke feeling like I have been sitting in a culver and realize I have neutralized the trigger without waking. Some times it is some other pleasant activity, but almost always positives because for the most part that is what is in my memory now.

So if you know your trigger and your fear you can build a visualization from things in your memory to replace the fear with. The thing is they don't have to be yours, they can be from videos as long as you can see them clear even if you have to fill them in a bit. They work bst if they trigger happy memories for you.

I presume this is the visualization technique I wrote about. This is just another way of changing thought patterns and getting them to stick.

They have to be things from associated memory because if you had an answer in primary memory you wouldn't be panicking. You panic because you don't have an answer because the trigger is jumbled or illogic and you go looking in your memory of similar things looking for an answer. This way you can give it one, and with an answer there is no need for panic and it stops. The trigger may seem real but just try to write it down to see how confused you really are. When panic is bad enough you can't write a thing, you can't even make your hands move yet you can still visualize. The way I separate reality from bad dreams and panic is although my dreams have colour and seem real they have no sound even though I can hear things in them. I don't know why.

Davit

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Panic attacks while sleeping