I really know what you mean about being on the "wrong road" and that distraction works. I found that while meditating through focusing on my breath would make me start to panic because the thing that happens to me when i am panicky is that i start to focus on my breath and the feeling of suffocation escalates, so i changed this to focusing on the pressure between my two fingers, kind of like some of the buddhas you see who are touching their thumb and middle finger together. Within 5 minutes my breathing had calmed down when i checked it.
In response to how you understand panic I've always found it useful to think of the mind and body as seperate entities that react to eachother. You have a slight increase in adrenaline through your body- the amygdala (the part which controls your emotional response to stimuli)- in your brain interprets this as a panic attack (whereas it could be just excitement or stimulation)- you think "I'm panicking"- so your body releases more adrenaline because the brain in the form of anxious thoughts is telling the body that it is in danger and so on. What has happened in people with anxiety disorder or panic disorder is the amygdala is interpretting an increase in stimulation as a threat when there is no threat. Therefore your body responds by pumping your body full of adrenaline to fight/flee from the threat. This can even be your heart beating faster when youre walking so you think you're having a panic attack (sadly this actually happened to me!)
I have GAD and because there is such a continual feeling of being under threat im tired because adrenaline makes the body speed up - Its like a short distance sprinter trying to run a marathon! So you train the brain to question if the stimulation is in fact fear- i think this is where CBT works its wonders. Relaxation techniques give your body a bit of a break from running the marathon. Meditation is basically a regimented form of practicing distraction from the thoughts (anxious or not) that are constantly whizzing round your brain so you can be more objective towards thoughts and eventually control them.
These are my observations that i have gathered through my journey so far. I hope this helps someone understand their own anxiety.
In answer to your Question, "what does knowing this mean to me". Well for me it is very hard to fix something unless I know why it is broke. Also how can I know if it's fixed unless I know why it broke, how can I be sure it will stay fixed or how can I know when to expect it to break again. Now I know that there are things that will give me information overload. (eg. coffee chocolate wine etc.) This just means now I can pick when and when not to enjoy them and what to expect. When I go into a crowded grocery store and there is too much happening around me I know to focus on one thing and block out every thing else, if I can. Distraction can go a long way toward blocking out all the unwanted information. In a long lineup I look at people and imagine what type of dog they would be if they were dogs. I have often been asked what I'm smiling about. Don't do this if you are scared of dogs. For those of you that get tunnel vision and ringing ears, this is your minds way of dealing with excess information. It's normal, unpleasant but normal. As an aside to this I was told that long term use of Ativan interfears with the minds capability to judge what to discard. This is why the fuzzy thought process. Since I was addicted (4 years) I now have a path that my mind likes to use but it is full of anxiety and I am slowly tearing it up. This I refer to as being on the wrong path. And knowing I'm on the wrong path makes it easier to get back on the right one. There will always be anxiety, it's a product of the way we live. keeping anxiety from becoming panic is my goal. What I really want is to be able to tune out the annoying stuff so I can enjoy what is happening around me. And I want it bad enough to do it. That is the hard part, not giving in. Information is power.
I have been surfing here and didn't find the medical reason for panic or agoraphobia and I think it is important to understand this. So I'd like to give you the reason as explained to me. Knowledge is power and this rather simple explanation made a major difference in my way of dealling with my panic and agoraphobia. It is a shame that I can't draw a picture of this information, it explaines it far better. So here goes as it was explained to me minus the pictures.
The pathway for information to the brain is not one simple straight path, and I want you to think of it as a path if it helps.
Along this pathway are recepters that gather information, but there not single. Think of them as being like the fingers on your hand, each one feeding to your wrist. And each wrist feeding into another finger along with many other fingers. Do you get the picture so far. So by the time this information gets to the brain there would be a lot of it. In a normal situation since most of this information is not neccesary, it is just there, (like breathing. heart rate. how close the walls are. how tight your socks are, etc.) so most of it gets dumped and only that which is absolutely neccesary gets through. You don't have to be able to feel your heart for it to work. (and most cirtainly not in your ears ) But during an emergancy you want as much information as you can get to make a good decission. (fight or flight) such as when a large truck is baring down on you in your lane. Here you only need to make one decision and that is how do I get out of the way. This is normal and the more information the quicker the decision. Some people actually like this feeling of being on the edge. OK. so the truck missed. Have a look around and get on with life. Panic is when there is no truck or there was a truck but you can't stop thinking about it or the truck was days ago and you just thought about it again. So now that you know what is happening, how do you deal with it. All this information tells you is that it's normal and that you're not dying. Now you have to learn how to convince your mind that its over or that it didn't happen in the first place, or that it just isn't that important. This is hard for an agrophobic to deal with. If its bad eneough you will need medication to shut out some of this excess information but beware of using it as a crutch. Try to stop it on your own.
Oh. and reward your self each time you succesfully do some thing you don't want to. Smile turn in a circle and shout " I won " " I won " I can do this. Now I leave it up to this program to teach you how to deal with the actuall panic.
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