Hey there everyone.
I'm new to the site, found it from abroad. The only self help groups I could find in my mother tongue cost money to join and I thought I'd try it for free here to see if it can help me. So English is not my first language but we'll give it a go.
Yesterday I worked my way through the panic part of the program and I'm a little uncertain if this program applies to me and can help me.
I'm not sure whether I have the same type of panic attacks that a lot of other visitors here tell about.
I think I rather have a Generalized Anxiety Disorder of some sorts. Worries and anxieties are always with me. In periods they can hide away and not have a huge impact on me because of other things around me but when they come to the surface they tend to get a very strong grip on me and I easily enter a state of dwelling on it. First and foremost it peaks into real anxiety attacks when my mind finds something in the past that I did wrong. Especially if I might have hurt somebody. My self image is that I am and should be perfect in the sense of being empathetic, sympathetic, just and caring... not causing harm to anyone. It's not a "having to abide by the law"-kind of thing. Rather my conscience, ethics and morals set the boundaries for me.
At times I wish I were not so hyper-empathetic to everything and everyone since it sometimes results in these sick attacks where I'm bomarded with these falshback images from past situations where I did or might have been acting "wrong", I might have hurt someone, or equally important I hurt my own self image. I scratched the perfect surface.
I could see how this could be more relevant or logic if I had a strong faith in God and I might have sinned or in other ways ruined my charma. But the fact of the matter is that I don't believe in God and even less in a judging god.
So while a lot of the factors described here in the program about the panic attacks apply to when I'm feeling terribly bad, it's not always so clear. More like a constant gnawing, with reglar flashback images that hit with an element of shock, cold, sweats, chestpain etc. But this goes on for days and weeks. Bad thought, comfort thought, worse thought, comfort thought. It blocks me, I know I'm a good man, I logigally know that we all make mistakes and learn from them. Sure but the logic and scrutinizing the validity of the anxiety thoughts dosn't take away the physical sensations that come with these waves of guilt, shame, unability to change what's been.
Therefor I'm uncertain where to start.
Thx for your time, know it was a quite long post.
