Ten things I know about panic attacks...

This is you, trying to navigate the modern world with an ancient monkey brain. You're afraid of lions but there are no lions any more, so you're a bit confused, gawd bless you. 

An attractive young woman ran out of one of my events yesterday, after having what turned out to be a panic attack. She is, as so many panic sufferers are,  a highly intelligent, capable, and likeable person, and we chatted about the panic demons for a bit whilst she calmed down. She's not yet read an awful lot about this stuff, so I got to thinking about what I would like to have read when I first started getting to grips with it. Results below...   

Ten Things I Know About Panic Attacks 

1. Brilliant people have them. Oh yes. Some of the most beautiful, talented, courageous, hilarious, intelligent people who have ever stalked this earth have had panic. You're not weird, I promise. (Well, you may be a bit odd of course, but that's got nowt to do with the panic I'm afraid).

2.  They're not your fault! You've got to stop blaming yourself, and I'll give you three good reasons why...

      a) You're part-man/part-monkey (interestingly, or not, that is also the name of this not very good  Bruce Springsteen song). You're negotiating a modern landscape with an ancient ape-ish brain that is hard-wired to respond to the fight-or-flight mechanism. We are the descendants of some pretty alert and anxious chimps - the ones who heard a rustle in the bushes and thought 'it could be a lion, but then again, what are the chances, maybe it's just a stiff breeze?' all got eaten. We got the neurotic genes - tough break.

       b) Something in your past might have made this more likely. You may have had an unstable childhood, or been the victim of some trauma, or had a hypochondriac Dad. It's no-one else's fault either, but remember that outside forces have moulded you and made you the person you are today.

      c) You may just have a rubbish brain. Some people don't produce enough thyroid hormone (moi, for example), and some people don't retain enough serotonin. That's it. You didn't make it happen did you? Take it up with God when you next bump into him.

You've got to be easy on yourself. It's shit enough going through all this crap without the meta level of self-flagellation on top.

3. They go. And come back. And go again. If there's one thing I've learned I've from my boyfriend, it's how a wiggly line on a graph goes. His wise counsel is that a general upward trend on a graph is rarely straight - there are ups and downs and ups again. Whilst the downs may be lower than yesterday's ups, they're still higher than the downs a year ago - BUT - that's really hard to see from your perspective, seeing as how you're trapped in the graph.  

4. CBT really helps. My free NHS CBT course was hands-down the best thing I ever did for my panic attacks. 

5. You're not going to die. Or go mad. I PROMISE. Your heart races much faster than this when you're running (and that's considered good for you), and your breathing will not stop (your body won't allow that to happen), and will return to normal in a little while. I PROMISE. No-one has ever died of a panic attack, and no-one ever will.

6. Wishing them away makes them worse. Both in the instant they're coming, and just generally. The most suffering I ever experience is when I get furious and rail against them like a trussed up tiger, and my thrashing and rejecting ends up just tightening the knots around me. Some people get wonky noses, some people get IBS, some people get cancer, some people get panic attacks. You might have them for life, or they may go at some point. But you have to accept them for now, or you'll increase your misery exponentially. 

7. They're not all bad. All of this hardship has actually brought me a lot closer to both of my parents, and I've learned (well, am still learning) to be okay with being vulnerable. Which I've been told makes me even more likeable! Keep in mind that you're picking up some pretty good life skills here in the crucible, so you are in no way wasting your time or effort.  

8. They're funny. Learn to see the funny side of anxiety and panic (and there IS a funny side). Learn to laugh at fear rather than cowering from it, and by doing so - puncture its menace and remove its power.

9. You can cope. A large part of anxiety is fear of not being able to cope, to deal, to handle. But you have coped your whole life - all the way up until this very minute. Why would you stop now? You have the strength to cope with this, and anything else life throws your way. 

10. All of the above are really difficult to put into practise. And that's okay. As my exceptionally wise and beautiful friend told me - this is a process, it's not a solution. You may forget half this stuff, and not be able to put the other half into practise, but you're trying, and you're learning stuff all the time. Just accept that you're taking baby steps - this is not a race. 


Hey, new girl - you're doing just fine! Everything's going to be okay. It really is. 

x 

You gotta roll with the punches of outrageous fortune (as I believe Shakespeare once said...)

  

YOU ARE BRAVER THAN JOHN WAYNE!

Yep, he may have been a big old lily-livered-lefty-hater, but I'm afraid (see what I did there) John knows his onions when it comes to cojones...if that's not a mixed metaphor too far

I was having tea (peppermint, natch) with an old work colleague of mine who also has serious GAD issues (which, incidentally, I only found out about because I 'outed' myself to him on a whim, and he shocked me to the core by revealing he TOO suffered horribly with it), and is going through a bit of a bad patch at the moment. As we swapped war stories in the meditation centre cafe (ha, natch again), he shook his head and said my advice was all well and good, but that I was much braver than him, so he wasn't sure he could take it.

And this was enough to pierce through my panicked haze and make me forget my trembling hands on my teacup (still staggering up the Prozac ramp) momentarily, and I proceeded to give him a very stern lecture about bravery - the gist of which I will outline now, but in a much more lucid and Cicero-ish manner than I managed at the time.

No. NO! Listen up, Woody! You think you're a coward because you can't do things other people do without batting an eyelid? Think about it. The very concept or definition of bravery entails fear - it doesn't make any sense at all without it. As some bright spark once said, 'bravery is not the absence of fear, it is the mastery of fear' (or somesuch) or as John Wayne had it - 'bravery is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway'. Let's be clear: there's nothing remotely brave in not being frightened at all.  Courage is peering into the jaws of the beast - whether imaginary or real - and walking forward anyway.

Consider the person who travels in to work on the tube of a Monday morning, blissfully chomping through a pain au chocolat and listening to a comedy podcast. Would you call them brave? Or courageous? Of course not; it doesn't make sense to, because they are not afraid. They may be easygoing, or relaxed, or happy, or peaceful, or any number of things. What they are not, is brave.

Contrast that with the person with panic disorder, who arrives at work at the same time as person A, and says 'hi' to them at the coffee machine. This person set out for work maybe half an hour before person A, and was pacing the house a full three hours before that. This person woke up terrified after a few hours sleep, and was so full of fear and dread they were sick before breakfast. This person cried before leaving the house, because they were so petrified of getting on the tube and of what the day would bring. This person walked to the tube anyway. This person got on the tube, had a panic attack, believed they were going to run out of air and die, and got off again a few stops along. This person took a pill, phoned a friend, cried in the corner, waited for half an hour, and got back on the tube again. And off again, and on again, until they finally made it into work to start their day.

And this person thinks they are a coward. This person berates themselves for being weak, and this person worships person A for being brave. 

This person is not a coward. What this person is, is an eedjit! This person is conquering terror and fear EVERY SINGLE DAY on top of living the life everyone else finds so hard! This person does ten rounds with a slavering hell-beast before breakfast! This person has fought more truly, genuinely courageous and brave battles than person A has had happy, hot dinners! This person needs to wake up, smell the bloody coffee, and realise they are SUPERHUMANLY, OBSCENELY BRAVE, and could by all rights wear a cape and undies on the outside by now! 

This person is you. So suck it up, SuperYou, and stop calling yourself a coward. Or I'll come round there and knock some sense into you. And you don't want that, because I've fought the kind of demons that would make Buffy drop her stake, wet herself, and run home crying to Giles.

'Just got to quickly wrestle these before work, won't be a sec....'

           

And on the third day, she crashed (with apologies to Jesus and ELO)

No ruby slippers, no wonderful wizard; just terror and bright backlighting...

Well, talk about talking too soon. After the general 'I'm alive!' joy of days one and two, I plummeted like a burning, nervy, post-chop Icarus tangled in charred plumage and mixed metaphors. 

Wednesday morning I woke up, and suddenly all was not well. I felt anxious - really, really anxious -  I didn't want the operation to have happened, and I was almost fainting with squeamishness about the wounds on my body and the notion of what had gone on internally when I was not there to see it. It reminded me of my poor childhood cat when he had an abscess on his back - he kept on twisting and turning and shivering his skin along his backbone to try and slide it off and get out from under it somehow. I wanted it all not to have happened, and I wanted to get out from under it. 

I fell into a massive, familiar pile of panic and anxiety, and took a Lorazepam to try to dull the edges, but somehow it combined with the leftover anaesthetic and took me in a horrible way - all wide-awake crazy thoughts and palpitations and trembles.

I couldn't sleep, I couldn't sit still, I couldn't breathe. I couldn't listen to my post-surgery relaxation CD because it made me want to faint, I couldn't take a Lorazepam because I was frightened of making it worse, I couldn't lie still because I was petrified of clots forming in my legs, and I felt absolute, complete, suffocating despair. I tried all the old tricks, and they didn't work. I got disassociation - my whole familiar world started looming and stretching in sinister ways, and I felt trapped in a waking nightmare. It was like a big, fat, supersized Ecstasy comedown (apologies for mature references!) but without the ecstasy (with a small or a big e). All agony, no ecstasy?

I convinced myself I had post-surgery trauma syndrome, that I had clots in my legs and internal bleeding, that I had an infection, that I was going mad, that I would have to have another surgery to fix this one and this would all happen again, and above all - that I was a colossal, self-indulgent hypochondriac who couldn't handle a routine operation like the rest of humanity. My thoughts were just completely and utterly out of control - the horse was galloping away towards the inferno and the rider was just freaking out on the sidelines with wet jodhpurs and a frayed whip. 

Needless to say, it wasn't a vintage few days. It turns out that it's not such an unusual reaction after all - apparently the body's hormonal and endocrine systems go haywire after surgery - and couple that with the general anaesthetic wearing off and some anxiety about recovery and you have a perfect recipe for panic-a-go-go. I just wish I knew that beforehand! 

It, however, remind me of a couple of panic-related things that are worth repeating:

1. Nothing REALLY works in a panic the way you want it to - because the body is specifically designed to create terror that is virtually impossible to override.  The whole point is that you're not meant to easily cognitively disassemble it - you're meant to fucking RUN. So I was reminded, at a cost, that the best thing to do is to grab on to something and hold on, and wait it out. To weather the storm and try desperately to hear the tiny, squeaky voice a mile off that stutters 'this will pass' in the face of the terrifying succubus screaming 'IT WILL NOT' in front of your face.

2. It does pass. I felt like I was in a horror film last week, and I'm calmly typing this now after a relatively happy couple of days. Yes, I'm still a bit quivery, but that always happens for a while after a storm of panic - I know I just have to wait it out until it completely passes again.

3. Anxiety and panic don't make you weak. This one is thanks to my stepmother, who came downstairs and wrapped me in a tight hug when she found me sobbing uncontrollably on my own, and told me about her experiences with panic and anxiety (she's also hard as fucking nails, and you would never, ever characterise her as weak or even approaching it) and shook me back to reality and self-respect. Everyone is flawed. Everyone has their vulnerable moments. But that's not what people remember of them, and that's not what they should remember of themselves. 

So. That's it. I think I've earned a bit of a relax at long last, so if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch Ingrid Bergman give weird, face bruising non-kiss kisses to Cary Grant - I've got a week's worth of recovery DVDs to catch up on...

Nope, that's still not it - we can clearly see your lips aren't touching, guys...

The interwebs can cheer us up!

' Gee whiz, now I've got these inspiring blogs to read I can cut down on the barbiturates  and unsavoury menfolk!' 

We interrupt this most fascinating of all fascinating blog streams about gallstones to bring you news of inspirational, anxiety-busting blogs and websites elsewhere in the world.

Firstly: XO Jane. Have I mentioned this one before? Sorry gents, it's definitely a ladies only one, this. Ladies - listen up. I've just discovered it - full of hilarious, sassy (I really hate that word, so why would I use it?), feisty (if anything I hate this even more than sassy, grrrr) and strident (ah, forget it) articles written by clever, funny women.  

Okay, so I've just somehow managed to make it sound really terrible (remind me not to write a review of your book if you ever publish one), so just go there and see. It's not remotely all about mental health, but there are some bits and pieces that are really pertinent to us worry-warts: Anxiety hero Sara Benincasa has written a great article on there about panic attacks, there's this one  and this one about depression, and even one about GALLSTONES, who'd-a-thunk-it?! 

Use the search bar - it's your friend. If you're in the UK it will probably try to steer you to the new UK version, but I personally prefer the US one (which still features a lot of the UK articles).

Nextly: The Big Scary C Word. It's actually a breast cancer blog that popped up on Huffington Post UK, but is such an inspiring and brave account of a young woman coping (well, hell, she more than copes) that it deserves inclusion in the push-up bra (uplifting, see what I did there) section.

 I initially internally shrieked with self-hatred after seeing how phenomenally well she was dealing with something infinitely more terrifying than anything I worry about, but then I realised - she doesn't have an anxiety condition! Or depression! Her boatload of shit is very different to our boatload of shit, but you can certainly draw a hell of a lot of inspiration from this woman's sunny outlook - I certainly have.

Nextly nextly: Panic about Anxiety. Summer Beretsky blogs at Psych Central about her agoraphobia and panic attacks. Loads of great, clear, honest (she doesn't hide behind anonymity, hmmm) articles there about anxiety in all its gnarly forms.

Question: Is an anxiety blogger blogging about other great anxiety blogs a little like a woman telling her boyfriend how gorgeous other women are and then giving him their numbers? Guys, guys - where are you all going...hang on, can I just.....guyyyyyys...? 

V x

Blogs: for when life feels like a metaphorical budgie is crapping on your metaphorical head

Guys - are we the only sane ones?!

'If I leave the house I could be struck by an out-of-control motorcar, or be attacked by a grubby urchin. Far better to sit here and wait for the TB to take hold'

I have a (half-baked, biased, not thoroughly researched) theory. Admittedly it sounds like the textbook ravings of a madwoman, but stick with me.

 It is my contention that anxious and depressed people are actually the sane, in-touch-with-reality ones, and those odd, glowing balls of Pollyanna-ish, panic-free light you see around are actually completely deluded and inured to the realities of the world.

Ever wonder if maybe crippling anxiety is a normal and justifiable response to a world in which we we are painfully squidgy and breakable in the face of disease and tragedy and accident and heartbreak? Tali Sharot, author of 'The Optimism Bias' argues that most people grossly underestimate risk, and wildly overestimate their capacity to survive life's gauntlet unscathed. 

Her research shows that clinically depressed people have a much firmer grasp of statistical probability and the likelihood of negative outcomes, whereas non-depressed people consistently under-predict those outcomes, or assume they will happen to other people . These results were so convincing and predictable, that she argues that what is often called pessimism is actually far closer to realism, and what is called 'normal' is actually dangerously deluded.

I also read in the paper the other day that mildly depressed people are viewed as being far more practical and grounded and useful in the workplace, because of the aforementioned ability to assess risk and potential threats. (As long as they're not crying into their sushi, presumably).

 Perhaps if we'd had more depressives and neurotics in the banking industry, the global economic temperature would be far healthier - if there were more of us on the trading floors, we would have been ominously whispering 'God, let's not sell these sub-prime mortgage-backed securities - imagine if there were a global crash and loads of people ended up penniless and destitute and lost their houses and killed themselves!!'

Essentially, anxious folk are having a normal and natural response to a world in which cancer and divorce statistics are terrifyingly loaded, random, life-altering accidents are sadly commonplace, and where our mortality is under threat in a thousand different ways, a thousand times a day. We KNOW what can happen to us. We appreciate the risks. We have accurately taken the measure of our squidgy selves and our spiky habitat. We have seen the nature of the world, as it is, and so we don't want to leave our bloody houses, thanks very much!

It's cold comfort, but the next time your doctor sighs, and says 'ah, yes, looks like you're suffering from Generalised Anxiety Disorder' you can flash right back like a latter-day Dorothy Parker and say 'Actually doc, research shows that I have a far greater grasp of risk and the limits of my own mortality than you do, so you could hardly call it a 'disorder', but sadly I live in a society where we have medicalised normality and put mass-scale madness and denial on a pedestal. Now just give me my repeat prescription for a lifetime's supply of Valium and we'll say nothing more of it...'*

*NB. This is meant to be a reasssuring, empowering post for the already-worried, but now I'm worried it's going to make you more worried... 

Oh, bugger off, Pollyanna, you crazy, deluded loon. Don't you know that your chances of DVT go up with having to lie around in that bathchair all day?

Half-full?! There IS no bloody glass!

'And THIS ONE'S CLEAN TOO?! Is there no end to the gifts and blessings God will bestow upon me?!'

ARGH, HELP - I CAN'T DO POSITIVE THINKING!

I realise this statement is ironic in itself. I can sustain the bright, sunshine-y thing for about half an hour, or during the day, but by the time I get home from work, I'm back in the land where everything is awful, where nothing will ever be right again, and where I am a dysfunctional, horrible poison wafting around the house and emptying vitriol over my boyfriend. 

If something is wrong, I just find it really hard to believe that everything isn't 100% terrible and an utter catastrophe. I re-tread this miserable little neural path over and over and over again, and I despair of anything ever changing it (which itself is completely catastrophic and further grist to my specially patented self-pity mill). I get myself tangled into a net of woe and anger and fury about the situation, and about my inability to change it, and about how horrendous the whole mess is, and end up so beyond exhausted I can't even comprehend what exhausted means.

I have spent at least half an hour sobbing every day since about two months ago. I can never believe it when I read those twenty question interviews in the Guardian and they ask the person 'when was the last time you cried?' And they say 'oh, ten years ago when I watched Free Willy' or something. I would be like 'oh, five minutes ago in the taxi on the way to the interview, and before that, ten hours ago in the shower, and before that five hours ago when eating my dinner' etc etc etc ad nauseam. Will I ever get to the point where I can't remember the last time I cried? Can you get repetitive tear duct syndrome (RTDS) or early-onset blindness from too much YSL mascara in the retinas?

I've been googling positive thinking, and all I can find are these blogs with people who've got fibromyalgia and cancer and two amputated limbs and lupus and rheumatoid arthritis and a heart condition and a drug addiction and an abusive childhood - and they're all UNBELIEVABLY F*&KING POSITIVE! Which makes me think I'm a horrible, ungrateful, twisted little self-pitier with a black steam of smoke for a heart and Eeyore for a God.

(You can tell I'm desperate by the following sentence, which actually hurts me to type out) Do any of you have any mantras or sayings or prayers or anything that keep you upbeat and out of the asylum? I'm running through depressive treacle here and could do with your advice.

So far, the only one that has come naturally to me, was when I was curled up in the foetal position in the corner of my open-plan office, being watched by my colleagues, and crying with gallstone pain this Tuesday. It was 'This will soon be over and I'll be watching the Great British Bake-off with my boyfriend this evening, this will soon be over and I'll be watching the Great British Bake-off with my boyfriend this evening'

Which, I think you'll agree, needs some work.

'THE TOAST IS BURNED! My life as I know it is over. I might as well throw myself into the bin with it now and wait for the dustmen of doom to take me to the scrapheap of suffering'

A mean case of the 'shoulds'...

I WANT YOU to do everything differently and to not do that and to do that a bit more and feel grateful that you didn't fight in WWII and that you're not dying of cancer and to pull yourself together and stop being so much like that.

I'm in my twenties, but they're almost over.

I should be having fun.

I shouldn't be sick.

I shouldn't be depressed.

I shouldn't have to take medication.

I should be carefree.

I should be crazy and thoughtless.

 I should be spontaneous and capricious.

 I shouldn't be anxious. 

I should be able to do that easily.

I should be having sex twenty times a week.

I should look like that.

I should be a better girlfriend.

I should be successful by now.

I should make the most of this.

I should think about myself less.

 I should have more friends.

I should be more like her.

I should be almost ready to have kids by now.

I should go to that thing.

I should buy that thing.

 I should change this.

 I should read that.

 I should do that more. 

I should eat more of that.

I should take more of those.

I should stop staying should so much.

I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should.I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should.I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should.I should I should I should I should.I should I should I should I should.I should I should I should I should.I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should.I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should I should.

ENOUGH!!

Am I the only one being pursued by a rabid Shouldasaurus?

'Hi, is that NHS Direct? I keep having recurrent and distressing thoughts that all begin with the words "I SHOULD" and now I've got a touch of self-hating hysteria. Can you send someone with a medical license over to the house straightaway?'

I worry, therefore I am...

Phew. See, she was worrying unnecessarily. Don't let yourself fall into that silly lady-trap, tsk tsk, there's a pretty thing.

'Cognitive fusion' sounds like an exciting thing that happens in clever brains, but is actually a stupid bitch of a neuro-thing, and here's why.

Apparently when you start worrying about something (i.e. 'argh, my wife is going to divorce me because we had a big argument') your brain and body cannot distinguish between your imagining of the horrors of the event, and the actual event itself. To the brain and the adrenal system, when you imagine all the terrifying things that could happen during a divorce (brain screaming 'I'll be alone!' 'I'll lose my kids!' I'll never have sex again!'), you are literally experiencing all the same emotions and affective hormones etc you would experience during an actual divorce.

You've essentially created a nightmare-ish fantasy world that your body cannot divorce (ha) from reality.

So a day spent worrying about the possibility of a divorce, is a day where you've voluntarily propelled yourself into an unpleasant almost-genuine experience that either;

a) is never going to happen, in which case you've given yourself a traumatic fake divorce completely unnecessarily. (The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted that this is the most likely option, particularly if your worries involve obscure, disastrous outcomes with infinitesimally small chances of ever occurring like mine do)

b) IS going to happen, in which case you've not only got to go through it once in your horrible pretend-land, but AGAIN in the real world.

The reason this is a bitch is that

a) it's destructive and horrible and nasty
b) knowing all about it doesn't stop me worrying in the slightest.

Well, maybe a little bit. I'm working on it.

The upside (it genuinely took me more than a day to hit on this, I'm such an Eeyore!) is that it works in reverse - i.e. imagining lovely things produces all the warm fuzzy good vibes you'd get if you were really doing those lovely things. Hence the popularity of visualisation ('you're lying on a warm beach in the Caribbean feeling the sand between your toes etc').

So all we need to do, is stop imagining horrible things, and start imagining wonderful things! Our anxiety will not only dissipate, we'll actually go from almost-genuinely experiencing divorces and gnarly deaths to almost-genuinely experiencing beach holidays and winning the lottery!

I told you there would be an easy solution to this anxiety lark! Stick with me, kids, and we'll soon have it licked.

V x

'I can finally see my happy-ever-afters clearly with these special rose-tinted spectacles on. Hurrah!'

Brain - serotonin = WET CHAOS...

Just like this poor woman, my brain has fallen victim to moving and sentimental images, like fully-clothed sunbathing on LiLos, and Italian wedding dresses. 

My brain and I have had a falling out. There's been a slapped wrist (brains have wrists) and an official warning over negligence of basic duties. It's not being fed serotonin every morning with its cornflakes and has gone all mushy and sentimental and weird.

In the last two days I have cried in the following ways:

• When I flicked over to the X-Factor (eating dinner, urgently needed moving images) and listened to a mildly talented boy whose parents had split up (they couldn't even scrape together any real tragedy for the pre-singing story) sing a probably mediocre song, but in my addled state I just heard music, so was moved. I mean, multiple tears, not just A single, individual tear.

• Watching some terrible documentary about athletes and how-hard-they-trained-for-the-Olympics-and-how-happy-they-were-that-all-their-hard-work-had-paid-off-and-how-it-was-all-worth-it-and-how-they-were-really-pleased-to-represent-the-country-and-how-grateful-they-were-to-their-coaches-who-had-been-through-it-with-them-from-the-very-beginning-and-most-of-all-to-their-families-who-always-believed-in-them cue Coldplay.

• Watching the last 3 minutes (literally) of Masterchef Australia where the winner was crowned. I want to clarify that I had not watched ANY of the series, so this was a record tear release from a standing start.

• When someone's pastry tore on the Great British Bake-off.

• At several slow-motion sporting montages calculatedly created to cause maximum heartstring damage by the BBC

But here's the clincher:

• I CRIED WATCHING AN 80s RE-RUN OF THE CRYSTAL MAZE. When a girl managed to get a crystal. That's all. When she took it back to the team they all cheered and I felt my eyes moisten.

And I said -  'ENOUGH!!!! The Crystal Maze??? Really, has it come to this? You are genuinely moved by a 20 year old re-run on Challenger? What is happening up there in the control room Mr Brain? Are you pulling the wrong levers or something? Are you drunk? Are you asleep at the wheel? Do you need a defibrillator? What do you want from me?!'

How long does it take brains to get back to normal after a number of years being chemically enhanced, I wonder...

Oh no, don't, I can feel them forming. Look at her eager face. Oh God, it's too late. What a moving display of ingenuity and problem-solving. Pass the tissues please.

By jove - I did it!

'Smile! All together now, say HEAT RASH!'

Hey chaps. It's Viv calling. From England. After having got back from her HOLIDAY. Which she successfully went on without a single full-blown panic attack. Sure, she almost had one at the boarding gate, and she cried, and she about four more wobbles (mostly blood-sugar related) when she was there - but she DIDN'T have a big momma nasty one. She used her CBT, and her million other tricks and techniques, and actually had an AMAZING HOLIDAY despite her fears.

Guys - it wasn't like Berlin! Bad experiences can be one-offs! Things don't have to repeat themselves! I had a glorious, beautiful, relaxing holiday. My pre-panic disorder self woke up, and was like 'where are we? This is amazing - we LIKE going to new places and exploring things. Gee-up girl!' I swam in a freezing cold ocean that made my heart race - like in a panic attack, so I had to deal with that and rationalise that. I went to gorgeous restaurants (one of my panic stressors - I hate feeling trapped, and once you order you sort of have to sit and wait, and I used to get really freaked out about that sometimes) and bars on the beach. I walked down hundreds of steps to a REMOTE beach, which was hugely stressful, but totally worth it.

It's going to sound unforgivably cheesey, but I really lived in the moment (urgh, sorry - told you). There was one particular moment when I was lying by the pool, in the sun, with shade sails flapping above me, the waves crashing in the background and the boyfriend stroking my back, and I really felt an 'I am just here' sort of feeling. Not worrying about the future, not stressing about the past, just enjoying being an animal lying in the sun, feeling the breeze, and slipping in and out of sleep.

I don't want to be solipsistic about this, so the message is (for all of us): just because you've had a bad experience in the past, doesn't mean it will happen in the same way again. So you had a panic attack on a plane once. Doesn't mean you'll necessarily have another one. I did have a horrific one once, and I haven't had one since (although I've spent many, many wasted hours worrying about that very possibility). So you freaked out on the tube once - doesn't mean you will again. In fact, the only thing that will make you freak out, is freaking out about the possibility of freaking out again. 

So let's try to break all the bad, phobic associations we've made with places and people and things and start afresh, and act like the future will be different. Because nothing stays the same forever, and you never know - you may be in your room, sobbing and panicking and in pain today - but next week, or month, or year, you may be lying on a beautiful beach somewhere, peaceful and in the moment, with panic a million miles away.

                               'Goodness, Jean, what a glorious day this is!'                                                                    'Pffft. Let's just smile and get this over with and pray to God there aren't any sea lice...'

Here comes the sun (and attendant free-floating anxiety)...

'Pssst, hey, girls, are any of you finding it hard to breathe right now?'

Hi guys. I know I'm getting slow with these posts, but I'm having some very boring and predictable anxiety of the self-pitying breed, and pretty sure no-one's really reading them anyway. Yawn.

I'm in a bit of a grump because I'm going on holiday.

Now how ridiculous does that sound?

Ever since the dawning of my new age of anxiety, the wonderful, incredible, blessing that is an annual holiday now fills me with fear and dread. And that fact fills me with fury and anxiety.

It's ever since I went to Berlin with my boyfriend and spent the plane ride in the grip of one of the worst attacks I've ever had, and then the rest of the week sobbing and panicking and sobbing and panicking, and ringing my mum in Australia and sobbing, and ringing my therapist every evening and sobbing, and walking down the street and thinking I was going to die and sobbing and panicking. We were in a five star hotel (the Ritz Carlton) and it was meant to be romantic. I felt so guilty I can't even tell you. How would you feel if you were my boyfriend and you'd got all ready for a romantic break after working hard all year, and your girlfriend totally and utterly freaked out and cocked everything up? No sexy time, no romantic dinner time, just getting places, panicking, and going home to the hotel and sobbing. And wanting to go home, but being petrified of the plane ride, so planning a land-crossing instead. Oh my sweet Jesus, it makes me feel sick to even think of it.

And of course then there was my most recent claustroholiday.

So despite the fact that I've had hundreds of amazing holidays in my life, and I have had a couple of reasonable ones since, I now can't get rid of the worry that this may be another horror movie like Berlin.

I went to my hypnotherapist last night, and he made it all better - and I felt amazing. But then this morning I woke up and was terrified again. We're leaving tomorrow morning.

Please God let it be okay. Let me not ruin things for my boyfriend. Let me not ruin things for myself. Let me not waste all of our money. Let me summon up my adventurous spirit that I USED to have in spades before all of this crap. Let the statistics be right and Berlin just sink into history as an aberration. Let me relax and enjoy this - because there is nothing to worry about, nothing to fear, nothing to feel unsafe about. Please God let me just be normal and enjoy this! And if anyone is reading this, if you could send some general good vibes in my direction as well that would be really, really very much appreciated.


V x

'Hey, let's play a really cool game - let's pretend that  sharks and body hatred and skin cancer don't even exist!'

A bad case of the mean reds...

Let's not kid ourselves - I don't think Audrey ate many croissants and full-fat lattes in her time...

Is there no end to the things that Breakfast at Tiffany's can teach us about life?

Apart from the fact that quaffing champagne before breakfast is perfectly decent and normal, and that you must never, ever give your heart to a wild thing, B at T also has important things to say about free-floating anxiety and panic.

Observe...

Holly 'You know those days when you get the mean reds?
Paul 'The mean reds, you mean like the blues?'
Holly 'No, the blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad, that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of.'

Holly explains that for her, a trip to Tiffany's is the only thing that can shake off the mighty mean reds.

'Well, when I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there. If I could find a real-life place that'd make me feel like Tiffany's, then - then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name!'

Needless to say, Truman Capote suffered from severe anxiety (no-one who hasn't experienced it could have written that), and went to some pretty extreme measures to keep it in check.

Sadly, this isn't late-50s New York (and for me, it's not even 21st century New York, and I feel like heading to Harrods in the rain just wouldn't have the same effect), so what I want to know is - when you get a bad bout of the mean reds, what's your very own real-life Tiffany's? 

Oh, go on then, I'll have a chocolate covered danish. Seeing as how you twisted my arm.

Cheesy self-help alert - introducing the 'Happy Box'...

This woman does NOT own a Happy Box.

 My therapist told me to make a happy box. A hamper of cheerful delights - a 'break-in-case-of-emergency' toolkit to thrill me out of any depression and misery associated with bad panic attack days. I thought it sounded like a really, really stupid idea. Somewhere for girly girls to put their posters of Leonardo DiCaprio and uplifting cartoons and horoscopes.

But I did it anyway (you may see a recurring theme on my blog - my panicked desperation leads me to do things I would normally scoff at  i.e. creepy hypnosis, non-ironic meditation, giving up smoking, eating healthily, swearing off caffeine etc etc. And surprise, surprise - some of them have even worked a little bit!).

So I got a lovely, huge vintage suitcase from a flea market in Cambridge, and have stuffed it with 'you GO girl!' notes I've written to myself in odd empowered moments, expensive chocolate truffles, love-heart sweets, photos, music, self-help books, stuffed toys from childhood (sent over from Australia by my mum) and all manner of other random things. Essentially you're meant to cover all the 'sense' bases - i.e. scented candles, luscious chocolates, funny films, uplifting CDs, and any other things that make you feel safe/strong/happy/loved/horny (just kidding - although, whatever works...).

Only problem is that I keep raiding it for chocolate truffles on good days, so Mother Hubbard's happy cupboard is bare on the bad days.

Apart from that, I think it's a GREAT idea, and highly recommend it to those of you who are prone to the old post-and-pre-and-during-panic-blues.

And you know - it's not like you need to TELL everyone what you're doing. It can be your own special, self-helpy secret.

It's also a pretty fun thing to put together. And you can keep adding to it whenever you see something else that perks you up. Now how good does that sound? Go on. Have a go. You know you want to. Jooooooiiin ussssss...

V x

You NEED me.

So, you're having the worst day of your life...?

I just thought I'd put together some emergency self-care steps for those days/nights when you really have been wrestling with the hideous dark panic demons, and you feel so anxious and bewildered you could chuck yourself under a truck. You can't do anything, you can't leave your house, you're having panic after panic, and you don't feel capable of even the tiniest thing. You're terrified, sleepless, and at your wit's end.

These are basic, emergency care steps that will help you back on the road to normality (and most of them were told me by my therapist when I was in crisis, so have official psych sanction).

1. If you have one, take a tranquiliser. Just take one now. Don't overthink it, just do it. This is an extreme and horrendous day - and they are specifically made for occasions like this. They will give you a small window of peace so you can collect yourself a bit, and give you a few hours away from fear, which will break the vicious cycle of fear-panic-more fear-more panic etc etc. You probably haven't slept very well, and these will give you space to do that as well (which you desperately need).

2. Drink a huge glass of water before you do anything else. You've probably been crying (which apparently dehydrates you more than you think), and dehydration makes anxiety (and everything) a lot worse.

3. Have a warm shower, rub yourself down with some nice lavender moisturiser, and get into some fresh, clean, soft cotton clothes (pyjamas etc). These tiny things you would never normally notice can mean so much when you're at rock bottom. Sometimes the pleasure of clean skin and clothes is all you're going to get in a day.

4. If you can't eat, try and drink a Complan (Ensure) or a smoothie. Just get even half of it down. The body produces adrenalin when your blood sugar drops below a certain level, so getting anything down will make you feel so much less jittery.

5. (This one's courtesy of my Dad) Do something small that gives you a sense of control and mastery. It can be absolutely tiny - doing the crossword methodically is what I did when I was beside myself with terror. It's something to do, it's something you know you can do, but it's manageable.

6. If you're on your own, call someone - family or a good friend. If you're with someone, explain what's happening - don't be ashamed - and get yourself a big-ass hug.

7.  Do whatever you need to make you feel good, and don't censor yourself. Watch gentle comedies if you can sit still. Hug your favourite soft toy (and don't feel stupid about it). Read your favourite kids' book. Call your mum. Leave the light on if you're scared and you need to. Don't judge yourself for regressing a bit - you're at rock bottom and you need these things, but you won't always.

8. If you're at this stage, go for a little walk. Round the block is fine, to get a magazine from the newsagents is fine. Don't worry, you'll be travelling to amazing places soon, but for today, a walk round the block is all you can manage, and it's enough for now. If you can't - DON'T WORRY. You're not going to end up housebound - you are just looking after yourself indoors for a couple of days, and that is OKAY.

9. Know that THIS WILL PASS. I know exactly what this feels like, I've been there, but I also know that I'm not there now, and it passed. You have to hold on, you have to be patient, you have to grit your teeth and BEAR IT, just like you would have to bear some sort of physical pain.

10. Check out the anxiety heroes here, and remember how many brilliant, beautiful, brave people have suffered with anxiety and depression, and remember that you are not alone. You're amazing and courageous for dealing with this, and you will come out the other side stronger. YOU CAN DO IT!

Drag your demons into the sunlight...

'SHUT UP!! No, I will NOT burn down their houses!'

Hi kids. Hope you're looking forward to a splendid weekend full of dandelions, gin and candy-floss - I know I certainly am.

The only thing is, I'm having glimmers of our old buddy the anxiety monster on the periphery of my vision, and it's worrying me just a wee bit.

I can trundle along for weeks or months feeling splendid, and then, every so often, I start to see these ominous black tendrils on the horizon. Like somebody's inky coattails just swooshed around the corner before I got in the room. It's as if there's nothing specifically wrong AT THIS VERY MOMENT, but I get a sinking, swooping feeling in the pit of my stomach, and my skin feels a bit crawly, and I start to feel a vague, undefined sense of creeping terror. As if there's some not very timorous beastie lurking somewhere around a corner up ahead, and I feel unsettled, and gloomy, and nervous, and unhelpable, and very, very alone. As if I'm wandering through a creaking, haunted house, and I haven't happened upon a ghost YET, but my bones and bowels know it's coming.

But hey, this is amazing (and genuinely unexpected, I have to say) - but I feel about ten times better for just writing that. Really. Honestly and truly. Literally, within seconds of having put that down. Bloody hell. That's amazing.

Maybe it's the power of summoning nightmares into the open, and revealing and naming them that takes the sting out their nasty little tails?

Oh God. I can't believe this. I didn't want to have to do this, guys, but I can feel it coming, and I'm powerless to stop it...

...It's like in the Harry Potter books (GARRR, I've done it - oh the shame!) when the kids have to confront the Boggarts. The demons turn into your worst, most feared thing, and have the power to really make you lose your shit.  BUT, if you call them on it, and pluck up your courage and imagine them in some ridiculous or silly situation, they dissolve immediately in a puff of smoke.

So maybe try this, as a weekend exercise (apologies for the sudden schoolmarmish twist): write down what you're afraid of. Put this nasty crap in words. Don't shy away from it, and see what happens. Maybe it will seem ridiculous when it's out, in black and white.

Let's name these bastarding Boggarts and get them in the anti-bacterial sunlight! Let's flush them out and scrape off the mould and festering cankers! Let's wash this shit right out of our hair! Let's have an exorcism, people!     

'OUT, DAMN DEMON SPOT!'

Anxiety bites...

'I vant to sark your adrenalin-filled blood...'

Hi guys. Hope all is good in your worlds. Sorry about the tardiness of this post - I've had a hectic week at work, and a jam-packed bank holiday weekend in London.

And I'm stressed! Might be the long week, might be the London mania, might be a million other things, but I have that nasty lump in my throat and and I feel overwhelmed. And as soon as that happens I start freaking out that I'm about to panic, or relapse, or get depressed, which makes things a hundred times worse. This is such a boringly predictable condition, and yet EVERY SINGLE TIME I fail to identify common patterns, and freak out anew about what's happening. It's like Groundhog Day, but less interesting (if that's possible).


In keeping with my recent regression to escapist teenagerdom, I've been watching the Twilight films (not quite obsessively, but approaching that sort of adolescent fervour). And oh my God, I'm not sure if that was a good idea - mental health-wise. I've been yearning NOT to be a successful 27 year-old London career woman, but a sulky 18 year old virgin who is fought over by a bad CGI teen-wolf and a waxy, glittery vampire, so my goals and dreams are obviously just a little off mark at the moment. I was literally watching cast interviews on Oprah on YouTube when I should have been doing work for a CHARITY- how shameful is that?!

I don't even have any brilliant advice. Just sharing my anxiety and general life-dissatisfaction with you because I'm GENEROUS like that. And in the vain hope that either you are not sunk as deep in regressive-anxious-Twilight-fever as me (in which case this will make you feel better about yourself), or you are, and this makes you feel you have an anxious twin (in which case you will feel less lonely, and thus better about yourself.) 

Eighties teenage wolf ...

 Noughties teenage wolf. My poor, deprived generation could never have even dreamed of this sort of lupine hotness. Kids these days don't even know they're born.

Anxiety hero trading cards #3

#3 Charles M. Schulz

I *heart* widow's peaks

Vital anxiety statistics: Snoopy's doting Dad hated to travel, loathed hotels and was plagued by anxiety, panic attacks, loneliness and depression. According to his wife, he 'worried constantly'. Sound familiar?

Career highlights: 

Why he's an AWESOME anxiety hero: Five reasons. Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, and Woodstock. 

Oh, and he fought in WWII and beat those nasty Nazis (not single-handedly, admittedly). And one of the Apollo 10 command modules was named Charlie Brown after his amazingly depressed and neurotic self-portrait.

What you can learn from him: You too could create some of the best-loved cartoon characters ever, win the Congressional Medal of Honour, kick some Nazi bum, and earn a cool $1.1 billion in the process (if you so choose).

Best anxiety quote: 'The most terrifying loneliness is not experienced by everyone and can be understood by only a few.  I compare the panic in this kind of loneliness to the dog we see running down the road frantically pursuing the family car. He is not really being left behind, but for that moment, in his limited understanding, he is being left alone forever, and he has to run and run to survive.'

Further reading: Just have a look-see at these. He may have been sad, but he was also pretty, pretty funny...(and you know how much I love that in a worrier).

...I got carried away. They're all just so goddamn good. The one above is definitely a panic attack, no?