The Panic Cycle

 I have been doing my CBT every day for over 2 weeks now along with my walks but every day continues to be a challenge. From Friday the 19th August I have had at least one panic attack per day at home, sometimes several. Its not a good direction. And as expected it has brought with it a dread when I wake in the morning because I know that its coming. Strangely in some ways I am actually wishing it to come because although it can happen more than once in a day the usual way it plays out is to have one and then be fine for the rest of the day after. Its a feeling of just wanting it out of the way to get on with my day. 

It builds like a slow drip of adrenaline from waking and the uneasy sense of low level anticipatory anxiety creeps in. It dictates my day. I now have to leave my CBT and walks until the evening because doing them early was making me more anxious. It has been a very dark time I am afraid but at least this time there is hope. The CBT workbooks defintely help. I remember very well over a decade ago when this all started being afraid and in the dark not knowing what was happening to me and not knowing if I would ever get out of it. Now at least I know what I am experiencing and its just going to take time to change that daily situation. I am no longer wondering if this will ever end. I know it will, I did it before. It is just about learning how to deal with the panic attacks again so they don't overwhelm me and I have now managed that a few times. It is about learning a skill and practicing it until it is second nature. When that happens I will lose the fear and panic will stop happening.

Right now I am stuck in the anticipatory anxiety cycle. This is what makes a single panic attack a recurring panic attack. The first panic can be a one off- it is for a lot of people. For others the experience is so scary that the live in fear of another and it is that fear which brings the next one on. And so on, the self perpetuating panic cycle. For me on Friday the 19th I am experienced high anxiety which had been building for months. That day though it finally overwhelmed me and I went into full blown panic which knocked me for six. What to you do when you need to escape your own home? The following day the same thing happened and I had to walk for about half an hour outside trying to spend the adrenaline. And every day after it continues but there is some positivity even if it doesn't feel like it right now. Only twice since then have I been overwhelmed by panic. And better still I have had two days of bad anxiety lately but not panic. So there is some reason to be optimistic but it is hard to see that when you are spending your waking moments waiting to be terrorised by your own mind and body.