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My Damaged Youth. |
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| Monday, 27 August 2007 | |||||||||
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Posted by: JessieBee on Monday, August 27, 2007
When I first started with my panic attacks, I was in grade 5. The first memory that comes to mind when I’m asked about my very first attacks in when I was watching Titanic with my parents. My parents insist it was a different time, but that is the first time I can remember. Watching the characters on Titanic die triggered something, and I snuggled up to my mom, scared to death that she was going to die. She told me to just breathe and sat outside with me for some fresh air. I was fine after that.Then a couple weeks later my parents had plans to go over for dinner at their friend’s house. Ten minutes before they were about to leave, it started. I felt nauseous and scared. This time I thought I was going to die. My parents decided to have their friends over at my house. They laid me on the couch and put a cold face cloth on my head. All through their dinner I groaned on the couch. My stomach hurt, I was dizzy and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. It went away after a couple days, but I knew my Mom was still concerned. Then one day, about a week after the incident, my Mom told me that she had a good idea of what was wrong with me. She told me it was panic attacks. Being eleven years old I didn’t know what it was, but soon I found myself on different kinds of pills and seeing weird doctors. After I was on Prozac I was better and went on with my grade school years just fine. After I graduated out of grade eight, I went on with my summer just fine. Then I started high school. There was a specific school I had to go to because it had classes for people with learning disabilities. I have attention Deficient Disorder and needed those classes. I was separated from all the close friends I had made and was starting a brand new school where I knew absolutely nobody. The first day was fine, but on the second morning, I felt it again. That same feeling of being scared to death of nothing, nauseous, dizzy, difficult breathing and everything else I had experienced back in grade five. I missed two weeks straight of high school. Every morning my parents would try to get me to calm down and go back to school, but I would scream and cry until they gave in. We took another trip to the doctors and I was prescribed rispridol. From what I can remember, he told me it was a very low dose of an anti-psychotic. It worked, but made me gain weight. As a child I was teased daily because of my weight. My parents said I was never over weight but now I’m convinced that I was and am now. After a couple of weeks I was taken off of rispridol and put on celexa. I was able to go back to school. I only got feelings of anxiety, but nothing more then that. I went through grades nine, ten and eleven without having a full-blown panic attack. Some side effects of the panic disorder lingered. I became anti-social and very phone shy. My Mom tried me on other anti-depressants. We decided to stay on Zoloft and I am currently still on it. During my grade eleven year I was irresponsible about my medication and skipped them three days at a time and only took them once a week. Sometimes I would skip taking them for weeks at a time. The summer that I finished grade eleven, my panic attacks came back, full-blown again. It started when my Aunt asked me to baby-sit for her. The night before I had to baby-sit it came back. I felt sick to my stomach, scared and my fingers tingled. I got flushed and chilled and I couldn’t breathe. I felt too terrified to move. This lasted for a week. Since then I have been taking my medication regularly. My panic attacks aren’t all gone yet, but I’ve come to realize that my medication is only a crutch. I have to tell myself that this is all in my head and that I am safe and nothing bad will happen. I never would have been able to get over my panic attacks without my Mother’s support. I feel lucky that my panic disorder showed up at such a young age. At first I didn’t understand it, but now I am prepared that now in my coming adult years I know what it is and that there is help out there. I feel that the consequences of having panic attacks at such a young age has affected my social life and interfered with my pre-teen and teenaged years. I also am thankful that I am now fully educated on what is happening with me. I find that talking to people who have the same problem as me gives me extreme comfort, along with my medication. With those two things I feel that I can move on and life my life normally and I hope that you can too.
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cherie
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... HI. would you mind answering the following questions for me? I'm trying to implement a brief intervention for panic victims entering the emergency room with a panic attack. Your comments would be helpful for me. Thanks, Cherie :) |
cherie
said:
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... Please take a look at this survey and post questions for me in hopes that members will respond. 1. When and under what circumstances did you experience your first panic attack? 2.When did you first use the emergency room? 3. How many times have you used the emergency room for panic attacks? 4. Was the staff helpful to you? 5. Was the doctor helpful? Or not? Why or why not? 6. Was the emergency room expensive? Did this make you angry? 7. Did the doctor suggests that you see a doctor or psychiatrist, counselor, etc.? 8. Or did he/she just give you pills? 9. Did you see your personal physician later? Was she/he helpful? Did they suggest that you see a psychologist/psychiatrist? 10. Has your counselor/psychiatrist, psychologist been helpful? In what ways? 11. Have you ever heard of breathing retraining or other biofeedback methods? 12. Are you open to alternative methods instead of just medication? Why or why not? 13. Who told you about them? Or how did you find out about breathing retraining or other methods to help with panic attacks? 14. Do you think that it would have helped your emergency room experience if there had been staff members trained in biofeedback/breathing techniques to help you through the experience and to process afterwards what was happening to you? To educate you about panic attacks? 15. Do you think this type of intervention would be worthwhile to others who have a panic attack and use the emergency room? 16. How many attacks did you experience before finally seeking out the help of a psychologist or family doctor? 17. Are you still suffering from symptoms? 18. Were you diagnosed with depression after you had a panic attack? Before you had a panic attack? 19. How long did it take after your initial panic attack before you were diagnosed with panic disorder or depression by a physician, psychologist or psychiatrist? 20. How are you dealing with panic now? Medicine, yoga, CBT, breathing methods, etc.? |
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