My story is about how anxiety and panic attacks were triggered by work pressures and my struggle to manage them over the last eight years. Learning to make the right choices, enjoy the small things in life and laugh at its absurdities has been part of my journey.

I was first diagnosed with panic attacks and depression in 2001 when I landed up in the local medical centre unable to breathe, my right arm shaking like I had palsy and an inability to speak without stuttering. I was referred to a psychiatrist by my GP and spent two weeks in the local psychiatric clinic while they tried to sort out meds and I participated in group therapy sessions followed by CBT with the lovely psychologist/ psychiatric nurse working at the clinic. When I looked back over the past three years of my life I could understand how it had happened - a toddler, completing a Masters thesis and working in a very challenging and difficult job that entailed considerable long distance travel and underlying fibromyalgia had finally taken their toll.

It took me two years before I started to work again seriously. Things went fine for a couple of years but I made the mistake of taking a job that meant I could only spend weekends with my husband and young son and that turned into a bureacratic nightmare with again, considerable long distance travel. I started weeping at the slightest thing, when under pressure the arm shaking and stuttering recurred, and I was less and less able to work effectively. So I resigned, had a year working mostly from home and then took a new job - local that required some travel, but manageable.

My husband retired about three years ago and has been working as a home based consultant in his particular field. All well and good, until he spent six months working on a project last year and still hasn't been paid. Our financial situation became more and more dire until we had to go to a debt counsellor. So my old friends anxiety and panic came to visit again and I found myself once again back with the psychiatrist, the clinic, the meds and the psychologist. I'm once again fairly stable but it only takes a bit of a financial crisis, like being paid late, to trigger the anxiety attacks.

I'm surviving but I know now that this is something that I will have to deal with for the rest of my life. It's manageable but not curable given the current state of psychiatric medicine. My husband is my rock, feet firmly placed on the earth, and my son is my joy. I've always been a keen observer of nature and I take pleasure in the birds on the bird feeder and the humpback whales playing in the sea that we can watch from our balcony. My life is good in so many ways and I thank God for that and the loving family I have who care about how I am. My mom has had a really tough ride through life with her health but her ability to find laughter in darkness is something I treasure. Sometimes I fall off the J-board of life but I still manage to get back on and keep riding. 

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Raederle said:

I used to have panic attacks, but no longer I used to get very dizzy on a regular basis, as well as suddenly feel short of breath, or pains in the center of my chest (within my heart, as I have come to understand.) These symptoms were often in combination with "stitches" in my side (sharp pains running through the sides, somewhat forward from the direct middle of my sides). When I told my mom about some of these symptoms (it was ages eight through sixteen that I had them the most often) she became very concerned. (I told her about it at length at the age of nine, I believe.) She told me that chest pains could be very serious, and that if I ever felt them I should sit down immediately and calm my breathing. She told me that if I didn't, it was possible that I could die (depending, of course, on what the pains meant.) I grew up believing more and more firmly that I had a serious disease that I would die from at a young age. Around the age of eleven my mom began to suspect I had lupus, but the doctors wouldn't credit her theory. At the age of sixteen I told my mother that I didn't really believe I'd live past the age of twenty-seven. The number "felt like" it had "significance," and I believed that feeling meant I would die at that age. Secretly I hoped that meant that I would find prince charming at that age, because after-all, that would be a much more enjoyable outcome even it meant waiting so many years for it to happen. As it turns out, when I began to change my diet at the age of sixteen many of the symptoms began to go away. The dizziness came less often, and the splitting headaches began to lessen, the side pains lessened. I became encouraged to do more food research to see if I could eliminate some of my symptoms. Today, after six years of altering my diet in stages (based on more and more continual research on a nearly daily basis for several of those years), I never randomly feel dizzy. My heart doesn't just begin to hurt out of no where anymore. I don't suddenly feel like I can't breath anymore. As well as many other issues I used to have dissipating. This leads me to believe that many other people with "panic attacks" could be cured the same way I was. I wrote more about it here: http://reallyrawraederle.blogs...tacks.html

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December 01, 2010 | url
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cremativa said:

	... well, this Paper Writers might be the proper one over here as well
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December 27, 2010
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HSpence said:

	self-assessment meds do help control the problem but it doesn't solve it countless visits to the doc have helped me manage but there's a cure check out this video and see if this is what you really have it will not cost you a dime to do self-assessment http://bit.ly/gtccFB
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February 20, 2011 | url
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a guest said:

	work tip When i work, i tend to take kava the night before to reduce the stress i know goings to kick me left right and centre the following day. I guess any form of anxiety relief is heaven for anyone in my circumstance. Ive set up a sight for anyone wanting help. i found kava to be heaven sent and helping anyone else is but common sense for me. http://livingthekavalife.blogspot.com/
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August 03, 2011 | url
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Pitter901 said:

	... Pretty Interesting post. Could not be written any better. Thanks for sharing! SEO Services[http://www.spiderswatch.com]
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September 23, 2011
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Pitter901 said:

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September 23, 2011 | url
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acua said:

	finis swimp3 When one become anxious just take a break and get some fresh air. finis swimp3
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September 27, 2011 | url
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acua said:

	finis swimp3 people with these conditions should learn how to control it. finis swimp3
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September 27, 2011 | url
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memyselfanxiety said:

	Making changes is the solution People don't realize that our brain, just like our body, sends a message when it goes awry. Anxiety is a sign that our current lifestyle is just not right anymore and it needs to change.I Had an anxiety attack last year and it took me that horrible experience to realize that I was going in the wrong direction with my life. Listen to your brain.
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October 19, 2011 | url
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DannyLLafrance said:

	eliminateanxietyproblems What a nice topic.Thanks for sharing this..The symptoms an individual experiences while suffer ring an anxiety attack are very real and extremely scary for the person experiencing the attack.. Cheers, DannyLLafrance
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November 10, 2011 | url
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