Fucking hell, today has been trying to the extreme. To start with, nightmares fucking suck, and they lead to not enough sleep and thus not nearly enough spoons to deal with anything. Then, we add in the pain of a sunburn on top of a sunburn straight across the top half of my back. All in all, things go fairly well from breakfast until just before dinner, with the only need for the use of spoons being a short trip to a pharmacy and a small grocery store. Then, as supper is being finished up by the parental units in the house, the female begins yelling at the male. He just stands there and fucking takes it and I drop straight into an extreme panic attack. Now see, my panic attacks aren't what you would call "typical," they consist generally of racing thoughts but an extremely quiet, calm and subdued exterior. Oh, and they last for Days At a Time. I then had to sit through dinner with these two parental units and their daughter, and am forced to speak when I absolutely Do Not Want To. After dinner, I go upstairs with the daughter, who tried to fucking touch me. I (very politely) asked her not to, and she got Very Offended, which most definitely Did Not Help. So, I shower, go back downstairs, and end up sitting through a video with Very Violent commentary. I am more than out of spoons, and still it is expected of me to interact with others and be O.K. and I just. Ugh. Anyone have any tips on dealing with panic attacks?
I am not sure I have useful tips but I do have virtual non-touchy air hugs *hugs* The guy I was seeing told me that a lot of panic attack symptoms are caused by hyperventilating, and that even if you feel like you are suffocating it might help to focus on breathing slowly - rather than deeply - but that seems like it might have more to do with immediate, I'm-gonna-die panic than what you are dealing with. And I never got to try it. Sorry these parental units et al. are unhelpful about it. ):
The breathing thing actually helps me a lot with anxiety attacks, but as my breathing is only minimally affected by panic attacks it doesn't help with them .-. Thanks for the hug, though! It made me smile
hmmm. Have you tried mindfulness exercises or meditating? I know I have trouble with keeping my brain on track, and it has started to help me a lot. My panic attacks manifest as heightened senses and everything I sense seeming alarmed, plus the general feeling of impending doom... You might try Stop, Breathe, & Think, which is what I use. One that might be helpful for you is "Engaging the Senses" - bringing you back to the immediate present rather than paying close attention to the racing thoughts. Oh! I also have started listening to meditation music when I'm not actively listening to anything else. This is stuff like Tibetan singing bowls and binaural beats and things like that. My playlist is here. I find that this Tibetan singing bowls track is particularly good for relaxing the "holy fuck let's think about everything at once and how terrible it is" thoughts. I have no idea if any of this will help you. :/ It's definitely not geared for dealing with panic attacks when you have no choice but to be with other people. Maybe try finding a mantra to repeat to yourself, or something nice to touch or play with? I used to use a Rubik's Cube when I needed to focus (nobody bugged me about it because it was a 'smart toy' XD)...
Hmm...maditation sounds like it could be very useful, thank you for all the links. I'll try some of it the first chance I get. I used to just play with my hair whenever I'd get like this and it would help, but it's kind of stopped working, so I'm not sure how something nice to touch or play with would work. Rubik's cubes just frustrate me, though :/
Dinner time again with the same family. There's more yelling, which escalated my panic attack back up to full swing (it had been going away). And then. I got dragged into it. Gee, thanks for that. Because yelling with my name in it is exactly what helps.
What's with the describing this as "the family" as opposed to "my family" and "the male" and "the female" and "their daughter"?
Because its a complicated relationship. They're not my biological family but the daughter is my best friend, and I call the parents mom and dad. I'm not adopted by them (I still live with my bio family) but they treat me as though I'm one of them. But when my headspace is like this I cannot associate the mother as being like a mom to me or it just makes things worse. I'm the same way with my bio mom when she starts yelling/screaming. I'm sorry if that doesn't make much sense .-.
We're cool. It sounds like your living situation is tenuous, which, on top of whatever stress has you living with your friend's family, will cause additional stress/anxiety. I was thinking multi-day panic attacks are uncommon, but if you already have a super-stressful situation, it makes sense that 1) panic attacks are easily triggered, and 2) they can linger and merge with the overall stressful situation you are in. There are people posting ITT much more competent than me to advise short-term coping strategies. I suggest the medium- to long-term strategy of figuring out a way to get out of this situation. I further suggest the Getting Things Done approach of breaking the big goal of "I Gotta Get Out of This Place" into smaller and smaller pieces until one of them is achievable. As a way of getting to that, I suggest physically getting out of the stressful place (even if it means walking down the street for a while) so you can think about stuff without being in a place you associate with panic.
