Re: Panic Attacks and Liver Flushes

Gosh, where do I start? I want to help you so badly. The reason is that I went through panic attacks for years. It was crippling and debilitating and I found a way and yet I don't know that I can contribute anything you don't know already. All I can say is that the more you give in to them the more they occur. They're awful. What was most frustrating to me was that those who write and treat this awful condition always think and write about it speak in terms of their own narrow perspective: they speak in terms of anxiety and underlying emotional problems and chemical imbalances. That may well predispose someone to panic attacks, but in my case, and I suspect in most cases, the real issue was the fear of having a heart attack--a self-induced heart attack. No one talks about that. And that isn't such an irrational fear. It would seem silly to someone who hasn't experienced this. After all, you only get them if you worry about it, so don't worry. The thing is that the only way not to worry is if you're sure that your anxiety can't cause you to have a heart attack. And even if you don't think about it consciously, the combination of having it in the back of your mind, and the conditioned response, which you know all about, causes it to happen. It just becomes an automatic thing. AFter a while, it's not a matter of your inducing it by thinking about it. Perhaps none of this applies to you, but I mention it in case it does. I found that when my attitude was more optomistic, when I thought I had found the cure, it would go away, but it would always come back. The less it had been on my mind during the past few hours and the more I had relieved my fears, and above all, had faced my fears the less likely I was to have a panic attack. What you need to control is first of all, your internal dialogue, what you tell yourself, even those fleeting thoughts you don't realize you have, and the feeling of frustration and feeling anxious about it not going away. It's this struggle with it, this wanting it to go away that makes it perpetuate. It's this nagging feeling of, "maybe this is dangerous". What you need to do is to push yourself as much as you can and to just put up with those feelings a little more each time. But don't think you have found the cure with the liver flush. Maybe you did, but I have my serious doubts about that. It can certainly help to feel better. I found that being tired made attacks more likely, but really it was my belief system that was most critical in this. If I can offer any hope is to tell you that I went through thousands of panic attacks with my heart....never mind I won't get into the details so as not to predispose you...my heart did weird scarey things, okay....and I'm still here. So, let that be your antidote, not the psychotherapy, the liver flushes, the meditation, they're all good, but ultimately it's the knowledge, and above all, the conviction that you will be okay. I wish someone was around when I had PA's who saw it from this perspective. I would have saved myself years of my life that were thrown away locked up in my house for fear of going out and having a panic attack and not being where I could relax until they went away. Check this book by Rene Purifoy at Amazon.com Anxiety, Phobias, & Panic : A Step-by-Step Program for Regaining Control of Your Life http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446670537/sr=8-8/qid=1141890490/ref=sr_1_8/... It has simple things you can say to yourself such as, "anxiety is not dangerous, just uncomfortable" and a list of sayings you should say to yourself or suggestions for making sayings for yourself. It also says you should breathe deeply starting with a deep breath, holding it, and slowly releasing it. It says that a big part of the problem is nothing more than hyperventilating, which happens when your breathing is more shallow and even just slightly more rapid. It also says you should distract yourself by doing such things as looking for the letter "a" then the letter "b" in your surroundings. These are all geared toward drowning out the negative thoughts.Also check out Linda Basset's tapes from the Midwest Center.I'll post more for you later. But if the liver cleanse, which I believe in wholeheartedly as a good health measure, is working for you and that can be your security blanket, so be it. Just keep moving forward and confront your fear and act on it, but not to the point where your overly concerned.
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