Panic Attacks

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Struggling to “relax” without guilt

Hi.

I am currently working on learning to relax.

Like truly learning to LET myself relax. This isn’t about the skills. I know “what to do.” My brain just doesn’t let me.

I just recently found out that I “likely have POTS” and I have had chronic migraines for years (currently disabled ). I just kept doing stuff because I didn’t want to miss out on living my life and being outside. This is the first summer I’m trying to listen to my body and stay out of the heat until I really know what’s going on and what works to manage symptoms enough so I don’t flare up. But it’s hard for my adhd and panic attacks.

The thought challenging of that guilt or sadness about missing out is really hard. I know it won’t be this way forever, but it’s hard right now.

#AutonomicDysfunction #PosturalOrthostaticTachycardiaSyndrome
#Agoraphobia #PanicDisorder #ADHD #ChronicVestibularMigraine #Migraine #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder

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Meltdown

I had a meltdown because of all of this negativity from my mother, anxiety and all. It was too much. I stayed in my closet + blanket from 9:30am to 1:10pm. The nurses were looking for me and they were really anxious and worried but I couldn't unhide. I couldn't press the button to call the nurses. I just hid as I always do... I didn't even ate..

One of the nurses were really "heartbroken" I think because he tried to befriend me the past few days..

I just keep thinking what if my mother is the one in the truth ? What if I'm imagining everything? What if I just want to draw attention to me ?

#MentalHealth #AutismSpectrumDisorder #Autism #Anxiety #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #PanicAttacks #MajorDepressiveDisorder #Depression #PanicAttack #EatingDisorder #EatingDisorderRecovery #SuicidalIdeation #SuicidalThoughts #SuicideAttemptSurvivors

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Meltdown

I had a meltdown because of all of this negativity from my mother, anxiety and all. It was too much. I stayed in my closet + blanket from 9:30am to 1:10pm. The nurses were looking for me and they were really anxious and worried but I couldn't unhide. I couldn't press the button to call the nurses. I just hid as I always do... I didn't even ate..

One of the nurses were really "heartbroken" I think because he tried to befriend me the past few days..

I just keep thinking what if my mother is the one in the truth ? What if I'm imagining everything? What if I just want to draw attention to me ?

#MentalHealth #AutismSpectrumDisorder #Autism #Anxiety #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #PanicAttacks #MajorDepressiveDisorder #Depression #PanicAttack #EatingDisorder #EatingDisorderRecovery #SuicidalIdeation #SuicidalThoughts #SuicideAttemptSurvivors

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Update

I like it here. I love the nurses and people in this clinic.

My friend visited me this weekend it was so good I needed that.

Why ?

My mother went too far this time..

I hate her I hate everything and I'll never be able to recover because of her.

I don't know why it affected me somehow, but I jeep having panic attacks, migraines etc juste because of her.

#SuicidalThoughts #MajorDepressiveDisorder #Depression #Anxiety #EatingDisorder #MentalHealth #SuicideAttemptSurvivors #SuicidalThoughts #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder

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When the Lights Went Out

At night, the world changed.

The sun would set, and with it, any sense of safety I had managed to gather during the day would fade. I remember the way the darkness seemed to settle in my chest before it filled the room. I knew what was coming. I always knew.

I was just a child, but I learned how to lie with my face. I smiled at breakfast. I made my bed. I got good grades. I played the part. But my body held the truth. It remembered the silence, the weight, the fear that crept in after everyone else had gone to sleep.

No one noticed. Or maybe they did and chose not to ask. I became very good at disappearing while standing right in front of people.

I tried to pray it away. I thought if I were good enough, faithful enough, obedient enough, it would stop. I read scriptures under my blanket. I begged God to make it end. But the nights kept coming.

And then one day, they didn’t.

Eventually, life changed. I grew older, moved away, and tried to forget. I built walls so high I couldn’t hear myself think. For a while, I believed I was fine. Strong, even. But the body doesn’t forget. It speaks in panic attacks, nightmares, sudden tears, numbness. I didn’t understand at first. I only knew I was tired in a way sleep couldn’t fix.

It took years before I could even begin to say it aloud—to name what happened without shrinking under the weight of shame. In therapy, I learned to sit with the girl I used to be. I told her I believed her. That it wasn’t her fault. That she didn’t do anything wrong.

The truth didn’t break me. Hiding it did.

Now, when the lights go out, I am no longer afraid of the dark. It’s taken time, and work, and softness I never thought I deserved. But I am healing. I am here. And every day I reclaim a little more of the peace that was stolen.

I don’t need to whisper anymore.

What happened to me matters.

And I am finally learning that I do too.

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Nearly a panic attack

Or maybe I'm neck deep in one right now. I got something sticky on my hands from my vape. The wrap was coming off cuz the vape juice seeped under it and the adhesive was oozing out. So I ripped it off and it got really icky. My hands got covered in gross goo. So I wiped them on my shorts... Which then got gross. So I took them off and put on new undies. But I was trying desperately to get the goo off my hands. Pauley looked at me and said what the fuck are you doing? And I tried to explain. But then I was hyper focused on my hands and she thought I was ripping off my nails. I was eyeing my nails and asked her for the nail trimmer. I trimmed my nails a little bit too short. So yeah.
How is your day going?
#PanicAttacks

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Why do I tell friends about my childhood to adulthood past upset them?

Anytime a word they put down triggers fear or upsetting memories. So i try my best to explain why but go emotional and sometimes overboard.. Others state i keep repeating it. Or they tell me get therapy; I would but cant afford it with a lot going on in personal life...

As growing up as a kid I was told to keep my thoughts to myself and if I was bullied or teased to avoid it.. I did tell the teachers or speech therapist but i was told it was wrong of me to tatall tail? I grown to fear adults amd making friends plus open up to my family. To a point i feared interaction with my family. I put on a mask act silly or polite or try to mimic helpful behaviors or likes from family or rare friends. I would later on draw a lot of hidden fears and emotions where family saw it as a future gift.( I may skip a bit)

When I was a teen I kept drawing and tried to use my art to gain friends but some just used me for homework art projects. There teasing or bullying kept at it when growing up. More rare friends i made would give out phone numbers or birthday parties invites (which i struggled to call or remember) some friends witnessed me having narcolepsy \ anxiety in class do to stress from home or school [i struggled with school work and my late mom dislike me being lazy a lot] some of my teachers allowed me ti cheat test of some answers and gave me a jr-job as Janitor( it help keep stress down) by college i still struggled in mathematics and english to history. But loved art.

After that i found out after my mom death from cancer she cheated on my dad with his friend.. Again I wasn't allowed to over exaduwight on things - but kept it bottled up.

After i got married i shared with my husband and he shared his struggles in life with I. But overtime we're still trying to mend. But i still get triggers with my past.. and I try hard to not say anything. Yet it like a childverson of me yelling Im here I saw I heard and Please hear me? #Anxiety #PanicAttacks #TBI #Fear #Narcolepsy

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Life Before and After: The Experience of Nostalgia and Trauma

It's normal to have moments of nostalgia. Maybe you see something that recalls a memory from the past, or you hear a certain sound, smell a particular scent, or even just an old familiar feeling washes over you in a moment that takes you back momentarily. These moments can be bittersweet—the memories can serve as reminders of a time that likely was meaningful, but also perhaps combined with a sense of loss of that time in your life. This is a common experience.

Deeply Consuming Nostalgia Goes Beyond a Momentary Memory

Many people can struggle with deep, heavy, and frequent moments of painful nostalgia. There may be an overwhelming yearning or craving to return to times or places in life in the past. Perhaps times like holidays, or experiences with certain family members, or places that have meaning, or even just returning to simpler times with less responsibility where so many possibilities still lay ahead in life. Whatever it may be, some people can become embedded within deeply consuming nostalgic emotional states.

Within this heavy experience of nostalgia, it goes beyond the bittersweet, once-in-a-while moments. Emotional memories can come up throughout each day and become fully consuming. Often when in these states of deep nostalgia, the memories can be filled with idealized moments, and in turn can be riddled with grief and longing for them in the present. It's even possible that many memories contain a euphoric lacquer brushed over them that makes them appear ideal now in the mind's eye—as if getting back to these moments in time will be the key to happiness and the cure to pain.

How Trauma Can Play a Role in Deep Nostalgia

This deeply yearning form of nostalgia can often happen when people struggle with depression, or the experience of Grass Is Greener Syndrome (which I've written about on my blog if you would like to see more). However, it's also common to experience deep and heavily consuming nostalgia when you've been through certain types of trauma.

If you're a survivor of trauma, you may recognize how trauma can have a way of dividing a person's world. When trauma (it doesn't only have to be one traumatic moment, necessarily, but various types of trauma including ongoing trauma) happens, it can often have a "before" and "after" effect. Basically, the mental and emotional experience can be that there is life before the trauma, and then life after. Trauma is generally a painful and very real turning point in one's life.

Traumatic Impact on the Mind and Body

Traumatic experiences have a strong impact on the mind and body. Trauma is often the result of experiences that you likely didn't how to process in the moments you were faced with. In the experience of trauma, the mind and body wrestles with something overstimulating, scary, painful (and more), and too much to take in and make sense of all at once. It creates not only an earthquake in the mind and body to contend with in the present and going forward, it also often creates a feeling of loss of a certain type of innocence prior to the trauma.

When trauma happens, there is often a new sense of danger, threat, and vulnerability in the world that maybe wasn't experienced before. This can lead to all sorts of emotional responses, such as panic attacks, anxiety, gaps in memory, escapism, difficulty letting one's guard down or relinquishing control, and more as the mind and body struggles to process these overstimulating and overwhelming experiences. This internal shift can result in dividing life into a before-and-after experience as you move forward carrying the impact of trauma.

Comfort in Visiting the Past Before Trauma

When it comes to nostalgia, it is actually quite common for people who've been through trauma to sometimes find safety and comfort in accessing experiences in the past—traveling within themselves back in time to a time and place that made more sense and was perhaps more pure and grounded. Maybe listening to certain music, watching familiar TV shows or movies, engaging in activities that can almost create a cocoon in the past, prior to the trauma. At times, this can serve as a useful coping mechanism.

However, simultaneously, the frequent time spent revisiting the "before" can also create a strong sense of dwelling and paralysis away from life in the present. Within deep and frequent nostalgia, whether it's depression and/or trauma experiences, there can often be a sense of unprocessed grief when dwelling frequently in certain memories. As comforting as these emotional memories may be, the experience of dwelling can sometimes tell us when we haven't processed something painful.

In fact, it is not uncommon for people to begin understanding when they've been through trauma because of their deep nostalgia.

Healing From Trauma and Finding the Path Through

To clarify, having nostalgic moments is completely normal and doesn't mean you're automatically struggling with trauma or depression. But if you're spending a lot of time or emotional energy dwelling in memories of the past, are deeply yearning to relive these moments, or are regularly looking to find escapes to "life before", it may mean that there's at least something unprocessed—perhaps something to be grieved or understood—calling for your attention.

When I work with people who struggle with trauma, depression, Grass Is Greener Syndrome, or even just when frequent experiences of nostalgia show up, we take the time to explore and understand the emotional meaning of these moments and memories. The road to healing can be found through these memories.

#Trauma #Depression #MentalHealth #grassisgreenersyndrome #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder

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