About Anxiety (and how to deal with it)

[erudito]

I started getting panic attacks in my early twenties. The family GP wanted to put me on Valium™. I decided that night I wasn’t going to do that and looked at various alternative therapies, including a prolonged period of worrying about food sensitivities (which makes one neurotic about food). It was some years later when my Canberra GP, who had

Comments

[insignificant1]

I can relate - sept, it's depression not anxiety (although it has happened due to the depression), I have yet to learn how to control it fully without medication, but I do understand fully about how the mind rationalises things, usually by effectively making it worse!

*hug*

And also

[erudito]

Thank you and *hug* back.

I have posted a moderate amount on getting over depression as well. Depression is more insidious because it is more life-pervasive, lasts longer and creeps up on you. But there are certainly overlaps in how to deal with it (assuming it's not simply malfunctioning brain chemicals, in which case finding the right pill does appear to be crucial).

[taavi]

I have a similar problem, and perspective, on depression. Knew we had something in common.

Related perspective

[erudito]

What, apart from an interest in social sciences and the wider world? (And a serious interest in politics -- that's a pretty weird minority behaviour right there.)

I have also posted on getting over depression. I found trying to find ways of dealing with depression helped in dealing with the panic attacks. So yes, a related perspective works even though anxiety typically has a sudden-conspicuous-onset element depression usually lacks. (At least it did with me: depression creeps up on you I found and can be hard to recognise for what it is.)

[qamar]

*nods* I think that girls learn the epiphenomeral nature of stress quickly when they get their periods as teenagers. All the books warn of a strange emotional effect stemming from hormone changings. I think reading about this has helped me be able to say 'I feel like shit', rather than 'you're making me feel like shit'. Nevertheless, clearly exercise and meditation are the ways to deal with that strange, abstract feeling.