Anxiety disorder and anxiety attacks can take many forms (See page on Types of Anxiety which describes the 7 major forms that anxiety can take and inflict a person):

Insidious Chronic Anxiety Attack

•  You can feel it as a vague, identifiable feeling of fear and discomfort – an uneasiness that is part of you no matter where you go or whatever situation you are in.
  • It is always there.
  •  You wake up with it and it sees you off to sleep if you can sleep.  You try to sleep but thoughts and feelings creep around in your mind.
  • You cannot anything thing dangerous or that you should be concerned over.  But it gnaws away at you leaving you with a pervasive sense of foreboding which invades and fills your whole body:
    • Cramping your stomach
    • Tingling your legs
    • Filling your chest with a burning feeling
    • Dreadful feelings, never-ending feelings of worry, concern which constantly invades your mind no matter what you do to prevent them from happening.

But all of this is so low-key that your friends can’t understand what concerns you.  The best they can tell you is that, “you should get hold of yourself”.  You understand what they are saying, but can’t do anything about it – like your shadow it is just part of you. OR It can attack you like a marauder and not a quite thief in the night. Suddenly, you are plunged into an uncontrollable, hysterical state of fear – absolute panic for no reason at all. Anxiety Disorder is overwhelming It even comes at you alone in your house, with your best and trusted friends and worst of all this savage beast can even grab you when you are fast asleep.

Severe Anxiety:  a Panic Disorder and Panic Attack

It bursts out:

• Your heart pounds – you think it must be a heart attack
• You sweat and shake and your body is filled with tremors
• You can’t breath and you feel you are going to suffocate – there is just not enough air
• You feel dizzy and think you are about to pass out or faint
• You can’t sit still and pace up-and-down restlessly, constantly fidgetting, pulling at your hair, chewing your finger nails, picking at your skin
• You feel cut of from yourself; distant, almost as if you are divided off from everything around you by a pane of glass
• You feel nauseas and clammy
• You are certain you are going to die, but you doctor tells you, you are not going to have a heart attack or stroke.  Worst of all, your doctor tells you there is nothing physically wrong with you.

This can’t all only be happening in your mind.  You think you must be imagining all this, but how can you imagine all these feelings.  You can see yourself shaking in the mirror and it is your sweat pouring off you. Maybe your doctor got it wrong and another will find out what is really wrong with.  But another visit and battery of tests prove that nothing physically is wrong with you.  You decide you must be going mad or are going to die shortly from an unknown disease. No! No! You are neither mad nor are about to die. You are merely going through an acute manifestation of panic which some will call a ‘panic attack’ and tell you, you are not going to die.  No one dies from a panic attack and it will pass. But can you believe them? And in the meanwhile what do you do about the feelings and these episodes?

What Can You Do?

These feelings of anxiety and panic, be they in the ‘floating’ form of a Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) or the all engulfing form of a Panic Attack,  all seem to come out of the blue and be there for no apparent reason.  The potential threat causing such a ‘fear reaction’ seems to be missing or of such a minor kind that this level of loss of control and helplessness seems out of proportion. These feelings of anxiety and panic attacks really begin to bother you.  You find your mind is now starting to get filled with a whole set of new worries, concerns and anxieties.  You start rehearsing a whole range of scenarios: WHAT IF……………..

• I driving on the freeway with traffic all around me and no place to pull off and one of these attacks occur
• I’m out on a date, with a stranger and these symptoms burst out
• Making a presentation at work. How will I every be able to face them again.  They will think I can’t be trusted to do my job any more
• Wearing an outfit that shows up how much I am sweating and my tremors

And on it goes.

You Feel Helpless

Is This an Anxiety Disorder? You feel more and more helpless and start feeling less-and-less in control of your life, especially in the face of these anxiety feelings. What Can You Do About This Storm Of Physiological Symptoms? You can stop them from happening to you.  So your first natural response is to avoid situations in which they occur or are likely to be triggered off.  So you make sure you don’t get into situations from which you cannot escape in a flash and especially if you are not in control.

• You make especially sure you avoid crowed places
• No crowed shops
• No large Malls
• No Cinemas and Theatres
• No buses or public transport

Oh Hell! You decide it is actually better being alone because then there is no chance of you embarrassing yourself – so you just start staying at home. Very soon, before you even know it, you don’t even leave your house or do so only under very special circumstances.  Worst of all, you become so focused on yourself and avoiding these feelings that still seem to be happening on their own accord no matter what you do or try and you can’t even remember what triggers them or why you are hiding away so filled with fear. Possibly a bit of an extreme description, but the outcome is still the same.  You constantly have these feelings of anxiety, either snarling away at you or attacking like a lightning storm.  Yes this is what anxiety disorder can be in one of its many faces. But what do you do?  Is this the end of your life?  Terrifying as it is – no it is not the end of your life and the prognosis is very good. You can get out of this. There are things you can do. That is why we are here.  To tell you, you are not going mad.  There is help and there are techniques and methods that work.  What is needed to find out what works with you and plan your program of action to getting your life back again.