It is all fine and dandy to have an anxiety attack at home or at the mall - you have no responsibilities. But there is something about going to work that triggers anxiety attacks in me. I don’t know what it is - whether it is being a young adult going into her first real job, having so many responsibilities, having to work cash or working 30 hours a week in 8 hours shifts I’m not used to. But I can’t really avoid any of these things. I’m working with my doctor on this, but anyone with mental health problems knows it takes weeks or even months to fix.
I just don’t know what to do in the meantime - obviously I can’t take sick leave, I’m just working piddly teenage jobs, and I can’t keep on quitting work. And to anyone that says ‘Just take a deep breath’, do you know what it is like to have an anxiety attack? There is no rationality in you, you can’t focus on anything but the desire to run. Just breathing isn’t going to stop it. I just don’t know what to do to get through the day.
I just wanted to say that I know how terrible anxiety / panic attacks can be, and I understand your frustration at receiving less than helpful advice.
I had horrendous panic attacks on a regular basis for about a year. I did end up taking time off work because I simply couldn’t function. There was nothing in particular that seemed to set them off and no amount of deep breathing was going to help.
A lot of people seem not to comprehend that a panic attack is not “feeling a little anxious”. I feel as though I can’t breathe, I’m choking, my heart is going to explode, I’m dying.
Just to try to maintain my sanity during the attacks, I would repeat to myself over and over that I was okay. I would look over the list of symptoms of panic attacks to reassure myself that I was going to be fine and it was a temporary situation. It didn’t stop the attack, but it made me feel less out of control.
I know some people have had success with counselling, some feel medication helps. Mine stopped just as suddenly as they began. I don’t know why.
I feel for you. I had anxiety/panic attacks at work over the course of two years. I lived in terror of having them and that, of course, made things worse. Mine were so bad at one point that I would lose muscle control. I couldn’t stand without holding on to something or write for example. That didn’t help my career at all. I had to invent excuses to get out of meetings or not giving a presentation. I would have to build myself up to some tasks for hours with my heart racing the whole time.
I found that a high level of cardio excerise helped although it was pretty impractical in the long term. I had to run 5+ miles a day and workout another hour after that to maintain the benefits.
I went out several medications and one finally helped a great deal. You just have to keep trying them out with your doctor’s help to find the right medication and dose.
You are not alone although most people really do not understand anxiety disorders. They are a 9.8 on the suck-o-meter.
Sometimes it does. My tigger is bad weather driving, and I’ve been able to stop them from progressing more than once - I haven’t had a bad one for two winters now <<knock on wood>>. You do have to remind yourself to breath, actually take deep breaths, and tell yourself that you are going to be okay. Over and over again. It doesn’t always work, but it’s worth trying for the times it does.
I hope that you do find something that works, because there’s few things scarier than feeling like there are iron bands around your chest, your heart hurts, and you’re going to suffocate before it’s over.
It isn’t so much the physical symptoms I get - I can deal with those - it is the mental effects. I can’t get myself to be rational, and it can make all the difference when you are ready to burst into tears on the till.
I know exactly the problem you’re having. I used to get them at work too, when I didn’t really understand them properly, and they can be terrifying - the worst part, I think, is the feeling that they’re something out of your control, until you get to fear the onset of an attack itself - which, of course, only makes things worse.
These aren’t something that you have to tough out on your own, and I think you’d be foolish to try. You haven’t mentioned if you’re seeing a doctor or not - if not, see one. Generalised Anxiety Disorder, which is what I was diagnosed with, is more common than you think, it is treatable, and it’s not a sign of weakness, instability or madness.
There are meds available which can help you, and CBT {Cognitive Behavioural Therapy} is extremely useful: it teaches strategies for both recognising and addressing the causes of your attacks, and techniques for dealing with them. The breathing and relaxation techniques they teach are very useful - they’re not just a matter of “taking a deep breath”; they help you alter your patterns of breathing and teach ways of muscle relaxation which are helpful generally, and enable you to combat the onset of panic attacks: they do take practice, but they become second nature after a while, and you can do them anywhere.
Please, see a doctor. If these attacks are disrupting your life, you need to get help in treating them now - you’re young, and if you hit them early, you can learn to combat them so that they don’t ruin your life. Don’t do what I did and fight them for 20 sometimes rough years until things finally imploded. I can’t stress enough that these are treatable, there is good help available, and that you don’t have to fight them on your own.
I’ve been seeing doctors for GAD since I was about 10 years old. I’ve been on various medication since I was about 11 or 12. I need my medication checked, I think, because I spent a good part of my younger years feeling pretty okay, but over the last year, it has flared up again.
Is your doctor or therapist working with you on ways to cope with an anxiety attack? As Case Sensitive mentioned, the cognitive behavior techniques can work if you give them a chance (they sound silly at first–but try them). Also, elfkin477 mentioned that breathing techniques can help if you do them correctly.
Here’s what worked for me:
If I could tell an attack was coming (I would often get a warning because I’d feel my chest tightening, my pulse increase, and I’d get a hot flash), I’d use the breathing technique. For me, it was to breath in quickly and sharply through my nose while counting 4 seconds. Then I’d breath out through my mouth while relaxing my jaw and counting 8 seconds. Lather, rinse, repeat as often as needed. It sounds so trivial, but it did relax me most of the time.
If an attack came on with no warning, I’d close my eyes and visualize a giant STOP sign. Then I’d immediately think of something that occupied my brain to the extent it couldn’t get in that anxiety cycle. For me, it was doing complicated long division in my head. I’d get focused on the math, and my brain would forget about the anxiety attack.
Those are just examples of how my therapist and I decided to deal with my attacks. What works for you may be totally different. Get a good professional to help you out and try the techniques. They do sound like trivial ways of dealing with something so terrifying. But they can work.
If you’ve only tried meds so far, I’d really recommend asking your doctor to recommend a good therapist for CBT: as MaddyStrut said, the routines seem dopey at first, and I was very sceptical - right, so practising deep breathing and envisioning my toes going limp and floppy is going to help - but they do help.
As I mentioned in my first post, CBT is also good for addressing the root causes of your attacks rather than just treating the attacks themselves: they help you look at what situations bring them on, why those situations might trigger attacks, causes of stress in your life, etc. etc. - I found it very useful just for taking inventory of my priorities, figuring out that I had a pattern of setting unrealistic goals and pushing myself needlessly hard to achieve them, and was able to “reset” a lot of things.
In addition to the good advice above, make sure the stress of adjusting to your work schedule hasn’t thown you off of good habits to take care of yourself. Get enough sleep, eat regular meals (and don’t rely on caffeine for energy), get regular exercise, drink enough water, give yourself enough time to get where you need to be, etc.
Since this is a long-term issue for you, it might make sense to experiment some with what types of jobs work well for you. Do you need shorter shifts? Would you be more comfortable doing something like stocking or prep cook where you are not interacting with people so much?
Wishing you well in your efforts! Agree it is not easy.
I think the type of job contributes. No matter how much help I get, I’ll still feel crappy because I don’t like my job. It is simply trying to find one at the age of 18 that works for me. laughs
Hi. If there were a land of panic, I would be its ruler. I have suffered from panic attacks since I was five years old (yes, you read that right), and although I’ve progressed by leaps and bounds in the past few years, I’m still far from perfect. I know what it’s like to panic at work, and it sucks because suddenly you’re panicky AND there’s a strong possibility of messing up at work or allowing your co-workers to see you acting weird. I had to quit a job once because it forced me to be the only employee in the store for hours at a time, and as days went by, I felt more and more claustrophobic and trapped. I would feel okay as long as the store was empty, but the minute it filled with customers, I was a wreck.
Here’s my advice for dealing with panic at work:
STAY BUSY. Even if you feel like you want to run out of the building to the safety of your car, you have to ride it out. Just concentrate on a task, and don’t stop until it’s finished. If you get panicky again, find another small job to do. Trust me, this works.
Focus on what you’re doing when you’re doing it. The minute you let your mind wander to various places, it will eventually drift to thoughts of panic, and thoughts of panic can trigger panic attacks.
Be honest with yourself. If you feel a little panicky, admit it to yourself and pay attention to what it’s doing to your body and mind. If you feel nauseated, understand that it’s a result of the panic. If you feel dizzy or short of breath, remind yourself that it’s just the panic, and you’re in no real danger.
BREATHE. If you hyperventilate, you’re going to prolong the attack. Breathe slowly, even if it makes you feel temporarily worse. In the end, you’ll feel much better. Better still, try “belly breathing,” where you push out your stomach when you inhale, and suck it in when you exhale.
If all else fails, your doctor can prescribe short-term, as needed, VERY MILD tranquilizers. These won’t dope you up, and are so mild that you won’t feel drugged. I have some that I carry in my purse that I take maybe once a year. They are very, very mild, and all they do is take the edge off the panic. They have helped me out of a few tough situations when all else failed.