Topic Tuesday //Supporting a loved one through a panic attack // Tues 22 Jan, 7pm AEDT

[Former-Member]

For me a panic attack causes an intense need to flee, to get away. I cant think rationally at the time. Breathing becomes difficult and ragged. My heart beats a million miles an hour and I just hear a roar in my ears. At their worst, I will be physically sick, as in vomiting and so.etimrs diarrhea. Its all pretty awful. @Former-Member

[Former-Member]

Welcome @JPJ - thanks for coming and sharing your insights, it's great to have you join the forum. 

That sounds like a really difficult thing to go through - it must have felt a lot better once you could understand what was going on? @Former-Member that sounds like it would have come as a surprise. @Former-Member do you know what may have triggered her to have that reaction?

[JPJ]

What’s Dx?

[Shaz51]

Hi @Former-Member, @Former-Member, @JPJ, @Former-Member, @Former-Member

just finished dinner here

Yes @Former-Member I went over to mr shaz and said to sit down for a little while and breath but he said all he wanted to do was go home now , so I packed the ute and he drove home , don`t know how but when we got home , it was it

[Former-Member]

Oh @Former-Member thats awful! But thank you for giving us some insight into what it can feel like for you. Do you have any ideas about triggers for you?

@JPJ dx means diagnosis ☺️

[Former-Member]

I know we are all here tonight to get into some of the practicalities of helping someone having a panic attack. It's been good to dig into a bit of what they are, what they look like and all of us here tonight seem to have very different experiences under the same umbrella (if that makes sense ☂️) and please keep sharing that as we go.

Before we delve into what to do’s I thought we could take a bit of an honest moment and share some of the things we have done, or ways we have responded that didn’t work. It’s hard to get things right when loving and supporting someone all the time, we are human after all! Plus seeing a distressing moment can kick our own bodies into survival mode and our reactions can often get ahead of us before we even realise how we are handling the situation!

Getting things wrong mean we can learn from that. So let’s share some maybe tougher but useful experiences of things that didn’t help your loved one when panicking?

[JPJ]

16yr old sons panic started when he had an ongoing headache that he thought was something sinister. He thought he had a tumour or something. It’s now managed but rather than pianos attacks he suffers anxiety 

[Former-Member]

I think she gets really overwhelmed easily - she works a lot of hours and she is tired a lot and I think she isn't very happy in her job. She also has bipolar so I know she gets anxious a lot 

[JPJ]

It does not help when I tell him he is and will be ok. It definately doesn’t help when I try and talk him through the attack by telling him what it is. We joined some online headspace apps with meditation and that was our biggest breakthroughs during an attack

[Former-Member]

@JPJ - good to know that it's now a bit more managed - have you felt like the anxiety has been different to manage? If you don't mind sharing - what was it that worked/helped your son and what didn't when he was having panic attacks?