When I came back to Crete my depression was over but I was
still getting anxiety and panic attacks. Over a month it has been standard for
me to wake up in the morning, usually very early, lie in bed hoping to snooze
again then having a panic attack ensue the moment I started to drift off again.
If I stayed in bed these would get worse and worse and when I finally got up I
would be in a mess. My technique therefore was to try and get out of bed as
quickly as possible. Other times I would get them while going into trance
during meditation. Every day I would feel tired and it would take me hours in
the morning to get motivated.
Moments of anxiety would also hit me during the day too. I
have been fighting this for so long, sometimes thinking I was winning,
sometimes sure I would never win.
Three or four days ago I lay down on my sofa and used a Paul
McKenna hypnotic recording to relax. I went into trance then into sleep. When I
woke up it was to a massive panic/anxiety attack. A whole body one with the
skin on my arms feeling hot, my body buzzing, and of course I felt awful. All I
could do was lie there and wait for it to pass – until I could get up and start
doing things. It later passed but the next morning I had the same routine as
above, at 4AM.
Later in the morning I felt so tired I lay on the sofa again,
needing to rest but afraid to sleep. I started to doze off and, again, each
time I did so, I had a panic attack. But then something happened...
Some days back I did some gardening. I cleared out a couple
of composters and started weeding. Just feeling shit and wanting to get the job
done. It then occurred to me to be mindful about what I was doing. Instead of
letting my mind wander off into worries and negative thinking, which I just let
go, I focused completely on what I was doing. Meticulously pulling the weeds,
feeling them in my hands, smelling them, really looking at what I was doing –
living in the moment. This really started to make me feel better and by the
time I left the garden (my fingers cold and stiff) I felt that euphoria of
normality.
During this last lot of panic attacks mindfulness kicked in
again, and I found myself mentally stepping back from the panic attacks and
just observing them with detached interest. The result of this was that I did
get some snoozes in and got off the sofa feeling pretty good.
I did some internet research and it seems that all my
fighting was the wrong thing to do. The first stage of recovering from panic
attacks is ‘acceptance’. Okay, that was right. I then did further research and
discovered a seemingly counterintuitive technique. Encourage the attacks. Try to
make them worse. Till now I had been trying to stop them. I had some success
but just felt more anxious afterwards. Next meditation session, when they came,
I really tried to make the attacks worse and what happened was surprising, they
withered away.
This morning I woke and did the same thing, and instead of
them steadily getting worse as I lay in bed they got weaker and weaker. For the
first time in months I actually managed to lie in bed and catch a few extra
snoozes, and then get up feeling refreshed. My energy level for the day seemed
twice what it has been.
So, win the fight by giving in, by actively helping the
perceived enemy. This has never been in my playbook, but it is now.
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