panic attacks – Mum's Modulus

A ferry good adventure…….

No matter how hard I tried to fight off these fears I kept replaying these horrible scenarios in my head with varying levels of violence and all leading to certain death by drowning. Instead of being fun and excited Mum, I was terrified of dying Mum.

Taking the overnight ferry from Portsmouth to St Malo was going to be a big adventure. We would squash in to our bunk beds and have a midnight feast and tell funny stories before getting a solid 8 hour sleep in, and then arrive in France refreshed and excited. The two and a half hour drive to the campsite would be a breeze.

It did sort of go that way, for the Husband and the kids at least. After boarding the ferry at around 7pm we all had some pizza and the kids went wild in the (very small) soft play before we headed over to the bar. Entertainers had the kids dancing and singing as we drank cheap cocktails. Mojitos for £4 with actual rum in, and a double measure at that. I was most impressed. Who knew there was all of this fun to be had on board? Anyone who has done this before of course but it was all new to us.

By 10pm we went down to our cabin. And by going down I mean all the way down to deck number 1. It was lower than the garages. I immediately began to panic.

Deck 1: The floor of the boat is all yours

If the boat sprang a leak we would not stand a chance. So of course all I could think about was the variety of ways in which the boat might start sinking.

The way that I saw it there were three main things that could go wrong:

A terrorist would sneak a lorry full of explosives on to the boat and detonate them and we’d find ourselves sinking into the Channel in the middle of the night
There would be a massive storm that would damage the ship and cause a slow leak. We would flee our cabins running like rats up the stairs only to find that everyone else had the same idea and we were slowly crushed in the stampede. I’d push the children up to higher ground only to find that the cage like doors were locked, blocking our escape (yes like in Titanic and yes I know that they don’t lock people down below anymore but it didn’t help when I was catastrophising)
A killer would start murdering people in their cabins starting at the bottom of the boat. Obviously some clever detective would be on board trying to solve this heinous crime but it would be too late for us.

I recognised the warning signals that a panic attack was coming. I was lying in bed hyperventilating, so I did circular breathing, which helped. I thought about all of the people who work on the boat and how they do this every day. And I thought about the kids and how a panicking mother would ruin their excitement. I managed to control myself, just about but getting to sleep was another matter. Every time I drifted off I’d wake up and remember that we were basically lying on the floor of the boat and I’d stick my foot out to check that water had not begun its deadly ingress into our cabin.

Of course each time I did this the floor remained resolutely dry.

Once the kids were asleep I tried to wake the husband for some reassurance. His brand of tough love involving cold hard facts about how safe boats are, might have helped. But he was snoring and would not be easily woken. I left him alone and picked up my new Jack Reacher novel (by Lee Child). But when it got to the exciting bits where people were fighting and lives were in danger I started panicking again so I stopped that and persevered in my quest for sleep.

It was 4am the last time I checked my phone. At 6am the husband’s alarm went off. I assumed that was what it was when annoying music started playing too loudly in my ear. He thought it was too, until he picked his phone up and saw that it was resolutely silent. It was the boat’s morning wake up call. We had an hour before we would arrive. I smiled with relief and went and had a shower in what felt like the smallest bathroom in the world.

We were in France! (where we had an utterly amazing holiday and the kids ate snails. More of that later)

*According to former naval officer Hubbard (aka Boba, aka my step-dad), the location on deck 1 would be where least movement is felt and so would have been an optimum location for prevention of seasickness. As I would rather be sick than drown I’m asking for an above water line cabin next time.

Beating the panic

Recognising that it is a stress response, that you are not about to die, and that there are things that you can do to beat the anxiety, will give you more confidence, and that will help you deal with it.

It is July, six months since I started to feel unwell with a git of a respiratory virus, panic attacks and chronic fatigue. The good news is that today I feel 90% better and having shared my experience I am very grateful to all of the lovely people that have been in touch to tell me that they have had similar issues. Some of you have managed it into submission, others are still struggling and for those in the second category I decided to write down some of the things that I’ve done that have helped – starting with talking about it.

Don’t suffer in silence! Almost everyone that I’ve talked to about this has felt better once they realised what it was. And to do that you have to talk about it. Panic attacks have less power once we know what they are. Recognising that it is a stress response, that you are not about to die, and that there are things that you can do to beat the anxiety, will give you more confidence, and that will help you deal with it. But unfortunately that won’t be enough in the long run. It takes a long time to undo the damage, uncoil the spring and unlearn the responses that have led to these reactions.

For me there were two things I needed to do. First was deal with the short term issues like the panic attacks. Second was the long term stuff – making sure that I made changes so that I didn’t end up back at square one as soon as I started feeling “normal” again.

Short term

BREATHING – Breathing through the panic attacks was the only way I could stop them. I think its called circular breathing. When the panic started I’d breathe in for 5, hold my breath for 5, then slowly exhale (for at least 5). Doing this for maybe 10 breaths would be enough to stop an attack. Simple but effective. The doctor said a paper bag also does the trick because you are reversing the effects of hyperventilating by inhaling the carbon dioxide. I preferred the circular breaths.

REST – I reduced my workload massively and spent A LOT of time on the sofa. I didn’t do anything physical at all. My lovely friend (you know who you are and you were brilliant) walked my dog for me and my family helped with the kids. My husband stepped up a gear admitting that he had just left me to do everything – because I never asked him to help. A partnership of one is not very effective. Only after a couple of weeks of resting properly and demanding more from my husband, did I start to feel like I could breathe normally. The boa constrictor that had wound itself around my chest had stopped squeezing. I was not going to be eaten by a snake.

NUTRITION – I drank lots of water and swapped the caffeine and sugar that had habitually powered me through the day (until dinner), for a diet full of meat, veg, fruit, and dairy products. I ate every couple of hours. My brother got me a brilliant recipe book “The Power of Three” by Dale Pinnock and I really recommend it. Eating like this just felt right. My body knew what it needed*.

Long term

This was more tricky. I was offered a beta blocker called propranalol to help deal with stress, but I decided not to take it. I instinctively felt that the cause of the issues was having too much on my plate. I felt like I needed to unwind myself. If I could unpick the stitches that had drawn me in too tightly then surely the pressure would ease and I would start to feel better? This turned out to be true. But one of the reasons that I could “unwind” was that I work for myself so I was able to reduce my workload and only work from home for a few weeks. I appreciate that for some people this isn’t the case and more immediate treatment such as propranalol is invaluable in order to regain normal function. Everyone is different.

Blood tests also showed that I had severely low Vitamin D.

“I don’t want to get your hopes up but a lot of people with very low levels of Vitamin D feel a lot better when they take supplements. I am giving you a big dose,” said the doctor.

“So what you are really saying is that I need to go abroad and lie in the sun for a month,” I said. “Can you give me a prescription for that?”

“Sunshine would certainly help,” she said.

I became more organised. Living in a state of chaos makes all of this worse. We (instead of I) write meal plans, create lists of things that we need for the week, we plan ahead. Lots of people do this already but for me it is new ground.

I stopped running. Because I was doing it to go faster, and further and to push myself and because the dog needed walking so I was multi-tasking. But I wasn’t getting any better at it, which is not surprising really. I had nothing to put into it. I was quite literally running on empty. So I’ve started trying to build myself up slowly. At first, after about two months of doing absolutely nothing, I went to pilates and walked a bit. The first time I went to a class all my muscles were shaking and I couldn’t do it all. A year ago I had found it too easy and decided that it was boring. Now I appreciate that it is building my strength up slowly from the inside out. I am grateful that I can do it. I go once a week. Then I started doing a few weights, once or twice a week. And more recently I’ve reintroduced a bit or run/walking, but only when it is sunny and I feel full of energy.

20160606_123027[1] — Low vitamin D? Get out into the sun. I look like a vampire.

I nap. I work from home so I am lucky enough that if I am struggling then I can take an hour and sleep. It helps a lot.

And finally I was advised by the doctor to spend time doing things that I enjoy. Oddly this one has been perhaps the most difficult to achieve. The past 7 years have mainly been about obligation and necessity. Looking after the kids and working took up all of my time. Like many (most?) parents I had forgotten what I enjoy. My hobby was facilitating the hobbies of my family. And even the rare social events that I was invited to felt like another stressful obligation. I’m still working on this one but I started small – picking TV box sets that I liked and books that I enjoyed. This week I’m trying out a new martial arts class which was a hobby I enjoyed 10 years ago and tonight we are going to a party.

Thanks to all of this I feel sure that the last 10% recovery will, eventually come. After a few good days I feel 95% better but after a few days of overdoing it I can quickly slide back to 50%. The moral of this story is that if you don’t look after yourself, you won’t be able to look after those that you love. And those that you love should look after you too. So look at your routines. Do you really need to do everything? Put down the washing, stop thinking about work, tell the kids that the word “Mum” is banned for half an hour, and do something less boring instead. And finally don’t suffer in silence. Talk to your friends and family. It makes it better.

*My body will always need cake too. I would never advocate giving that up. Life is too short.

Panic attacks: what the doctor said

“When you are stressed you start to breathe using shallow breaths and this leads to hyperventilation. When you hyperventilate your blood chemistry changes significantly and that has all sorts of effects,” said the GP

The_Scream — The Scream, by Edvard Munch is understood to depict the Norwegian artist’s own panic attacks (Public domain via Wikimedia Commons)

After the trip to A&E I went to see a GP that my brother (who is a mental health nurse) told me was good at dealing with stress related issues. He diagnosed me immediately. “These were classic panic attacks, brought on by hyperventilation, brought on by stress. You can’t get over a simple virus because you are too run down. You need to make some changes.”

Excellent. Whilst there can be no doubt that I was delighted to hear that I didn’t have a heart condition, pulmonary embolisms or some kind of persistent lung infection, the news that it was something associated with stress and mental health was hard to hear. It wasn’t medicine that I needed, it was to make some lifestyle changes.

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