I was 27. It was December 28th, 2005. I had been running vigorously at the gym for an hour. I was running at the best pace I have ever run in my life. i got home from the gym and went to bed that night. While in bed I noticed a slight Shortness of breath but I put it off as an allergy to something,(pillowcase, bedding, carpet) and went to sleep. The next day I woke up and felt fine, I went to work and made it through the day. That night I went to dinner with my girlfriend and told her about how last night I had a little shortness of breath and that it was wierd but nothing I was too concerned about. We wnet back to her place and were laying around watching TV when the shortness of breath came back. At first it was slight but noticeable, once I noticed it I started to try to neutralize it by breathing more deeply. I felt like I couldn't breathe deeply though which started to get me more scared. I tried to stand up and I felt dizzy immediately. This triggered the adrenaline and it was all set in motion. I repeatedly tried breathing harder and faster but it didn't help. I tried to go outside for fresh air but that didn't help. It was all getting worse. I came back inside and curled up in a ball in her lap and started shivering and shaking. I started getting numb and tingly in my hands. At this point I told her to take me to the hospital ER. She was crying from fear for me and I was freaking and still couldn't breathe. We made it to the ER and they took me in. They strapped all kinds of machines to me and did all kinds of monitoring. After a couple tests they come back and tell me that I am having a PANIC ATTACK! I am not a nervous person? There's no way I could be having a panic attack? I was there for 8 hours that night before a doctor finally saw me did some more tests and told me to follow up with a cardiologist but he suspects it was a PANIC ATTACK! I couldn't believe that panic could do that to someone.....

Well after a year and a half of varying tests by 3 cardiologists (nuclear inaging, as well as tube in the heart iodine tests ), 2 ear nose and throat doctors, a pulmonologist (asthma test), a homeopathic doctor, a chiropractor, and my general practitioner they found only 2 things. I had a deviated septum and Impaired Fasting Glucose (slightly high blood sugar at rest, a pre cursor to diabetes) and that I may have diabetes in 20 YEARS.

Well it has taken a long time, lots of tests, and MANY panic attacks to show me that anxiety can do all of these things. When I look back on it now I realize that the cause of all this was probably over-breathing (Hyperventilation). It was just magnified by my fear that I was dying. I think such a complicated variety of symptoms can be generated and magnified by the mind. My mind was tricked into believeing I was in danger when really all I was doing was over-breathing. Now it is just a struggle to convince the 3 year old inside my mind that I caused all of this. Sit down and tell the 3 year old that some things we just can't understand there are no answers for, so to sit and worry about them (ANXIETY) doesn't change the outcome of anything. Just convince him that he doesn't have to keep running and searching for answers that will satisfy him because lets face it, to a 3 year old the answer is either yes or no.... they don't understand "You Can't Know and I Can't Tell You"

Sorry for the long post. Good luck and Peace to you all. :)

Great post...paints the perfect picture of what many of us have, or are going through. It's quite a process to figure out how to treat anxiety, isn't it? I hope the 3-year-old in all of us can get some peace some day. :)

I am going through what you have been through right now and as I sit here I feel like I can't breathe properly and have done for the past two months. I've been told it's anxiety but you can't help thinking it has to be something more serious. How did you overcome yours, if you have done?

I am going through what you have been through right now and as I sit here I feel like I can't breathe properly and have done for the past two months. I've been told it's anxiety but you can't help thinking it has to be something more serious. How did you overcome yours, if you have done?


Well Maddie9,
I can't say that I am 100% fine when it comes to symptoms. I would say I am 60-70% of where I would ultimately like to be. My symptoms switch between breathing and dizzyness/ numbness/heavyness. As a matter of fact I had not had what I would call a "Panic Attack" for months until two nights ago. My breathing symptoms were minimal for a long time and then they came back pretty strong a couple of nights ago. I was so unused to having them that it panicked me! So I guess you can see that as improvement.

As for how I have improved (and remember I still suffer a little everyday) I would say that Time had been the best friend. Time has given me a perspective on the whole ordeal. When I was really bad it was always me focusing on just that particular moment of anxiety and how I could get through it to the next moment of anxiety. Something that really helped with all of this was me starting a journal. A small journal just a paragraph or two a night. When I look back on it now I have dates that go back almost 1 year. It is amazing therapy to read how you were thinking and feeling from such a long time ago and it can really show how you improved over time. If you don't do this it's hard to notice cause you can only focus on this moment.

I am sure you would also like me to tell you some magic secret that I have that you can do. :) Well I haven't found it yet per se.... :rolleyes: But I would be willing to bet you are constantly experiencing a low grade Hyperventilation. Read about HyperV. I did and it's amazing the kinds of things that go on in the body when you just breathe a little too much or quickly. And the more you focus on it the more your going to breathe incorrectly. I would bet if you tried some techniques to combat HyperV your symptoms would improve. I am trying that as well so I will tell you how it goes.

No one has any stories to add? We can all see the similarities through them if we get a couple more.

THanks so much for your detailed reply, I am wondering if it will ever end and apart from the breathing I have to deal with not being able to digest my food properly, nausea and frequent trips to the loo. I know it is because my whole system is out of whack, but it's such a vicioous cycle, the symptoms won't go until you are relaxed but you can't relax because of the symptoms and the fear that it is something more than anxiety!! I do try breathing techniques, but for me it is better if I do something that totally takes my mind of breathing, like last night I started getting bad and I baked a cake. Beleive it or not, it helped and I managed to get to sleep after that! Keep in touvh with me and let me know how you get on!! Oh, ok my story. I was seventeen years old and it was the late 80's and there was a terrible media campign put out about AIDS and how you could catch it from cups etc... and as a teenager it put the fear of God in me and at the time I was working as an apprentice hairdresser and my boss was gay. One day he didn't turn up for work and I was told he had glandular fever, ( which was put out as one of the first ilnesses of AIDS). I panicked and had to run out of the shop, an unconrollable fear came over me and I felt like I was going to pass out or die. That was the beginning of long hard road. I worried for eight years that I had AIDS, despite me only ever having had one partner, my husband, and not being a drug addict or having ever had a transfusion, so how stupid is that!! From there it went to cervical cancer, because I had an abnormal smear, I suppose a genuine worry, but not really when I was told this is not cancer, yet even to this day it is causing me psychological probelms. From there it went just about everywhere it could go, in respect of worrying about different diseases. In respect of anxiety, I would be sitting there watching television and relaxing, when all of a sudden I would feel like I was going to swallow my tongue and become panic ridden. Another day I thought my retina was detaching because I saw like snow in front of my eyes, which sent me into a panic. I have tried every therapy I know of and spent a lot of money on treatments and tests, but I am still searching for peace of mind. In my case I think it stems from my mother, she is a nerve case and all my childhood I remember her saying, you won't have me for much longer. She is still alive and is 76, I don't want to spend my life like that!!

What a great post. It truly has many parrallels to my experience with it as well!!!

Yes its amazing when you think your crazy or ill because you can only focus on "your world". If we only look at ourselves then we would drive ourselves crazy, but if you take a step back and read or listen to others you begin to realize that you are no different than most other people who suffer from any thing like anxiety or mental stresses. Your not "special". The only thing you really have to worry about is not being truthful to yourself.

There are two sides to most people with anxiety- the logical side, and the illogical side. We let the illogical side win no matter how logical most other arguments are. We believe the lie that we can be 100% safe if we just devote 100% of our time protecting ourselves from everything we find scary. Of course devoting 100% of ones time to protecting ourselves just makes us scared all the time and for the very creative people we can imagine SO MANY things that we need to protect ourselves from that it never ends and sickness remains.

We all face the same decision over and over again. "Do I really believe that worrying about anything has any affect on it's outcome whatsoever? And If I don't worry about these things will it come back and get me as the one time I missed it" If you can accept that worrying about something really has no affect on the outcome then you have taken a big step. One of the biggest in my opinions

Maddie,
I used to have horrible digestive problems even before I would consider myself an anxiety sufferer. I could not eat, chocolate, fatty foods, alchohol, dairy, spicy foods, too much food at once.. etc... because I would get horrible diahrea. it got to the point where I would not leave the house with someone else because I was terrified of getting stuck in a car and having a bowel movement in front of someone, really embarassing! Well I was diagnosed as an IBS sufferer. IBS is another one of those categories that medical science has for "well we can't really explain it to you but you have these symptoms so we'll put you here". Now I suffered with this for 5 years at least. But you know what? it has gone away completely. I can eat anything I want and I am not scared to do anything outside the house anymore. Did I do anything differently? I think the only thing different is that I worked, and worked at it until it did not bother me as much and was not a main focus of my mind. So my point being that your mind and attitude towards things really has an outcome on how you feel. So if you work at getting used to the horrible things anxiety can do to you, they will start to lessen and eventually even get better. I have personally seen this happen with me.

you're a great help Jone, everything you say is logical and it's comforting to know you are getting on with your life,despite everthing your mind and body has thrown at you. I am tring my hardest to get on with life, I'm a lecturer of a day and I am doing an Masters degree of an evening and I have three children and a husband, but I find living incredibly hard, I suppose I ask myself alot what is the point of it if you are just born to die. Don't get me wrong I'm not suicidal, I would never do that to my family but I'm an incredibly deep thinker and I need to find a purpose to it all, perhaps a spiritual one!

you're a great help Jone, everything you say is logical and it's comforting to know you are getting on with your life,despite everthing your mind and body has thrown at you. I am tring my hardest to get on with life, I'm a lecturer of a day and I am doing an Masters degree of an evening and I have three children and a husband, but I find living incredibly hard, I suppose I ask myself alot what is the point of it if you are just born to die. Don't get me wrong I'm not suicidal, I would never do that to my family but I'm an incredibly deep thinker and I need to find a purpose to it all, perhaps a spiritual one!


I agree completely and am also a deep thinker and always asking myself similar questions in regards to life and death. The best thing to fight anxiety is courage and going on in life at such a high level demonstrates that you do in fact have a lot of courage. Most people have no idea what it is like to go through days/weeks/months/years of the suffering anxiety inflicts. To live with it every day and not give up demonstrates more courage in one day than a 1000 normal people demonstrate in a year. I remember when I didn't have anxiety and the things I was afraid of then are complete jokes now. I have a much better understanding of true courage. That is one of the advantages of having anxiety. We, unlike most normal people, are given the opportunity to know what we must overcome in life in order to be fulfilled both physically, mentally, or spiritually. We are shown our "Cross", now we must bear it.

I have to say that sometimes Jone I really wish I was an air head who just breezed through life never concerning herself with anything but the immediacy of the day. I'm a people watcher and when I'm low it confuses me how people can enjoy the small things in life. I'm 35 yrs old and I have everything to love for and I just want to be normal, so why do I have to bear this cross. I wish I could see it as you do, but my life will never have the depth it deserves if I don't allow myself to enjoy it!!

I have to say that sometimes Jone I really wish I was an air head who just breezed through life never concerning herself with anything but the immediacy of the day. I'm a people watcher and when I'm low it confuses me how people can enjoy the small things in life. I'm 35 yrs old and I have everything to love for and I just want to be normal, so why do I have to bear this cross. I wish I could see it as you do, but my life will never have the depth it deserves if I don't allow myself to enjoy it!!


Yup I totally understand, I sometimes used to see people with disabilities like Downs Syndrome or autism or something to where they really don't progress past 10 year old mentality and wish I could be like that. I don't want to use "ignorant" as a description but I can't think of another word. Basically ignorant to the horrible things that are out there. But every time I realised that I would not have appreciated all that I have already in life and that is a sad thought as well. I am sure any one of those people would kill to be like me if they had the imagination and capacity to think that.

As for bearing this cross, I also used to look around and see people and they all looked happy, and to me it seemed like I was the only one suffering and what made it worse was the fact that I looked normal so no one knew any better. It's like I was hiding in plain site, really suffering but not getting recognition for it. I also realized that when you take any of those "normal" people and sit them down with a few drinks they will tell you every problem they have in their life and many of them would be things you really would not want to have to bear either. So I really tried to stop that way of thinking. After all no one ever got anything they wanted in life by "feeling sorry for themselves". And if we sit here and say "Why Me", "Why can't I be normal" it doesn't change anything.

I know where your coming from. I used to cry in bed with a bible in my hands screaming out to God or whoever would listen "Please, Why me, Why do I deserve this". Now I just ask for courage and strength.

THanks, it's funny how you can be so rationale with other people but not yourself! I am forever doling out advice and organising people's lives when my own is in chaos. I've had a really bad day with my symptoms and it's not easy when your trying to write a dissertation on Concrete Poetry. I'm forever fighting the negative thoughts but coming here makes me feel less isolated! Thanks again!!

I'm new to this board, but a veteran when it comes to anxiety (from childhood). It totally amazes me how similar your experiences are to mine. (For example, a few years ago, I went through an AIDS-fear period too despite being a heterosexual, monogamous married woman! BUt my husband had shared an apartment with his gay cousin who subsequently died of AIDS...for many months I worried he could have been infected if his tooth brush or razor had been used. Relief only came when my husband bougth an insurance policy and had to be tested. You can surely imagine the anxiety in me while waiting for the results!) That cycle of catastrophic thinking! I hate it to so much. I try to manage it and when it gets too bad, I have to take an Ativan. I've improved over the years due to lots of information, reading, therapy, but when I get too tired or stressed, it flairs up again. My poor old cat is dying and I will soon have to put him down in the next few days. Never had to do that for a pet before, and now I'm worried about my dog. She's 9 and surely has more years, but I have a hard time living in the present.
A book that is helping me is Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. More helpful to me than CBT.
Sorry for the long post. Just had to "get it out."