PAEMS

Panic Anxiety Education
Management Services

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What is so great about Cognitive Behaviour Therapy? (page 2 of 9)

Recovery is the loss of fear of our experience. Recovery means recovery from the disorder, Agoraphobia / depression / prescribed drug dependence, etc. and this is an important distinction. It does not mean we will never experience another panic attack or never feel anxious. In times of stress, we may become anxious, we may have a panic attack. However, once we lose our fear, the anxiety and/or panic disappear as fast as they came and they do not impact on our life in any way.

Recovery from Panic Disorder is the loss of fear of our symptoms of the attacks, the loss of fear that we will die through the panic attack, or that we will have a heart attack, go insane or lose control. It doesn't mean our attacks will feel less violent. They can still feel that way for the first few seconds; but because we don't fear them, they disappear as fast as they come. For Social Anxiety, it is the loss of fear that we are going to make a fool of ourselves or embarrass ourselves in some way. With Generalised Anxiety Disorder, it is the loss of fear/acceptance of whatever situation/event we are constantly worrying about.

We know people say to us, "But I hate this, I don't ever want to feel this again. What can I do to block them, to stop this from ever happening again?" Medications can block the panic/anxiety for some people, but for others it doesn't. Some people find that as they begin to withdraw their medication, they may experience panic and anxiety as part of an overall withdrawal problem. Other people may not have any withdrawal problems and may be panic and anxiety free, but find their original panic and anxiety returns a few months/year later. Blocking is not long term recovery.

Working with CBT means we need to accept and take it all back to the beginning point. A panic attack is a panic attack. Anxiety is anxiety. It can feel violent, but that is all it is, nothing more. Understand why it is happening and lose the fear and all you have is a 30-second panic attack. While some people may only ever have a 30-second attack, many of us before CBT will have attacks that can last an hour to an hour-and-a-half. We know most researchers reject the hour / hour-and-a-half attack, but for many of us, it is a fact! What I have found over the years, again both personally and professionally, in using CBT, people can bring the panic attack down from 60-90 minutes to 30-seconds.

The attack can be just as violent in those 30 seconds, but once you lose your fear of them, you simply think "So What" instead of "What If," etc. We know people say, "Well I don't even want a 30 second attack," but this is not being realistic. This is how we, as a group of people, react to stress. OK it isn't pleasant, but what is thirty seconds now and again. And this is important. Many of us have repeated panic attacks day and night along with ongoing, all-pervasive anxiety, even when taking medication! Using CBT, sometimes initially in conjunction with medication, we can reach the point where we are not only medication-free, we may only have an occasional 30-second panic attack once every 6 -12 months and there is no residual anxiety.

With CBT, we deal with our attacks by simply letting them happen. That is, we don't fight them, nor do we resist them. We simply let them happen. We know all the arguments about this one! "How can I let my attacks happen? I am a nurse, school teacher, manager, bank officer, manager, CEO, sales assistant, student etc. What will people think? etc., etc."

What we don't realise is, in worrying about what people think, we are giving our mental health away to the opinions of others. Our recovery needs to be the most important thing in our life, not other peoples' opinions. And we also miss the point of simply letting them happen. When we let them happen, they are over as quickly as they started. Who is going to see? And if they do, "So What!" When we fight them/resist them, they go on and on and on...and on! There is a greater chance people are going to notice there is something wrong when we fight them. Yet, when we give into our panic attacks, they are over in 30-seconds.

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