Ask a therapist > Anxiety > I suffered from an anxiety/panic attack around 3 months ago, and still don't understand why

I suffered from an anxiety/panic attack around 3 months ago, and still don't understand why

I ended up going to the hospital that day because I thought I was having a heart attack/stroke.. I never felt these symptoms before, so I was worried. After several tests, the doctor found me to be healthy. Since then, I have started to get anxiety to do basic things that I've done and loved to do my whole life. For example, eating my favorite foods, or going to my favorite restaurants, driving, etc.. I always feel on edge worried that I might panic or something. However, this feeling is typically mixed. I could be so anxious, and then 5 minutes later, I feel like I'm on a cloud, and nothing can affect me, I can do anything and my happiness cannot be measured.

I like to think of myself as emotionally intelligent, and I've been trying to understand what's happening to me. I never had anxiety, No one in my family has anxiety.. So I'm trying to understand what could have caused it ? Over the past year and so, I have gone through a lot of changes, from uprooting my life twice, and not managing to settle in one place, to a new serious relationship that had rocky ups and downs, having to leave my family after finally thinking I settled with them, trouble finding work/making an income, high weight gain, and many more things .. However, on the surface all of these things never seemed to bother me as I am working on them, like I know they have solutions . I would like to understand whats happening to me...

Asked by Ja

Anxiety

Panic

Answered

05/01/2022

Thank you for reaching out and sharing your experience.

It sounds like you have gone through a lot of big changes in life recently. You mentioned uprooting your life twice and not managing to settle in one place. What does that idea of 'settling' mean to you? I would interpret that feeling as not feeling fully comfortable, not feeling truly safe in ones environment. You also talked about going through a difficult relationship. It sounds to me like there have been a lot of difficult situations you have been navigating for some time here.

You may interpret dealing with these things by still being able to function - go to work, continue with day to day life. However, experiencing the physical symptoms of anxiety may indicate your body is operating from the stress response. This is a physiological change and reaction that can occur to many stressful triggers environmentally. The stress response triggers the physical symptoms like heart pounding and fast breathing. Muscles can tense and excessive sweating can occur.

This combination of reactions to stress is also known as the "fight-or-flight" response because it evolved as a survival mechanism, enabling people and other mammals to react quickly to life-threatening situations. This response causes a sequence of hormonal changes and physiological responses to help someone to fight the threat off or flee to safety. Unfortunately, the body can also overreact to stressors that are not life-threatening, such as traffic jams, work pressures and family difficulties.

Therapy can help you to understand further the factors which have led to your body activating this stress response. Throughout my approach, I help clients learn coping skills to manage both physical and cognitive symptoms of anxiety. This helps you to take back control and learn how to move out of the stress response.

There are many ways to help calm the nervous system. In sessions, I talk to my clients about the idea of 'grounding'. Grounding is a way of re-connecting to the present and helps you to turn your attention away from the negative symptoms you are experiencing.

If you wish to explore this in further detail, please do feel free to book in a session.

Miss Alex Mulliner

BACP