quote:

ORIGINAL: littlewonder

Personally I think your parents and boyfriend are the problems for your attacks. I think you need to get away from them since it seems they trigger your attacks because they yell and scream at you a lot. I had a mother like that and it's why I left at the ripe age of 16 and never looked back.

Anyway, it's something I think you really need to talk to your therapists about.

quote:

ORIGINAL: BecomingV


It looks like there is a respect deficiency in your relationship with your Mom. Perhaps she modeled "acting out" behaviors and communication patterns which you reflect back. That makes her responsible for some poor relationship and parenting skills.

Responsible? The cool part is that you are responsible for your own relationship skills, regardless of their origin. Being responsible means that you have the power - you have the choices. It appears that when you are faced with seemingly overwhelming feelings, you are able to control your behavior. (applause) That may keep you from being jailed or committed, but it doesn't fully address your pain.

Fear and rage (whether directed at self or others) do NOT have a causal relationship. This was taught to you. Again, because it is a part of you now, you have the power to choose differently. It takes practice but you can retrain your brain.

I suggest looking into 3 things:

1) EMDR for help with triggers. http://www.emdr.com/

2) Binaural Beats to create new neuropathways in the brain, which leads to more whole-brained perception and thinking. If you google it, there are free downloads to try it out.
http://www.learningstrategies.com/paraliminal/home.asp

3) The Betrayal Bond Test http://www.insideoutlivinginc.org/Traumatic%20Bonding%20Self%20Test.pdf

I wish you all the best in all of your efforts.

ETA - These links can be helpful to anybody who wishes to live more freely.

quote:

Blowing bubbles will help - it's a calming game and it encourages you to breathe slowly, which again puts you back in control. I know you like crafts - can you set aside some paper and paints so you can paint out the anxiety and show how you're feeling inside? Or heck, get some playdough and torture it.

quote:

ORIGINAL: AthenaSurrenders

FR

I'm not a doctor or anything in the mental health field.

From my own experience with anxiety (I don't have full on panic attacks) I definitely think it can cause the desire to self-harm. There's a number of reasons, but I would guess one of the big ones is wanting to be in control of something. When you start to get in anxiety spiral you feel very out of control, like you're powerless and surrounded by danger (even if logically, you know that you're not in danger, it feels like it). Self harm feels like you are taking control. You are the boss of your body, if only for a moment, and you control what it feels. Some people also find it easier to deal with physical pain like a cut or a banged head than to deal with emotional pain, and physical injury is something our loved ones can see and understand. When you add all those things together, it's understandable why people hurt themselves. It's a coping mechanism. Not a healthy one, but a coping mechanism nonetheless.

It will help you a lot if you can set up some alternatives for yourself that give you those feelings of being in control and expressing your pain. I know you have health and weight problems so just going for a run is probably not an option, but you could work towards that. Doing some sort of exercise that gets your blood pumping BEFORE you get into a full blown anxiety attack puts you back in control and sort of 'burns off' all the unneeded adrenaline that your body is producing in readiness for a danger that will never come.

Blowing bubbles will help - it's a calming game and it encourages you to breathe slowly, which again puts you back in control. I know you like crafts - can you set aside some paper and paints so you can paint out the anxiety and show how you're feeling inside? Or heck, get some playdough and torture it.

Do you have a mantra? Sitting in a dark room, breathing slowly and repeating something like 'this too shall pass' in your head is very calming and reminds you that no matter how awful the panic feels, it is temporary. You have come through it before and you will survive this time, too. I've heard a lot of people talk of success with the method of just watching the panic attack, as though you were a doctor. You say to yourself 'now the heart is pounding, this is perfectly normal, and the breathing is getting faster, so the patient's body is ready to run if danger strikes. But there's no danger here. She's going to try and breathe slowly. The waves of panic are washing over her, this is OK, this won't harm her, it will be gone in a moment.'

I know this one won't help you when you're already panicking, but this is the number 1 thing that helps me when I get anxious:
I put things into perspective. I have a series of questions that I run through (I used to have a worksheet for this but I do it in my head now):
- What is the worst thing that is LIKELY to happen? (as in, it's technically possible that the worst thing that could happen when buying groceries is an asteroid falling on wal-mart, but the worst LIKELY thing is that you feel a little tense and forget some things)
- How bad is this, on a scale of 1-100 (where one is 'oops, I dropped my pen' and 100 is 'terminal illness, the death of everyone I love, huge natural disaster') In most cases your problems will actually be a 5 or less
- Will this matter a month from now? A year from now? Ten years from now? - in 90% of cases the answer will be 'no'

quote:

ORIGINAL: NullHypothesis

"EMDR for help with triggers" ~~~ EMDR is typically only effective with PTSD or other traumas ... The VA is using it more extensively. But EMDR isn't for novices ....

"Binaural Beats" ~~~ This would be a good relaxation technique.

While medication can help (and might be indicated, here) Cognitive-Behavioral or Reality Therapy are her best bets.

null ~~~ submissive extraordinaire by night .... Registered Mental Health Counselor by day ....