Oct
13
Panic attacks
Filed Under Life | 2 Comments
There is a fairly strict taboo in the UK that mental health issues are not generally discussed. It is entirely satisfactory to mention that you have a bad cold, but not that you are suffering from anxiety, or depression, or are hearing voices. It is a cue for the listener to avoid the person and make a hasty retreat.
Partly for this reason, and partly a result of an acutely bad choice of words that the mental health impact of ‘panic attacks’ are rarely listened to with the sympathy they are due.
You will know if you have had a panic attack. You may not know it by that name, but will have had the fright of your life from such an attack. In one sense, it is a panic attack, but this simply does not convey the severity of its impact. I believe that the word terror is closer to the experience. I saw the doctor after my first, having measured my heart rate at 120 in the small hours of that morning in bed. I had lain there with dizzy head and racing heart feeling totally convinced that I was having a heart attack or was simply about to die. Does a ‘panic attack’ properly describe such feelings? I think not.
At the time, I has assumed that the cause was the medication I was taking. Since then, recurrences have similarly frightened the life out of me, a long time after terminating that medication.
A ‘panic attack’ is a feeling of anxiety whipped up into a crescendo of a peak. It is a response by the body to a sustained anxiety state. It occurs almost randomly, unrelated to thinking or activity. I can assure you that waking from a dream state into the very high anxiety state that precedes a panic attack is rapid and totally unnerving.
Fortunately, in spite of the massive bombardment of emotional and physical urgency that accompanies a panic attack, I can often detach myself enough to realise that it is an overreaction. The mental discipline to do this is hugely demanding - at the very time when your energies are almost completely engaged by the attack. A great catch-22 situation!
So the next time someone tells you they had a panic attack, you will realise that this is not just that they panicked that they left the front door unlocked. Instead, they had been overtaken by a massive feeling of impending physical doom. Give them sympathy.
Oct
5
Almost full circle
Filed Under Atheism, Life | Leave a Comment
I met a very lively, friendly lady in a coffee shop the other day. Her beaming face has reappared a number of times since. Each time, she greets me as if a life long friend. OK, she may talk and interrupt a lot, but you can feel that her heart in in the right place.
Today, late on a Sunday morning, a cross adorned a chain on her neck, and a bible lay neatly in front of her on the table. Fortunately, she does not force her religion on me.
I strongly believe that her religion is a significant reason behind the flush of healthy life she exudes.
For myself, I feel a tinge of jealousy that she can retain a belief (in God) that carries this benefit. A conviction that God is n attendance at all times, looking after me would have been a powerful antidote to immense feelings of helplessness this week, where severe anxiety, and its peak state - a panic attack - have plagued my day and night.
Sadly, it is not just the feeling that I cannot trust in a guiding figure. More that I am acutely aware of the complete absence of such a force. So I am drawn into an even deeper negative malaise.
So my realisation that God does not exist, and that believers should be made to realise their mistake has gone almost full circle, where I am jealous of the benefits of a blind belief in something that cannot be proven. Almost full circle - I cannot cancel out my lack of belief. I cannot suddenly discard the edvidence against the existance of God just so as to gain the benefits of belief - the benefits of belonging to a Worldwide club!
There is a sad aspect to this - belief in a positive outcome for matters in your life, regardless of whether it is based on real facts or religion, has strong health benefits.
So please think before ever trying to bring a believer ‘down to earth’.