The Breathing Game
Earlier today I was trying to work on better ways of handling stress. It seems as though drinking, panic attacks, and convincing myself I am having a stroke aren’t really doing it for me in the stress management sector.
My biggest problem when freaking out is breathing. It starts small. I will be thinking about something that is bothering me lately. I will tell myself to stop it. I, of course, won’t be able to stop it. Then, I will notice that knot is winding itself up inside. You know the knot, it’s that stress ball that builds in the “I’m going to cry” area and the more you hold it in the worse it gets.
Sometimes when I get this I try to make myself cry. In the end, I can’t because I didn’t have the urge to cry in the first place so I make these whimper sounds. I can best describe it as the beginning of a sob mixed with that sound cats make before they puke. Obviously, this method doesn’t help in public. This method never really helps, it just seems like somewhere in that sound/air release I KNOW the right tone exists to help untangle the knot. I just can’t ever find it since I don’t want to devote that much time to whimpering privately.
As I can’t calm down I start to get angry. “WHY DOESN’T THE BREATHING THING HELP,” I start screaming in my head. “Everyone says to just slow your breathing and you will feel better,” I continue, so now that I have lost control of my breathing and the rage is making my heart race, I can now only come to one conclusion………
………I am most definitely not just freaking out, I am having a heart attack and am going to suddenly fall over and die in the third stall at work. My last word uttered being that of a crying cat that is throwing up.
There are varying approaches I also take to try and fix the panic attack that is roping off my ability to exist without being bright red and heaving. Some of these include:
- Trying to read an article about something that emotionally stirs me so I can switch my thoughts to that. Generally, I just think how I’d read more clearly if I could breath.
- I will attempt to explain something to someone work related. More often than not I will lose all main points and end up having to admit later on that I was completely off kilter earlier.
- I will give in and call my mother slightly crying which will then escalate into a full throttle sob and pacing fest in the alley next to my job. I make statements like “I thought I’d be somewhere by now!”. She will say, calm down, you are only going to turn 25. (This solution generally really does help. There are only so many sobbing phone calls I can allow myself to make in a month though.)
In the end, all of my attempts are obvious games where I try to forget that I can’t breath from emotionally panicking. Sometimes I think that having read “control your breath” in so many ways that it has done more harm than good. I get this feeling there is something wrong with me that I can’t even handle the basic advice of just slowing my breathing down.
Even writing this now is making me feel like I can’t breath! Looking over some Googled results generally step 1 to stop the attack is to recognize you are having one. Step 2 is ALWAYS about controlling your breathing. (However, I have to say I did find this read rather helpful.)
Anyway, I recognize this problem. It’s a cycle when I get into it. I need a better way to stop this nonsense from happening. Obviously, I need some life changes. A move, a new job that doesn’t make me feel like a drone, a 6 month trip to volunteer doing something leisurely in a beautiful country where most people speak English.
But until then, seriously, ANY ADVICE AT ALL that you have to offer to make these nonsense panic attacks stop that doesn’t include me paying someone to say “mm hmm” to me once a week I am down for. I’d like to sleep naturally again and stop twisting up my insides so much.
