# Panic Or Anxiety?
How about both? I've been in a dread mode lately and not really managed to work. Not my regular job nor write here. I've stopped posting happy days. Why? Because I'm kind of going through a three-week living nightmare and counting. Everything around me is actually fine. Kids are fine. Husband is fine. Pets are ok. The dog is great. But I'm a mess. Something about my dog barking triggers my panic attacks and since she is as anxious as me I can't really leave her alone because she tends to bark and cry and just thinking about it makes me noises. So I've decided if you can't fight it - join it. So I'll write about it.
I've noticed that there is a part of a community that treats Steemit as a writing therapy session that they get paid for. So what the hell, maybe it'll break my writer's blade and I'll figure out how to provide.
So, for the last three weeks, I've been having the longest anxiety attacin a long time accompanied by thousand panic attacks. What's the difference you ask? According to <a href="https://healthblog.uofmhealth.org/wellness-prevention/panic-attack-vs-anxiety-attack-6-things-to-know">professor of psychiatry Ricks Warren</a> they’re very different emotional conditions:
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''Anxiety is a condition defined as excessive, persisting worry over an imminent event such as death or illness, or even minor events such as being late for an appointment or other uncertain outcomes. Symptoms include fatigue, hypervigilance, restlessness and irritability — and are often chronic.
Anxiety is basically what we experience when we are worrying about some future event — anticipating a bad outcome that might happen. It’s often involved with muscle tension and a general feeling of uneasiness. And it usually comes on gradually
Panic attacks, on the other hand, are short bursts of intense fear often marked by increased heart rate, brief chest pain or shortness of breath. Typically lasting fewer than 30 minutes, they could occur once or repeatedly — sometimes without reason. These episodes can send patients to the emergency room, as they are sometimes mistaken for a heart attack.
It’s associated with a very abrupt onset of intense fear because of a sense of threat happening right now, the fight-or-flight response that we’re hardwired to have in order to deal with immediate danger. It sets off that alarm.''
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And it really feels like an emergency room situations. My heart keeps pounding, visible through my t-shirt, I keep sweating like a pig, I experience far more asthma attacks than usual, I can't really eat nor sleep. I keep waking up in fear. The sensation of constant dread of something I can not explain, in combination with not eating nor sleeping, is really exhausting. I have actually lost weight in the last few weeks and my chronical condition (the leaks and its symptoms) have worsened. I'm kind of stuck here. The only logical thing to do is to see a therapist help me get through it but I can't leave the dog alone. So I'll do all the illogical things like try to talk my way out of it, in my head. Try to rationalize it. Explain it to my self. Write about it. Listen to 21 Pilots. Forget it, ignore it and suppressed it after my kids come home and then wake up in mortal fear at 5 AM thinking about how the fuck am I suppose to get through another day.
# When your mind lets you down
I'm gonna go back to my trigger - the dog barking. The dog being dogy. Because of the dog's bark. I know, I knew it before and am still pretty much aware of it. I hate it how little understanding folks around me who had never had similar issues have for my condition. I have prepared for this dog and had everything figured out. Or at least I thought so. I had petsat my mom's dog and none of his doggy behaviours triggered anything. Quite the opposite: He helped me tremendously with my depression and anxiety I had. But it was nothing like this. Here is a <a href="http://www.anxietycentre.com/anxiety-tips/stop-anxiety-attacks.shtml">really scary but painfully accurate</a> list of symptoms I'm living through. And when I tell my friends they act like I'm a stupid person saying things like ''Ofcorse dogs bark, what did you expect?'' No shit Sherlock. No wonder that so many folks with mental health issues end up alone and isolated. It's not that they choose not to seek support from their friends and family it's that their friends and family treat them like total and utter idiots that somehow can stop their symptoms on a whim and have a control over what is happening to hem. They don't. I don't. It's like your mind turns on you and your body is refusing to listen. You KNOW the reason you are afraid is not rational and you KNOW your fears are not realistic and you KNOW it's gonna be ok, one way or another but your mind is running 100 miles an hour in the opposite direction and your body starts to betray you.
It's much easier to be alone. It's also sad. And lonely. But it's easier than to be looked down on with pitty.
Good luck to me. Hope I'll be back on track soon. Deep breath and here we go...thank God I live with an angel with a beard. This one is for him. <3 Banners as always @cryptosharon
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vgzn9Zpoos0
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<img src="https://i.imgur.com/MeKfwD0.png">