Anxiety and panic are NOT the
same thing.
Just because you have anxiety .... doesn't mean you have to have panic.
Anxiety symptoms may
turn to panic......But, anxiety symptoms do not cause panic.
What?
Anxiety doesn't have to lead to panic?.
That's right!
Anxiety doesn't necessarily have to become panic.
Here's a huge mistake
that anxiety and panic sufferers make:
They
confuse anxiety with panic.
Remember, anxiety and panic are not the same thing.
Think of a scale that goes from one (1) to ten (10):
1--2--3--4--5--6--7--8--9--10
ONE (1) is Calmness (psst. do you remember "calmness?")
TEN (10) is Panic
(psst. I know you know "panic.")
Do I have your attention?
Anxiety is
the stuff somewhere in-between.
There are
degrees of Anxiety.
Panic is the
extreme.
Everyone
experiences anxiety.
Not everyone
experiences panic.
Panic sufferers turn anxiety into panic. They do not go directly to 10. They do not directly respond to situations with panic. Although it may feel that you immediately experience panic, that is not the case.
It may feel like you go directly to 10. Actually, you may feel like you walk around at a 6 or 7 all the time and that you are always on the crest of a 9 or 10. What you can learn is how to relax yourself into a more comfortable range AND prevent more intense anxiety or panic from occuring.
Yes you can. Don't think negatively.
IMPORTANT POINT:
Stop saying that you have panic ATTACKS. When you think of them as "attacks," you will inevitably feel like they are "attacks." And you will react as if they are "attacks."
"Attacks" are scary. I'd be afraid of an "attack." It is understandable why you'd be afraid, too.
Panic sufferers feel anxiety, or stress, in general. They feel real physiological symptoms. They are real. They are physiological. They are not trivial. They are not "nothing."
Do you get
the point? Panic sufferers experience real symptoms.
The problem is that the panic sufferer is afraid of these symptoms.
Is that clear?
Panic sufferers are afraid of their anxiety symptoms and sensations.
Why?
Because they think of them as dangerous. They are NOT dangerous.
However, try convincing a panic sufferer that they are not dangerous. Once the panic
sufferer isn't afraid of anxiety (or panic for that matter), they are on the doorstep of
recovery.
Here is how it happens.
|
1. A person has their 1st panic experience (or "attack" for those of you who stubbornly refuse to stop calling them "attacks"). We don't necessarily know "why" it happens. What we do know is that it often follows:
a. trauma |
|
2. The panic "experience" is very frightening. The person feels all of the classic panic symptoms and feels like they are going to die or go crazy. |
|
3. The next time that the individual feels any physiological symptom which resembles or reminds them of the panic "experience", they become frightened. In other words, they might have felt a symptom that is a 3 on the 1-10 scale. They interpret these sensations as "dangerous" and as potentially leading to an "attack" and the sensation gets more intense. It may go from a "3" to a "4." Now, the person feels the increase in the symptom and gets more frightened. Now, it goes up to a "5." This keeps happening until panic occurs. |
|
4. You can see that panic results from fear of anxiety symptoms. The panic sufferer views the anxiety sensations as dangerous and, therefore, gets escalates the anxiety into panic. |
Franklin Delano
Roosevelt is famous for saying:
"The only thing to fear is fear itself."
Well, being afraid of
fear is what causes panic. Panic is, essentially, an extreme fear of fear.
Let's look at it this
way:
Anxiety is
nothing to be afraid of.
and
Anxiety doesn't mean that anything bad is going to happen.