Coping with Anxiety and Depression in Everyday Life

Panic or anxiety attacks followed by depression are very common and no fun to deal with and when I was diagnosed with this twenty years ago, I was relieved but not sure where to go from there. My mother-in-law was a nurse at the time and decided to write her yearly report on anxiety attacks and depression so we could better understand what I was going through.

Repeatedly, over a period of about five years, I had gone back and forth to the doctor feeling as if I was having a heart attack. The doctors would ask me questions about my home life which I found very insulting as if my husband was abusing me. They would treat me like I was crazy and tell me to calm down. The more I resisted their questions and their insults, the more I became depressed and feeling as if I very well might be crazy. They even wanted me to go to counseling so I could "get it all out" and talk about it. I insisted there was no "it" to talk about but the doctors would not listen.

Finally, an intern admitted me to the hospital and was going to figure what was happening to me. After having an attack in the hospital, she checked my vitals and gave me a nitroglycerin pill to put under my tongue. That pill didn't do a thing for me. She ordered all the tests for heart disease and even had a tracer sent through my heart to see if there was any blockage.

When it happened again, she decided to have me walk around the halls and see how I reacted. Very quickly, the symptoms subsided and her conclusion was one that changed my life and gave me a way to get relief from the anxiety. She wanted me to take some medicine for the problem, but pills were not in my game plan and I decided to manage the attacks through patience after she explained to me what was really going on inside my body.

I learned these attacks are a build up of adrenaline in your system and when this happens, it sends a signal to the alarms in your body to wake up. When your alarms sound, you can't breathe, tingling sensations sometimes happen in your extremities, you might experience dizziness, chest pains and have all kinds of thoughts as if you're going to die. Your body is sending out the message something is wrong when in reality, nothing is wrong. It's a false alarm.

Having a panic attack doesn't mean you're having stress or anxiety in your life. Although you can have an attack by having stress, it's not the mechanics of what is going on in your body. For me, understanding what was actually happening physically was more important and how to treat it was the next step.

My doctor told me anytime I felt as if I was going to have an attack, get up and walk around. If the pain is worse when I exercise, it's time to go to the hospital. If it subsides, it's anxiety. Her treatment works because the adrenaline needs an outlet. By walking around, the build up of additional adrenaline can work itself off leaving me in a better state then I would be in if I would sit down and relax.

Now, when I have an attack, I just ask my husband to watch me and make sure I'm OK while I walk around the room, pacing back and forth, breathing in and holding it for a couple seconds and then let out the breath. In about an hour, I'm back to normal and can go on with my life. Since I'm fairly active, it doesn't happen as much as it used to when I sat down more during the day. Now that I know I'm not crazy, the depression has gone.

If you think you're suffering from panic or anxiety attacks, you should talk to your doctor. If you're feeling as if you're not being taken seriously, you need to see someone else until you get the problem solved. There are medicines that help with the problem and your doctor will prescribe the best treatment for you.