How do you deal with panic attacks when out in public? Please help!

DX'd - Sz/SzA
1

I get real paranoid and cant think and scared. Takes me ages to calm down. How can I get past it?

1 Like
2

I used to wind myself up when I felt a panic attack coming, because I was worried someone would notice and I was upset the feeling wasn’t going away as fast as I’d like.

Once I learned breathing techniques and that it’s ok to get scared (and that it’s not dangerous), my panic attacks lessened.

3 Likes
3

I force myself to think “everything will be ok, everything will be ok” and breathe deeply until the panic subsides

1 Like
4

I used to be unable to go out because of panic attacks. I did exposure which meant starting small by going a short distance rom the house. I would start having a panic attack and I would sit down and ride out the panic attack. I did this every day and within three weeks I stopped having panic attacks. It wasn’t nice but it solved the problem.

2 Likes
5

The VA is teaching me how to use DBT mindfulness to lessen the anxiety

6

Ok bear with me on this one it’s kind of long… For me everything revolved around fear. In some cases it was fear that some people knew I was mentally ill and thought I was a freak, in other instances it was that I just alienated people because of how weird I am, and other times it was that there might be people out to get me. All of this situations were in my head, and I had to reason with myself that even if they weren’t and it was all real, so what? I mean if there were people out to get me for some unknown reason I don’t want to live my life as a chicken so that solved that problem, and if there were people who knew I was mentally ill, instead of letting it get me down, I can use it to motivate myself to get better and overcome it/deal with it instead of letting it hurt me, and as far as being just kind of weird, well, the world to me is pretty generally boring anyways so if people are closed minded towards people who are different or eccentric they aren’t the type of people I want to know anyways. I guess the point is that you can take things causing you anxiety and flip them upside down and use it to motivate you to change or live with less fear.

7

This topic was automatically closed 95 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.