When Panic Attacks

We had to read some excerpts from "When Panic Attacks" by David D. Burns.  I really enjoyed reading from this book.  My husband and family suffer from anxiety.  Just a few months ago my father-in-law was talking to my husband and telling him that he should really research more about anxiety and depression so that he could learn to deal with it, and not have to be on medication.  After reading these couple chapters I felt like this would be a great book for my husband to read.  I even suggested that we buy this book and give to his family as gifts for Christmas.  I know that this would help many of them.

A few years ago my husband and I went to the temple.  He has hyperglycemia.  And lots of time food gives him problems, and he then gets diarrhea.  It is a losing battle.  He needed to eat before the session but was afraid to otherwise he might have the other problem.  It also happened to be a really full session and he gets anxious in crowds.  Well he ended up having a really bad panic attack.  It has been hard for him ever since to go the temple.  I keep trying to encourage him to go.  I know that if he went more he would be able to overcome this anxiety.  I know that his anxiety is real and must be hard to deal with.  I really like what Dr. Burns said, "When you're anxious, you're always avoiding something that you fear.  When you confront the monster you fear the most, you'll defeat your fears."  This comment is under the Exposure Model.  But this is the very idea that I have been trying to tell my husband.  Dr. Burns also said, "Instead of avoiding the thing you fear, you intentionally expose yourself to it and flood yourself with anxiety.  You don't fight the anxiety or try to control it, you just surrender to it.  Eventually the anxiety burns itself out and you're cured."  I love that comment.  Sometimes we have to do things that we are afraid of.  

I sometimes have a panic attack on the freeway overpasses.  I'm afraid that I will get going to fast and then I will just roll over the top and fall down to the cars below.  There have several times that I got all clammy and my vision blurred. I had to obviously had to pull myself out of the attack otherwise I would be doing just as I fear.  This hasn't stopped me from driving.  When I come to an overpass I sometimes have to just take it slower, and talk myself through it.  

Dr. Burns showed many examples of people being able to use Cognitive Behavior Therapy or CBT helped his clients overcome their anxiety without using medication.  Cognitive Behavior Therapy is a way of learning to change your negative thoughts into positive thoughts.  "Dr. Robert DeRubeis, the chairman of the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, explained that CBT had more lasting effects because it gave the patients the tools they needed to manage their problems and emotions.  He concluded that CBT and not pills, should be the treatment of choice for patients suffering from moderate to severe depression."  (When Panic Attacks, David D. Burns, Chapter 1, page 2)    This reminds me of the saying:

You can give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; But if you teach the man to fish, he will eat for a lifetime.

By learning these techniques, it will help us overcome our anxieties.  It will help us to work though when they come up in our lives.  I think working through them would be a lot better than being on pills for the rest of your life, with who knows what kind of side affects.