Panic attack, a peculiar disorder

It is, without a doubt, the most terrifying psychological experience that a non-psychotic person can experience in a waking state. And yet, it remits very well and makes the patient very mature... when you go to the specialist in Clinical Psychology on time and when he knows what he is up to. It's about the panic attack, a psychological phenomenon that the following lines deal with.

• Related article: "Types of Anxiety Disorders and their characteristics"

What is a panic attack?

The panic attack occurs when the individual's psychological and nervous system has been under strong pressure for months and even years (in most cases). Like some heart attacks, It does not appear in acute moments, but in time, days or weeks, and also suddenly, which causes the individual to have no idea where the shots are coming from and become more alarmed.

It usually occurs in people who, although they do things and are in good spirits, deep down they have lost their bearings, they do not know how to continue with their life.

It also occurs in the postpartum in people with complex psychological trajectories and who, after the effort and tension of the pregnancy period and the exhaustion of childbirth, suffer this disorder suddenly. And also with the consumption of hashish, which is obsessive for some individuals; it weakens the nervous system and reduces the ability to plan and do things.

Symptoms

As we have seen, it is the excruciating panic that suddenly invades the mind and nervous system of the patient. He is absolutely surprised by what he experienced, something that was not expected and did not even imagine. The heart beats at 180 beats, and it makes itself felt in the chest, in the neck artery, as if it were going to explode.

Thoughts have stopped responding, there is no interaction with perceptions, the "command-and-command" protocol is gone. It is chaos. Hyperventilation makes the individual dizzy and reduces their visual field enclosing it even more in itself, where there are hardly any ideas or self-instructions, since there is only room to feel one emotion: exacerbated fear. To what? To oneself, to what is happening in there. The individual does not recognize himself, experiences depersonalization and derealizationIt is so deep within him that he does not have the sensation of being in the world.

But nevertheless, he is possessed by an extremely intense energy that he cannot channel. He feels that he is going to die ipso facto, he feels that he is going to go crazy at that moment, are afraid of acting out of control and screaming for no reason, breaking things, hurting themselves. Like an ecstasy, but a bad trip.

Some faint. They are hours or minutes, according to the people, and finally the calm arrives. The body is exhausted, the autonomic nervous system has used up all its energy. Automatically the idea is installed in the individual that his head is damaged and that this will accompany him for the rest of his life, that he is crazy. In fact, panic attacks are more common than colds, so to speak, but they hide out of shame. So no one finds out that many people they pass on the street have had it too.

The other cross of this disorder is the fear of fear. The constant fear of it happening again, the fear of panic again unpredictable. It is here, if a solution is not put in time, or if those who do do not know the nature of the problem and do nothing more than hinder the process, where the agoraphobia, the claustrophobia and the unbearable of being alone. The first days are terrible.

The gentle aspects of panic attack

The panic attack is not ambiguous or interpretable, like depression, anxiety, or distress. Panic attack appears clear and sudden there at the highest end of each of the symptoms of physiological anxiety. Panic is panic. It is easily identified, because the patient, without having read anything about psychopathology, says at least one of these 3 symptoms:

• I had the feeling that I was going to die imminently.
• I thought at the time I was going crazy.
• I had the feeling that he was going to do something uncontrolled like head butt me, yell senselessly, break things ...

There is only slight confusion between panic attacks and panic attacks or anxiety, but if we ask about those symptoms we can easily identify if it is a panic or anguish crisis. Anguish is annoying, it does not let you be, but it is not that panic.

Another curious aspect is that since the excitation of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) has been maximum during the panic, usually the patient is exhausted and without more energy At that moment, although those minutes after the attack, thoughts begin to structure around fear, anticipation.

By the way, there are people who faint. They're lucky? They may, but then they develop a fear of falling and hurting their head.

To do?

The other positive aspect is that even though it is so spectacular, treated in a correct way, the disorder disappears almost completely and a well-conducted therapy will reinforce the individual's sense of strength not only in the face of possible panic, but in the face of any symptoms of anxiety or other difficulties in life.

Go to a good clinical psychologist that explains the symptoms well, that quickly provides behavioral resources to get out of trouble, report on its evolution, and contribute in the rest of the therapy to make the patient aware of the context that has caused the panic attack, is crucial. The difference between this and staying home, locked up, scared, increasing drug intake, and getting depressed is colossal.

Of course, the victim of panic must have patience for at least a few months or a couple of years, as this disorder leaves fringes, although without ever reaching the intensity of panic episodes: headaches, migraines, tension sensations in the cervical and neck muscles, days in which they feel more vulnerable, dizziness, near-attacks due to memories of nervous stimuli, avoidance of being in places of public crowds, tachycardias... But a good therapist will help you get through that long final stretch.

And I repeat, the person will come out reinforcedWell, if he has followed the instructions and has understood the context so that it does not repeat itself, he will have overcome many moments of fear... alone, which is a way of becoming an adult like any other.

Treatment should first be only behavioral. Instructions and techniques are few and specific, simple to communicate. The important thing is to convey to the patient the assurance that this is going to happen and that it will not leave any sequelae.

Parents, when they come to the office scared because they see their children at night with night terrors, they definitely reassure when they are informed that, although the fear they are seeing in their children, that it will not have the slightest consequence on the maturational development of your nervous system. Well with this, the same.

In a second phase of treatment, the context should be analyzed from a mild cognitive or dynamic point of view. Third generation narrative therapies, or psychoanalytic listening therapy should help to therapist and patient to fix the content that has undermined the physical and psychological resistances of the individual. It will be essential to frame what happened and to provide a deeper tranquility in the subject. Likewise, this will serve to resume the directions and the illusions that disappeared to make room for anguish.

Regarding medication, the best thing is that the subject can face his fear without pharmacological aid that will subtract and delay the attribution of self-competence. But there are patients who, due to their context and characteristics, were already taking them and nothing will happen to integrate this medication in the treatment of a panic attack.