6 ms·

I've had 2 panic attacks (literally couldn't move my fingers and arms thought I was dying - went to the ER for this), and probably 20 mild to severe anxiety att

I've had 2 panic attacks (literally couldn't move my fingers and arms thought I was dying - went to the ER for this), and probably 20 mild to severe anxiety attacks since April. Before Covid, I have never experienced anxiety or panic, in my life, ever. The anxiety attacks are pretty much: My nose is clogged, I might have covid, can I breath, oh my god, my breathing is constricted a little. Are my fingers turning blue? Can you look at my face and tell me if my face is drooping? Can I still smell things? (pulls out super strength Oregano Oil - OMG it's not as strong any more - am I losing my smell). I'm a man. I'm 40 years old (soon 41). All my life I've been super healthy - no problems. I would never have predicted I would be this scared of something in my life. My wife and I are planning on trying to go back to normal soon. We're going to start getting take-out food to start, still washing hands. I don't want to live the rest of my life like this, and I think now is the time to go closer to how life was before - just with some modifications. Just not as many modifications as we're under now. If I don't change, the anxiety may kill me.

graeme 6y ago
A few things might help you deal with the anxiety: * There seems to be basically no fomite risk, at least in a home setting * A small number of specific spaces are especially prone to spread. The japanese warn of the three c’s: closed spaces, crowds, close contact. So like don’t go to a bar, but do go to a library where everybody has masks. Or do do go a park where everything is ventilated * Lots of cases may be asymptomatic. But if you get an asymptomatic infection, who cares? People aren’t reporting their smell is a bit diminished. They’re reporting it is temporarily gone. It’ll be pretty bloody obvious. To be frank, it sounds like you have inaccurately weighed up symptoms and transmission methods. This has led to a lot of behaviours in the physical world which reinforce your anxiety, but give you a reinforced inaccurate view of the state of the world. I’ve read lots of covid papers. Have not heard of drooping face as a common sign. I live in a completely locked down area with a surging virus count. And I’m pretty cautious....about a small set of activities which are highly risky. I’m not however worried in general, as the transmission vectors seem pretty known and there’s a whole swath of things I can do that are basically zero risk. To give an analogy, it’s like you’re worried about a frame crushing car crash while driving in a school zone. Or fiddling with your seatbelt tightness and worried it may not be optimal for safety, when the main determinants of car safety are actually personal alertness, time of day, etc. But if you adopted a whole bunch of wrong behaviours while driving a car it would absolutely reinforce anxiety! To some extent anxiety is an irrational process. But I do think it has some basis in the physical world and by really going over what risks are and what risks aren’t you can tame it and reason with it somewhat. Good luck!
- helen___keller 6y ago
  > To give an analogy, it’s like you’re worried about a frame crushing car crash while driving in a school zone. Or fiddling with your seatbelt tightness and worried it may not be optimal for safety, when the main determinants of car safety are actually personal alertness, time of day, etc. But if you adopted a whole bunch of wrong behaviours while driving a car it would absolutely reinforce anxiety! > To some extent anxiety is an irrational process. But I do think it has some basis in the physical world and by really going over what risks are and what risks aren’t you can tame it and reason with it somewhat. Good luck! As an aside, I chose to move to a dense urban region in large part because I suffer from car anxiety. In particular, I get really anxious that the moment I stop feeling anxious my alertness will drop and I'll be in a terrible collision. Although full on panic attacks are pretty rare from this. (I have actually almost nerd sniped[0] myself by being really deep in thought about complexity theory while on mental autopilot back from my internship and making a left turn without realizing how close oncoming traffic was) [0] https://xkcd.com/356/ https://xkcd.com/356/
gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
I’m glad I’ve dealt with anxiety for most of my life before all this happened. It’s interesting to see the general population deal with high anxiety for the first time. I think the only way to live healthily with anxiety, outside of medicine, is to develop metacognition about your emotions and thoughts. Recognize that life is inherently risky and you have little control over it outside of your reactions. The hardest test is dealing with somatic symptoms and navigating the catastrophic thinking. It’s the ultimate challenge to talk yourself down when you’re convinced you’re having a heart attack or unable to breath. Covid is a risk but for most people not a significant threat.
carapace 6y ago
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Your anxiety attacks aren't caused by the covid virus, you realize that, right? It's a psychosomatic problem, yeah? In your head.
- coding123 6y ago
  Yes I know that, the point I was making was that the lockdown itself brought on a host of anxiety disorders.
  - carapace 6y ago
    My point is that "the lockdown" isn't causing anxiety disorders. Why can my 81-year old mother walk her dog with only a mask on, while you get a sniffle and wind up in the ER? You're malfunctioning one way by having an irrational reaction to quarantine, and a second way by attributing that abreaction to the quarantine and not to your personal history. You need a psychologist not a meal from a restaurant, eh? I probably sound unsympathetic, and I apologize for that. Panic attacks are a serious problem, and I do sympathize with you. My own anxiety revolves around my mom dying in agony with her lungs filling with fluid... Please maintain quarantine and treat your personal psychological issues with a beer or a joint or some breathing exercises or meditation or a nice nap or perhaps a bath. You know, something with a low risk of propagating a deadly virus to innocent people that have never done you any harm, eh what?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - captain_price7 6y ago
      > My point is that "the lockdown" isn't causing anxiety disorders. It absolutely is- doctors, scientists have been warning about it from the beginning, including ones who strongly supported lockdown. Trivializing it as "your personal psychological issues"- yes that's very unsympathetic. And it also betrays ignorance, you can't just treat mental health issues with a beer.
o_class_star 6y ago
The other responses are quite good, but let me add a few things on coping with panic attacks. They get more tolerable over time. Remember that actual health problems almost always develop over time. Even COVID takes days to kill you. At 40, you have a low likelihood of sudden cardiac death. It can happen, of course, but as long as you work out and eat well, you're doing what you can. So, if you feel like hell for 5 minutes, with distinct waves, it's probably a panic attack. The tingling symptoms you get are probably the result of hyperventilating. Slowing down your breathing can help. To an extent, though, these things just have to be ridden out. Cold water helps a lot. Go to the sink and splash water on your face. Optimal temperature seems to be 20 C (68 F). That'll help lower your heart rate. Slow your breathing to match. Also, as someone with panic attacks, I know that during the first ones, I feared the shame and embarrassment that would accrue to sudden collapse at a young age (I was 24). Thing is, no one's going to think it's your fault. If you have a random-ass heart attack at 24 (or 40), it's not something you did and you shouldn't feel bad about yourself. You can still die-- life is inherently risky-- but no one's going to think bad of you for being unlucky, and you shouldn't think bad of yourself (in that extremely low-probability counterfactual) either. Death: either there's an afterlife or there isn't. If there is one, it'll be interesting to see what's on the other side of this whole thing. If there's no afterlife, you won't exist to be disappointed. Either way, not worth dread. People die, but no one is dead. If those who have left us still exist, they probably see themselves as more alive than they were when down here; and if they don't exist, then it is not accurate to say they are dead so much as they just aren't. Plenty of Buddhists meditate on their own death. It helps to process the inevitable; to dedicate 10 or 20 minutes once in a while to the acknowledgement of mortality. Don't do this during a panic attack because you can't really "meditate" while in one. Music often helps. Smells can help, as long as you don't develop that meta-level anxiety. There's also no shame in seeking therapy and medication. You said 20 attacks since April-- that's about 1 per week. If that's all you have, taking a benzo, typically at a low starting dose, as-needed, isn't going to make you an addict. You don't want to be taking those things every day though. Finally, panic attacks do end. They are the ultimate troll, and they can throw all sorts of weird-ass symptoms (including phantom smells) but they don't last forever. Each wave, in my experience, is about 90 seconds (90 horrible seconds). Awareness, crescendo, semi-relief, return to merely moderate anxiety. The interval of vulnerability (in which these waves are prominent in my mind) is 15–60 minutes, 90 minutes on the outside. As I get older, the attacks themselves get a lot milder. That said, the physical recovery is more of an issue. Even a mild attack leaves me feeling like I overdid it at the gym. But I'll take that over the all-out psychic horror I experienced in many of my first ~50 panic attacks. Good luck! I'm sorry to hear that you're going through this.

graeme 6y ago

A few things might help you deal with the anxiety: * There seems to be basically no fomite risk, at least in a home setting * A small number of specific spaces are especially prone to spread. The japanese warn of the three c’s: closed spaces, crowds, close contact. So like don’t go to a bar, but do go to a library where everybody has masks. Or do do go a park where everything is ventilated * Lots of cases may be asymptomatic. But if you get an asymptomatic infection, who cares? People aren’t reporting their smell is a bit diminished. They’re reporting it is temporarily gone. It’ll be pretty bloody obvious. To be frank, it sounds like you have inaccurately weighed up symptoms and transmission methods. This has led to a lot of behaviours in the physical world which reinforce your anxiety, but give you a reinforced inaccurate view of the state of the world. I’ve read lots of covid papers. Have not heard of drooping face as a common sign. I live in a completely locked down area with a surging virus count. And I’m pretty cautious....about a small set of activities which are highly risky. I’m not however worried in general, as the transmission vectors seem pretty known and there’s a whole swath of things I can do that are basically zero risk. To give an analogy, it’s like you’re worried about a frame crushing car crash while driving in a school zone. Or fiddling with your seatbelt tightness and worried it may not be optimal for safety, when the main determinants of car safety are actually personal alertness, time of day, etc. But if you adopted a whole bunch of wrong behaviours while driving a car it would absolutely reinforce anxiety! To some extent anxiety is an irrational process. But I do think it has some basis in the physical world and by really going over what risks are and what risks aren’t you can tame it and reason with it somewhat. Good luck!

helen___keller 6y ago
> To give an analogy, it’s like you’re worried about a frame crushing car crash while driving in a school zone. Or fiddling with your seatbelt tightness and worried it may not be optimal for safety, when the main determinants of car safety are actually personal alertness, time of day, etc. But if you adopted a whole bunch of wrong behaviours while driving a car it would absolutely reinforce anxiety! > To some extent anxiety is an irrational process. But I do think it has some basis in the physical world and by really going over what risks are and what risks aren’t you can tame it and reason with it somewhat. Good luck! As an aside, I chose to move to a dense urban region in large part because I suffer from car anxiety. In particular, I get really anxious that the moment I stop feeling anxious my alertness will drop and I'll be in a terrible collision. Although full on panic attacks are pretty rare from this. (I have actually almost nerd sniped[0] myself by being really deep in thought about complexity theory while on mental autopilot back from my internship and making a left turn without realizing how close oncoming traffic was) [0] https://xkcd.com/356/ https://xkcd.com/356/

gnusty_gnurc 6y ago

I’m glad I’ve dealt with anxiety for most of my life before all this happened. It’s interesting to see the general population deal with high anxiety for the first time. I think the only way to live healthily with anxiety, outside of medicine, is to develop metacognition about your emotions and thoughts. Recognize that life is inherently risky and you have little control over it outside of your reactions. The hardest test is dealing with somatic symptoms and navigating the catastrophic thinking. It’s the ultimate challenge to talk yourself down when you’re convinced you’re having a heart attack or unable to breath. Covid is a risk but for most people not a significant threat.

carapace 6y ago

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Your anxiety attacks aren't caused by the covid virus, you realize that, right? It's a psychosomatic problem, yeah? In your head.

coding123 6y ago
Yes I know that, the point I was making was that the lockdown itself brought on a host of anxiety disorders.
- carapace 6y ago
  My point is that "the lockdown" isn't causing anxiety disorders. Why can my 81-year old mother walk her dog with only a mask on, while you get a sniffle and wind up in the ER? You're malfunctioning one way by having an irrational reaction to quarantine, and a second way by attributing that abreaction to the quarantine and not to your personal history. You need a psychologist not a meal from a restaurant, eh? I probably sound unsympathetic, and I apologize for that. Panic attacks are a serious problem, and I do sympathize with you. My own anxiety revolves around my mom dying in agony with her lungs filling with fluid... Please maintain quarantine and treat your personal psychological issues with a beer or a joint or some breathing exercises or meditation or a nice nap or perhaps a bath. You know, something with a low risk of propagating a deadly virus to innocent people that have never done you any harm, eh what?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - captain_price7 6y ago
    > My point is that "the lockdown" isn't causing anxiety disorders. It absolutely is- doctors, scientists have been warning about it from the beginning, including ones who strongly supported lockdown. Trivializing it as "your personal psychological issues"- yes that's very unsympathetic. And it also betrays ignorance, you can't just treat mental health issues with a beer.

o_class_star 6y ago

The other responses are quite good, but let me add a few things on coping with panic attacks. They get more tolerable over time. Remember that actual health problems almost always develop over time. Even COVID takes days to kill you. At 40, you have a low likelihood of sudden cardiac death. It can happen, of course, but as long as you work out and eat well, you're doing what you can. So, if you feel like hell for 5 minutes, with distinct waves, it's probably a panic attack. The tingling symptoms you get are probably the result of hyperventilating. Slowing down your breathing can help. To an extent, though, these things just have to be ridden out. Cold water helps a lot. Go to the sink and splash water on your face. Optimal temperature seems to be 20 C (68 F). That'll help lower your heart rate. Slow your breathing to match. Also, as someone with panic attacks, I know that during the first ones, I feared the shame and embarrassment that would accrue to sudden collapse at a young age (I was 24). Thing is, no one's going to think it's your fault. If you have a random-ass heart attack at 24 (or 40), it's not something you did and you shouldn't feel bad about yourself. You can still die-- life is inherently risky-- but no one's going to think bad of you for being unlucky, and you shouldn't think bad of yourself (in that extremely low-probability counterfactual) either. Death: either there's an afterlife or there isn't. If there is one, it'll be interesting to see what's on the other side of this whole thing. If there's no afterlife, you won't exist to be disappointed. Either way, not worth dread. People die, but no one is dead. If those who have left us still exist, they probably see themselves as more alive than they were when down here; and if they don't exist, then it is not accurate to say they are dead so much as they just aren't. Plenty of Buddhists meditate on their own death. It helps to process the inevitable; to dedicate 10 or 20 minutes once in a while to the acknowledgement of mortality. Don't do this during a panic attack because you can't really "meditate" while in one. Music often helps. Smells can help, as long as you don't develop that meta-level anxiety. There's also no shame in seeking therapy and medication. You said 20 attacks since April-- that's about 1 per week. If that's all you have, taking a benzo, typically at a low starting dose, as-needed, isn't going to make you an addict. You don't want to be taking those things every day though. Finally, panic attacks do end. They are the ultimate troll, and they can throw all sorts of weird-ass symptoms (including phantom smells) but they don't last forever. Each wave, in my experience, is about 90 seconds (90 horrible seconds). Awareness, crescendo, semi-relief, return to merely moderate anxiety. The interval of vulnerability (in which these waves are prominent in my mind) is 15–60 minutes, 90 minutes on the outside. As I get older, the attacks themselves get a lot milder. That said, the physical recovery is more of an issue. Even a mild attack leaves me feeling like I overdid it at the gym. But I'll take that over the all-out psychic horror I experienced in many of my first ~50 panic attacks. Good luck! I'm sorry to hear that you're going through this.