What Everybody Ought to Know About Anxiety Interventions
For ten long years my husband (an by association me) suffered from anxiety disorder.
In a lot of respects we lost a decade of our lives to his anxiety.
Here are the anxiety interventions we went through before we freed ourselves of this disorder: 1.
My husband thought he was having a heart attack.
I rushed him to the Emergency Room.
Nothing.
The doctor said his heart was strong.
2.
Convinced that he was a prime heart attack victim based on the fact his father had a heartattack around the same age as my husband was at the time, my husband became afraid to fall asleep at night.
He was certain he'd never wake up again.
There were endless nights of him being on the verge of falling asleep and his snapping to attention and sitting up in bed on high alert.
This went on for months.
We both suffered sleep deprivation.
3.
When we'd venture out to a mall or a supermarket suddenly he'd become weak, felt dizzy, experienced periodic vertigo and would need to sit down.
A racing heart would show up in there somewhere.
4.
We saw a heart specialist who could find nothing wrong.
5.
I happened to be having lunch with an acquaintance from my monthly book club.
I mentioned a little about what my husband and I'd been going through.
She said, "Sounds like anxiety disorder.
" As soon as she said it something resonated deep inside me.
I started researching anxiety disorder and anxiety interventions.
6.
His anxiety disorder continued.
I was convinced that's what was wrong, my husband was not.
One morning he woke me early certain he was dying.
I'd learned by now to just grab on to him tight and keep speaking to him in reassuring tones.
Inside I was so stressed I swear I could've had a heart attack myself.
That particular morning, after my husband was stabilized sufficiently I went downstairs only to find our aged cat nearly comatose on the floor.
I knew she had diabetes and accepted the fact that she was at the end.
Not knowing what else to do I quickly put some water next to her and went upstairs to break the news.
I carefully explained what was going on downstairs and my husband again became totally gripped by anxiety.
At this point his eyes couldn't focus and they were nearly rolling around in their sockets.
And then I snapped! I told him to KNOCK IT OFF.
That I had too much to deal with and I didn't need him adding to my stress.
To my amazement he stopped in his tracks.
How was I to know that a verbal slap across the face would give us both a positive result.
(By the way we later found our cat up and about doing just fine!) Of course that wasn't the end of his anxiety disorder.
There were a few more trips to doctors.
The last one finally diagnosed my husband as suffering from anxiety.
Finally I had professional validation of what I knew to be true.
He said to my husband, "I could prescribe a medication but ultimately you are going to have to sort this out yourself.
" And we did.
We handled it ourselves.
In a lot of respects we lost a decade of our lives to his anxiety.
Here are the anxiety interventions we went through before we freed ourselves of this disorder: 1.
My husband thought he was having a heart attack.
I rushed him to the Emergency Room.
Nothing.
The doctor said his heart was strong.
2.
Convinced that he was a prime heart attack victim based on the fact his father had a heartattack around the same age as my husband was at the time, my husband became afraid to fall asleep at night.
He was certain he'd never wake up again.
There were endless nights of him being on the verge of falling asleep and his snapping to attention and sitting up in bed on high alert.
This went on for months.
We both suffered sleep deprivation.
3.
When we'd venture out to a mall or a supermarket suddenly he'd become weak, felt dizzy, experienced periodic vertigo and would need to sit down.
A racing heart would show up in there somewhere.
4.
We saw a heart specialist who could find nothing wrong.
5.
I happened to be having lunch with an acquaintance from my monthly book club.
I mentioned a little about what my husband and I'd been going through.
She said, "Sounds like anxiety disorder.
" As soon as she said it something resonated deep inside me.
I started researching anxiety disorder and anxiety interventions.
6.
His anxiety disorder continued.
I was convinced that's what was wrong, my husband was not.
One morning he woke me early certain he was dying.
I'd learned by now to just grab on to him tight and keep speaking to him in reassuring tones.
Inside I was so stressed I swear I could've had a heart attack myself.
That particular morning, after my husband was stabilized sufficiently I went downstairs only to find our aged cat nearly comatose on the floor.
I knew she had diabetes and accepted the fact that she was at the end.
Not knowing what else to do I quickly put some water next to her and went upstairs to break the news.
I carefully explained what was going on downstairs and my husband again became totally gripped by anxiety.
At this point his eyes couldn't focus and they were nearly rolling around in their sockets.
And then I snapped! I told him to KNOCK IT OFF.
That I had too much to deal with and I didn't need him adding to my stress.
To my amazement he stopped in his tracks.
How was I to know that a verbal slap across the face would give us both a positive result.
(By the way we later found our cat up and about doing just fine!) Of course that wasn't the end of his anxiety disorder.
There were a few more trips to doctors.
The last one finally diagnosed my husband as suffering from anxiety.
Finally I had professional validation of what I knew to be true.
He said to my husband, "I could prescribe a medication but ultimately you are going to have to sort this out yourself.
" And we did.
We handled it ourselves.
Source...