What is the difference between an anxiety attack and a panic attack? Generally, it is the intensity of the two where there is a marked difference.
The panic attack is accompanied by overwhelming sensations that often make a person feel they are dying or having a heart attack, stroke or a life threatening emergency.
The anxiety attack is milder, but no less distressing.
The anxiety is a general feeling of restlessness, jittery, and anxious sensations that keep you on edge.
We can often function with the milder sensations of anxiety whereas the panic attack tends to push all alarm systems.
Rose VanSickle speaks profoundly of panics in Peace of Body, Peace of Mind.
"If you are not familiar with severe anxiety, thinking about an incident of stark terror that scared the living daylights out of you, made your whole body shake like a leaf, or caused you to literally force yourself to breathe.
That is panic...
it can feel as though an unknown force is controlling your life.
It is a terrifying existence because you don't know what to do, or where to turn.
" That feeling can literally make you feel that you are out of control and not in possession of your right mind.
It is terrifying to experience and the after effects can linger on for either a short duration or a prolonged period if the fear of it happening again possesses every fiber of your being.
Dr.
Low talks about the feelings accompanying anxiety and panics in Mental Health Through Will Training.
"The panics experienced by patients are not pure feelings, they are overlaid and modified and taken captive by a thought.
If the annexed thought is that of danger, a vicious cycle will developed and the panic will be prolonged.
If the thought is that of security, the panic will be stopped abruptly.
It all depends on whether the patient will accept the physician's thought of security or his own thought of danger.
If this be so, then, it is no longer a question whether the physician's thought ought to prevail or the patient's feelings.
It is no longer the problem of thought versus feeling, but of one thought versus the other...
He (the patient) is merely asked to substitute the physician's thought for his own.
" See how clearly the good doctor distinguishes the professional's secure thought of NO DANGER over the patient's feeling OF DANGER.
"Feelings are not facts, they lie and deceive, telling us of danger where there is no danger.
" "In former years, they (the patient) entertained their own thoughts that the panic (or anxiety) was dangerous.
Now they accept the physician's thought that it is merely distressing," Dr.
Low concludes.
So is it becoming clearer that our thoughts and feelings of danger to panics and/or anxieties are only a feeling and not a fact? It is not life threatening or we would not be here to read this.
Is this going to be easy to overcome? Certainly not.
It takes practice, practice, practice.
It takes what I call the "Three C's" - Consistency of spotting; Constant daily practice and the total Conviction that the Recovery Methodology WILL WORK IN OUR LIVES.
I feel it is vitally important to address those who have a substance abuse and, in all likelihood, were drawn to mind-altering chemicals because of a deeper issue of mental challenges in our lives, even as youngsters and teenagers.
I personally have lived through this ordeal and have come out into the sunshine of the spirit.
However, there are still days that I have to row the boat ashore a lot faster than on some relaxed days.
Still, no matter how you cut it, we always have to do the footwork.
I wish all substance abusers would find the Recovery Way and to witness how beautifully the two programs of 12-Steps and Recovery can work together.
It comes very close to being "magical.
" Being a staunch advocate of journaling I especially like what is said on page 68 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
"We reviewed our fears (anxieties and panics) thoroughly.
We put them on paper, even though we had no resentment in connection with them.
We asked ourselves why we had them.
Wasn't it because self-reliance failed us? Self-reliance was good as far as it went, but it didn't go far enough.
Some of us once had great self-confidence, but it didn't fully solve the fear problem, or any other...
" One of the more powerful chapters in the Big Book to the dually diagnosed person is "Freedom From Bondage.
" It is must reading for my clients who struggle with substance abuse - or any other addictions.
The very first paragraphs of that chapter set the tone.
"The mental twists that led up to my drinking (and other addictions) began many years before I ever took a drink for I am one of those whose history proves conclusively that my drinking was "a symptom of a deeper trouble.
" "Through my efforts to get down to "causes and conditions," I stand convinced that my emotional illness has been present from my earliest recollections.
I never did react normally to any emotional situation.
" Those two paragraphs tell my story.
Do they speak to you, also? I also seek out a spiritual view to anxiety and panics, which are becoming prevalent in our faster roads of travel and experience.
I especially like two helpful meditations: PEACE, POISE AND POWER Peace, Poise and Power are within me, for they are the witnesses of the Inner Spirit of all Truth, Love and Wisdom.
I am at peace within me, and all about responds to that Great Calm of the Inner Soul which knows its rightful place in the All Good.
Peace is born from within me and passes into my experience without effort or labor I rest in Security and Peace, for the Inner Light shines forth and illumines the way.
************************************************************* THE NIGHT IF FILLED WITH PEACE I wrap myself in the mantle of Love and fall asleep, filled with Peace.
Through the long night Peace remains with me, and at the breaking of the new day I shall still be filled with Life and Love.
I shall go forth into the new day confident and happy.