Last night, while making dinner, and out of no where, I had a major anxiety attack.  All of a sudden my hands began shaking.  A feeling of dread filled me and started to crush my chest.  I wanted to cry, I actually felt the fight or flight response kick in.  My mind started to race with thoughts of why, why is this happening....where...where did it come from...how...how the hell do I stop this.

After getting dinner in the oven I went out to have a smoke and cup of coffee.  I know part of it was to get outside, to be able to breath and think things through.  It was then my "observer" kicked in.  Side note, I found myself thinking of this as my "wise" self.  It's hard to describe because it's rather new to me.  I pull part of myself away and look down into whats going on in my head.  My wise self assured me I was okay, nothing was going to hurt me.  My wise self told me to take deep, even breaths, to stop trying to figure out why.  To, in a way, ride it out as everything has a beginning, a middle and an end.  Part of my wise self was trying to join what was going on in my head, to get sucked into the anxiety.  It was very hard to keep wise "out there".  I guess it's going to take practice to get wise self to remain detached and coach me through.

I started with another anxiety attack about 15 minutes ago.  I'm sitting here, hands shaking, feeling of dread and hard to breath.  I'm taking deep, cleansing breaths.  I want to sit here and cry.  What the hell is going on.  My wise self is prying itself away from being in the middle of the feelings and look down to comfort me.  It's hard.  I have no clue why these have started or where they're coming from.  If it were only the one last night I'd think it's a passing part of my anxiety.  Two in a row in such a small amount of time worries me a bit.  I'm sure, in some way, it has to be adding to the feelings I'm having now.

I was originally going to write about the weekend.  Talk about the difference in phone calls between my dad and my mom.  Dad's was so fun and back and forth sharing.  My moms was the feeling like she didn't really hear (or care) what was going on in my life and more about what was going on in hers.  I made an excuse to get off the phone with her....it wasn't fun talking to her.  I'm happy I'm not as self centered as she is.

I see Annette this morning and we're going to discuss these anxiety attacks.  I have to discuss these anxiety attacks.  If I don't I know it'll become a vicious cycle of worrying about having them and bringing them on from the worry.