Corcovado wrote:
I used to have them. Mostly in supermarkets and on busses. Once they got worse and I got one in the street. I had to sit down feeling really bad and helpless. Then I thought about it as an "attack", and realised that "attacks" doesn't last forever. It immediatly went away.
There was one supermarket that was really bad, and one day I got fed up with it, and got so angry with the whole thing that it went away. From then on, as I realised I could control them, it has not been so bad.
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I agree that it is possible to overcome anxiety by changing your thoughts about the anxiety. Like you I got sick and tired of the anxiety and it went away. My process was a little bit different, but I did have a similar moment of enlightment that got rid of my anxiety attacks.
I had these really really bad anxiety attacks after being attacked by a violent criminal. I am very lucky to be alive, because this person was a murderer who, the last time I heard, was still in jail.
After the attack I was okay for about a year, but then I developed PTSD and associated anxiety attacks. I slowly began to unravel. I became afraid to leave the apartment, afraid to eat, or take care of myself, and eventually I became afraid to even get out of bed. Well the good news is that my recovery happened really suddenly. It happened the moment that I learned to deal with the anxiety attacks. What happened was that one day I was so sick and exhausted with being afraid and feeling anxious that I literally "gave up" and just "surrendered" to the anxiety. I was soooo tired of being afraid that I just let go, like someone who had been hanging by her fingers to the side of a cliff. I just let go. And once I gave up, let go and surrendered then something amazing happened. My heartrate slowed down, I began breathing normally, and my body stopped pumping adrenalin. I relaxed back into my body. I can remember the exact moment this happened, and I kind of went, "Hey!..What just happened to me?" Wow! And from that moment on I never had a real anxiety attack or panic attack again.
I still do have anxiety though, but not the actual anxiety or panic attack that seems to come from nowhere and can make a person feel like they are going crazy.