coping skills.

What are your coping skills?  What gets you thru those moments where you start to get anxious, panicky, and you feel completely and totally overwhelmed?  Do you even get nervous enough to call it an ‘anxiety disorder?’  I do.  As I mentioned in my first post, I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder during my first (of 3) inpatient stints, but I likely have had this for much more than just 7 years; I’m talkin’, prolly since like junior high or high school.  At the very least, since I went overseas with the Girl Scouts August 2001 & I got so homesick and anxious and wanted to go home more than I wanted to explore London.  All I wanted to do was call home, stay inside, etc.  But my mental problems started when I was 3 years of age.  But that’s a story for another time. 

I bring up anxiety because this morning I got hit, all of a sudden, with this overwhelming panic.  I couldn’t breathe, my stomach was in knots, I had ‘digestive issues’ (read into that what you will!), and I have no idea where it came from.  I remember exactly what I was doing when it happened.  I was watching Gilmore Girls, and it was the episode Rory comes home from Yale & runs into Dean outside Lane’s house & he invites her to his wedding.  All of a sudden I had to get out of the room.  I had to take a half tablet of Nerve Tonic (a godsend, really.  My dad found it for me when my doctor refused to refill a prescription of Ativan when I needed it, even though it most certainly wasn’t too soon for it.  Since then I've used the Ativan very sparingly.  But that once again, is a story for another time.), ½ tablet Immodium, a cranberry, and I just sat in the bathroom, with the radio blaring and the bathtub running.  For some reason, water running helps me relax.  Not sure where that came from, or how I even discovered it, and sometimes it takes half an hour or longer (much, much longer today, I’m afraid), but the running water acts as a white noise effect, kinda.  So I sat there, listening to the radio, the water running, and playing Farkle on my phone until I was calm enough to leave. 

I've of course been compiling a list of coping skills since I was diagnosed, that’s one of the things they teach you in the crazy-hospital.  Coping skills, coping skills, coping skills.  They push it down your throat.  Sure, you can cope your way thru life, but I really want to know what is the cause of this anxiety.  Isn’t that better than just trudging my way thru life?  Or maybe I just need to learn better cues.  I don’t recall having any sort of cues this morning during my aforementioned anxiety attack.  Or in the one about an hour and a half after that one, or the one about an hour or two after lunch.  It was just all of a sudden, right there in your face, HELLO. 

I've noticed that since I am taking a mini-break from the gym (just until my new shoes arrive so hopefully I don’t get shin splints anymore… sometime mid-next week, hopefully), that my anxiety has gotten worse.  Like I've felt that I needed to take the ½ tablet of nerve tonic more throughout the day.  Some days I can get thru the day without needing the extra help at all.  And yes, I feel ugly, out of place, and fat at the gym, but I honestly have noticed, especially since I've temporarily stopped going, that it is overall helping with the anxiety.  So that’s definitely a coping skill, I guess.

But what are others?  Do you have any coping skills that help you in times of panic?  Share below!  I’d love to hear them!