Anxiety attack attacker.

Shit-fix blog (no.1)

Enter: Anxiety attack. It comes out of nowhere! My thinking and vision are distorted. The only thing I’m sure of is that my heart is beating (at least for now), and that I might be dying (though usually I don’t). AAAHHHHHH…

Next move: Cut the crap with a simple physiological fix. Let me not parse words. Here’s how.

Bordering on insanity? Keep reading…. [Art by Kelly C Flanagan]

Shit fix no.1: Anxiety attacker.

Ice around the eyes.

1. Get your face into a bowl or sink of ice-cold water — or— just grab yourself an ice cube, ice pack, or trusty bag of perpetually-frozen peas, and
2. Put this cold thing to your face for 30 seconds. Especially focus on getting the ice around your eyes — and for best results under them. If it’s safe for you, sit/bend down and position your head below your heart.
3. Trigger our mammalian reflexes. Enter: the human in us! The one that knows how to heal. The one that’s lived as a caveman when shit was chaos. Trust the body. It learned how to be a person before we knew we were alive at all.
4. And now, RELAXATION. Physiological reactions drop your heart rate immediately and shift your body into its parasympathetic nervous system.

How the heck?!

Yupp. The fix is in the nervous system.

To give you a taste of how nervous system activity impacts mental health, here are some quick takeaways from Peter Levine (a brilliant researcher whose work has permanently altered my existence). How it works:

• Distress and panic trigger the nervous system. They move the body into its primal “flight/fight” stage. This looks like: a physically flushed face, increased pulse, and sweating.
• The overwhelm triggers the body to shutdown… and this is good! Your body is supposed to work this way. It’s called self-regulation. The emotional and sensory flooding signals the nervous system to move into “freeze” state to protect itself. This looks like: downward gaze, pale face, cold hands, and slowed movement.
• It’s not always fun. Some of our bodies are prone to — or just surrounded by— too many stimuli. So, that’s my life-long learning. Shit Fix №1 (aka physiological intervention): Ice to the face for 30 seconds.

My literal freezer [Photo by Kelly C Flanagan]

What happens next?

Once the body cycles through these states, it recovers.

This cycle is essential to our human bodies.

Is it horrible? Yes.

Do we wish we were superhuman? Probably.

Can’t we just avoid it? No. Not unless we become robots.

In the meantime? Love our bodies as hard as they “love us,” with our ice-meets-face strategy.

Let’s startle our bodies out of their lizard-state emotional overwhelm… and back into the room. What this looks like: Once fully cycled out of freeze state, our bodies begin to operate in the social realm again and we can interact with others. We are able to focus outside of ourselves and on those around us again (…if we want).

Why we shouldn’t shit on anxiety

Or even anxiety attacks

Anxiety is our body’s natural reaction to protect us. Even when I’ve bragged, “I am doing SOO good these days!” I hit times where my perceptive intake, physically and emotionally, is just more than my brain can handle. This is what “way too much” feels like, even when I don’t want to admit it. Our lizard-brain reactions are *not fun,* but once we understand what is happening (and a few quick fixes and longer-term adjustments), things feel better. Not just in our brains, but also in our bodies. Things feel a lot better.

Now that I feel okay being human for a few minutes,

let me invite you to my new “Shit Fix” blog series. It is born from my life-long struggle, constant research, billion-and-a-half diagnoses (none very helpful), and — finally, the realization that:

This is how my body is supposed to work. Even if it’s a little different than I’ve been told it should.

Here’s my catch phrase: “I lived it so you don’t have to!” Get on board, and also — read up on it from the pros who have guided my road. Sources included and recommended:

1. Peter Levine, I highly recommend his research. Books I referenced are: “In an Unspoken Voice, How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness” and “Trauma and Memory, Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past: A Practical Guide for Understanding and Working with Traumatic Memory”
2. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). As an anxiety-sufferer, DBT has been my saving grace. I like to think of it as, “Therapeutic *strategies* to feel better, instead of just talking to a therapist about my ‘pathetic life’ for an hour.”
3. Manhattan Psychology Group was also referenced.

There are always ads… let your body try its thing this time. [Photo by Kelly C Flanagan]

More anxiety blogs planned:

1. Revenge: How to make anxiety’s life as terrible as it’s made mine. How? Spurts of intense exercise. Here’s how this conversation starts (in my mind): “Two can play at this game, anxiety. You want to make my heart race like there’s no tomorrow? Here I GO: jumping jacks, running around the room in circles, push-ups, pillow punches, insanity!!…until…I make my heart be faster than you do! LET’S GO!
2. Calming: Strategies to shift the parasympathetic nervous system into play so it takes us into a calm and happy ocean wave… or whatever.
3. Bodies: We all have ‘em! Let’s get them on our sides again!

Pause.

I want to tell you something serious and sincere.

I want to walk this road with you. We need community. You’re a part of mine, and I want to be a part of yours — if you’ll listen to my crazy.

With respect and gratitude,

Kelly C

*

Song inspirations include:

Alex Turner, “It’s hard to get around the wind”

The Shins’ (excellent Spotify cover), “Panic! at the Disco”