In My Head

Anxiety Attacks

i tend to get anxiety attacks easily and often. Because of this, i had to identify what causes them.

The most common reason for me is sensory overload.

If there is too much noise i can have an anxiety attack, this one being the main cause of my anxiety attacks when it comes to being in public spaces.

If there are too many humans around me i can also have them.

If i start receiving too much unwanted physical contact or attention i may also have an anxiety attack.

i would also like to clarify that i do not have autism of any form, in case anyone were to ever ask.

i can also begin having symptoms of the beginning of an anxiety attack without any triggers or influences.

i can also an anxiety attack due to being over-stressed.

An example of this being that once, a home-test was handed on a Friday and it was due Monday but i was not informed until Sunday at night. No one had managed to fully answer the test and with me being terrible at mathematics, i was already overly anxious. i had to get it on one of my free periods and answer it in less than 2hours. While trying to answer it i started having difficulty breathing, sweating, shaking, terrible intrusive and hopeless thoughts, i felt like i was being suffocated my body felt like it was overheating, and the mere contact of the paper against my skin began to feel like sandpaper. i knew that an anxiety attack was going to happen if i didn't calm down. i proceeded to take off my earbuds, remove my jacket, take off my keys from around my neck, get away from the papers, lie down flat on my back and just breathe for a long while. Luckily, since no one managed to fully answer the test, the professor extended the due date and i received help from one of my brother's friends.

Today i had a bad experience. In our Scientific Investigation class, the school's practicing psychologist (which i deeply hate due to some very horrible experiences with her) came to make us do a dynamic so we can relive stress. The dynamic just made me even more anxious than usual. Since we had to fill up balloons in one part of the dynamic, i was anxious about one of them bursting and pushing me over the edge onto the anxiety attack. This also caused me to have many intrusive thoughts come along which made everything worse. Once the dynamic finished we had to stand up since we had been sitting. That's when a balloon burst. i immediately covered my ears and curled up as much as i could. One of my close friends was next to me and she held me while i was trying to contain the anxiety attack. i could not move, tears streamed down my face while i remained silent and shaking. The thoughts were screaming at me and i just wanted to run as far as possible screaming until my lungs burned and my throat ached but i couldn't since it isn't socially acceptable to do so. My friend managed to help me get to the restroom so i could get some air and wash my face. On our way back to the classroom, the psychologist joked about my reaction.

i spent the rest of the day with my mind being in a state of mania while my body felt severely tense and exhausted.

February 22nd, 2018