It is, without a doubt, the most terrifying psychological experience that a non-psychotic person can experience in a waking state. and yet, it resolves very well and makes the patient mature a lot… when the specialist in Clinical Psychology is seen on time and when he knows what he is up to. It is a panic attack a psychological phenomenon which the following lines deal with.
Panic attack occurs when the individual’s psychological and nervous system has been under severe pressure for months and even years (in most cases). Like some heart attacks, It does not appear in acute moments, but over time, over days or weeks and also suddenly, which causes the individual to have no idea where the shots are coming from and become more alarmed.
It usually occurs in people who, although they do things and are in good spirits, deep down they have lost their way, they do not know how to continue with their lives.
It also occurs in the postpartum period in people with complex psychological trajectories and who, after the effort and tension of the pregnancy period and the exhaustion of childbirth, suddenly suffer from this disorder. And also with the consumption of hashish, which is obsessive for some individuals; It weakens the nervous system and reduces the ability to plan and desire to do things.
Symptoms
As we have seen, it is the excruciating panic that suddenly invades the patient’s mind and nervous system He is absolutely surprised by what he experienced, something he did not expect or even imagine. The heart beats at 180 beats, and it is felt in the chest, in the artery in the neck, as if it were going to explode.
Thoughts have stopped responding, there is no interaction with perceptions, the “command-and-command” protocol has disappeared. It’s chaos. Hyperventilation makes the individual dizzy and reduces their visual field closing it even more in itself, where there are hardly any ideas or self-instructions, since there is only room to feel one emotion: exacerbated fear. To what? To oneself, to what is happening inside there. The individual does not recognize himself, he experiences depersonalization and derealization, he is so inside himself that he does not have the sensation of being in the world.
But nevertheless, he is possessed by a very intense energy that he cannot channel. He feels that he is going to die ipso facto, he feels that he is going to go crazy at that moment, is afraid of acting out of control and shouting for no reason, breaking things, hurting himself Like an ecstasy, but a bad trip.
Some faint. It takes hours or minutes, depending on the person, and finally calm comes. The body is exhausted, the autonomic nervous system has used up all its energy. The idea is automatically installed in the individual that his head is damaged and that this will accompany him for the rest of his life, that he is crazy. In fact, panic attacks are more common than colds, so to speak, but they are hidden out of shame. So No one realizes that many people they pass on the street have also had it
The other cross of this disorder is the fear of fear. The constant fear of it happening again, the fear of unpredictable panic again. It is here, if a solution is not provided in time, or if those who do are unaware of the nature of the problem and only hinder the process, where agoraphobia, claustrophobia and the unbearability of being alone arise. The first days are terrible.
The good aspects of a panic attack
The panic attack is not ambiguous or interpretable, like depression, anxiety, or anguish. The panic attack It appears clearly and suddenly at the highest end of each of the symptoms of physiological anxiety Panic is panic. It is easily identified, since the patient, without having read anything about psychopathology, says at least one of these 3 symptoms:
There are only slight confusions between panic attacks and anxiety or anxiety crises, but if we ask about these symptoms we will be able to identify without problems if it is a panic or anxiety crisis Anguish is annoying, it doesn’t let you be, but it’s not that panic.
Another curious aspect is that since the arousal of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) has been maximum during panic, Normally the patient is exhausted and has no more energy at that moment, although those minutes after the attack already begin to structure thoughts around fear and anticipation.
By the way, there are people who faint. They’re lucky? Maybe so, but then they develop a fear of falling and hurting their head.
To do?
The other positive aspect is that even though it is so spectacular, treated correctly in time, the disorder almost completely disappears and a well-conducted therapy will reinforce the individual’s feelings of strength not only in the face of possible panic, but also in the face of any symptoms of anxiety or other difficulties in life.
Go to a good clinical psychologist That it explains the symptoms well, that it quickly provides behavioral resources to get by, reports on its evolution, and contributes in the rest of the therapy to making the patient aware of the context that has caused the panic attack, is crucial. The difference between this and staying at home, locked up, scared, increasing drug intake and becoming depressed, is colossal.
Of course, the victim of panic must be patient for at least a few months or a couple of years, as this disorder leaves its effects, although without ever reaching the intensity of the panic episodes: headaches, migraines, tense sensations in the muscles cervical and neck, days in which they feel more vulnerable, dizziness, attacks of attacks due to memories of stimuli that produce nerves, avoidance of being in places of public crowds, tachycardias… but a good therapist will help you get through that long final stretch .
And I repeat, the person will come out stronger because if you have followed the instructions and understood the context so that it does not happen again, you will have overcome many moments of fear… in solitude, which is a way of becoming an adult like any other.
The first treatment should be behavioral only. The instructions and techniques are few and specific, simple to communicate. The important thing is to convey to the patient the security that this will happen and that it will not leave any consequences.
Parents, when they come to consultation scared because they see their children with night terrors at night, are definitively calmed when they are informed that, although the fear they are seeing in their children is spectacular, it It will not have the slightest consequence on the maturational development of your nervous system Well, with this, the same.
In a second phase of treatment, the context must be analyzed from a mild cognitive or dynamic point of view. Third generation narrative therapies, or psychoanalytic listening therapy, must help the therapist and patient to fix the content that has undermined the individual’s physical and psychological resistance. It will be essential to frame what happened and to provide deeper tranquility to the subject. Likewise, this will serve to return to the directions and illusions that disappeared to make way for anguish.
Regarding medication, The best thing is that the subject can face his fear without pharmacological aids that will subtract and delay the attribution of self-competence. But there are patients who, due to their context and characteristics, were already taking them and nothing will happen if they integrate this medication into the treatment of a panic attack.
