[AnnaSta111]

Hi all, I am very new here, my name is Stacey and I am unsure, but think I had my first real panic attack and scared me half to death!! My husband is in the Navy Reserves and was just deployed to Kuwait. I have been doing ok with it all. Usually I shut down and feel nothing while he is gone. This time, well its a lot harder on me. Unsure why. Today he got to call me, first time hearing his voice since a 2 minute phone call on Saturday. I was fine while on the phone with him. When we said bye I started to cry. messaged a friend of mine who was online to say he called.. and I freaked out... started to cry hysterically, numbness in hands and face, feelings of TOTAL loss of control, feeling like I wanted to hurt someone BADLY. I guess I scared myself enough and somehow regained some control of myself and started to calm down. This was about an hour ago. I am still real shaky, and feel slight numbness but ok otherwise. I still feel very scared. Was this an anxiety attack?? should I talk with my Dr about this? I have handeled deployments so many times over the years, wonder why this one is any different. I figured if anyone knew what I should do... you guys would.

Thanks

[Lexicon78]

I'd definitely say it was anxiety by what you've just described. A lot of times when I'm having anxiety/panic attacks it's because it's what I'm thinking about or how I'm thinking about a certain subject. I tend to awfulize a lot of things. So you can start there by trying to stop any negative thinking you may have about your husband being away. To do this, distracting your mind seems to work best for me. Some people can just say the word "stop" in their head and they can stop the thoughts, but that doesn't seem to work for me.

Another thing that works, especially with anxiety attacks, is deep breathing. I was taught that you are supposed to exhale about twice as long as your inhale was. So say you count to 4 as you are inhaling. When you exhale you would count to 8. A lot of therapists would also like you to pause your breathing inbetween the inhale and the exhale. I guess the point in this would be to stop from hyperventilating.

Also exercise is a good way to get all that anxiety out. Just walking around the block is beneficial. I like to clean when I'm upset so I get to make things look nice along with getting a little exercise in the process.

There are so many different kinds of things you can do to help with the anxiety. So hang in there. The thing about calling your doctor, if you feel you cannot handle this on your own I would call him and maybe he can refer you to someone who would be able to work with you about the anxiety.

Take care.

[AnnaSta111]

Thanks.. The breathing is pretty much what I did to bring myself back under control I ask about the doctor because it scared me half to death!! And I have 2 kids who I really do not want to see me like this. Thanks again