Anxiety Attack, acute and prolonged

It is not a panic attack; it is, rather, a sharp increase in anxious feelings and symptoms and accompanying generalized emotional and/or physical pain, lasting for days, weeks, months or even several years.

What is really happening, I reasoned, is that it's the same amount of anxiety - or anxiety-type neurotransmitters in motion if you want to think of it that way - but, like all the other sensory input the person is receiving, it's turned way up. Just like turning up the volume on your car radio - at some point it's just too loud and it becomes uncomfortable.

This is when someone must be listened to. Because the input into their bodies has gone out of the range of simply what one prefers, to what actually causes pain and discomfort to the person. Their experience will be terrifying - which only increases the anxiety feelings - until the volume is turned down.

In order to do this, one must concentrate their energies on something *inside* the body rather than outside of it. This can be very difficult at first, because the brain is so used to having its attention pulled to things outside the body. There are a range of ways to teach someone to do this. Some teach the use of the breath, committed to a very zen and healthy experience with other beneficial side effects. But for some, there is not enough dopamine release for this habit to catch. You can start with something with a higher reward, something more enjoyable we would say. I find smoking weed or using TCH products really dulls and softens the exterior world. I can still feel like it's there, but it's more like a vague veil or blanket around my body. It's really relaxing like this, and I wonder if this is more like many people's baseline attention.

This, in turn, creates kind of a chicken-and-egg scenario. Maybe people prone to these kind of anxiety attacks have a somewhat higher "volume" of sensory input compared to people who don't experience anxiety. So even the baseline level of sensory input is not that comfortable, This discomfort - unresolved by anything the body inherently knows how to do - creates anxeity. Subconsciously, the brain and body know there is a problem, and they do not know how to resolve it. This uncertainty grows into fear, and fear - over a prolonged time without a source that is clearly known and avoidable - turns into anxiety.

Anxiety, to me, seems to be like a task that requires both mental and physical energy, but that has no productive outcome. It's a "spinning of the wheels" of sorts. Although it's not getting anywhere and not solving any problems, the body and brain still believe they *need* be fixing this, so they keep looking for the source of the problem. This searching becomes like a computer program that is always running in the background, eating up your RAM and slowing down your system. There is nothing wrong with the computer, it's just preoccupied with this task of identifying the source of the sensory discomfort problem, so it can be resolved - that it leaves significantly less brain-width (sort of like bandwidth... how large or wide is the area that is available) and significantly less energy for conscious thinking. The result is feeling mentally and physically drained and defeated. You couldn't even get out of bed or remember your keys when you went out, which is ridiculous, because a week ago you were doing so well and doing a lot of productive things. And yet, even if you start to get somewhere on being able to piece together what is going on, your brain is being pinged every few seconds with repeating warnings about the sensory issue going on. It's like a loud siren is blaring endlessly. It makes is very difficult to think.

You can imagine how scary this might seem, and how disorienting. It's no wonder the person is scared to move their body an inch or eat anything or try to do basically anything at all. Everything seems really important to *not* mess up, because things are already so tenuous. It's like watching someone who thinks they are walking on a high wire, but in reality they are walking on a sidewalk. This only increases pressure, tension, and again, anxiety.

It's a real question I have - though one I don't think I want to explore - about what happens to someone who continues to spiral down this anxiety-multiplying loop.

Now. What should be done.

Stay tuned for more insights at your favorite blog-ish thing - the thing you're reading here - entitled "Range of Motion".

Be well,

W Relieux

someday lady you'll accompany me.