A few summers back I was sitting talking with my supervisor right before leaving on vacation. As we talked I started thinking of all the projects we had going and of all the things that could go wrong. As I started to think about these issues I started to feel a pain in my chest. As the pain increased I started becoming short of breath and it occurred to me that I might be having a heart attack. As this thought crossed my mind the symptoms intensified and I mentioned to my supervisor that I was having problems. I started to ponder whether to ask her to call 911.
As things were moving towards a real crisis I had one of those moments of clarity where several points became obvious. First, I was very anxious about whether the staff would follow through with our projects while I was gone. Second I was worried that if they didn’t there would have to be a lot of confrontations when I returned. Finally, I also realized that this would also lead to a confrontation between my supervisor and myself. This brought me to the conclusion that I was having a panic attack.
Being a counselor who uses life experience for anecdotes and insights I was thrilled at the prospect of having a panic attack. Here was a new experience that I could use in my talks and would surely provide a whole series of events that could be both funny and poignant. I decided that I could enjoy this and have some fun with it.
And then the anxiety attack went away.
Oddly, I was disappointed. It seemed the panic attack wouldn’t be the grand adventure I was hoping for. But I did learn a valuable lesson about mental health. People who have panic attacks will generally spend quite a bit of time in therapy, on medication, practicing stress management and struggling to “work through the problem.” Yet, in a period of just a few moments I accidentally found a way for an anxiety attack to drift away. It seems that the solution wasn’t in learning how to deal with feelings but in changing the way I thought about it. By changing my beliefs about the feelings, by considering the feelings beneficial rather than something to be fear, those feelings just seemed to drift away. They were no longer a threat.
Of all the things we’ve discovered working with substance abuse and mental health issues the most impressive is the resilience each person possesses. Many times the work of a counselor consist more of helping the individual discover the tools he or she already has. More often than not the greatest challenge we have in change is allowing ourselves to change.
John
As things were moving towards a real crisis I had one of those moments of clarity where several points became obvious. First, I was very anxious about whether the staff would follow through with our projects while I was gone. Second I was worried that if they didn’t there would have to be a lot of confrontations when I returned. Finally, I also realized that this would also lead to a confrontation between my supervisor and myself. This brought me to the conclusion that I was having a panic attack.
Being a counselor who uses life experience for anecdotes and insights I was thrilled at the prospect of having a panic attack. Here was a new experience that I could use in my talks and would surely provide a whole series of events that could be both funny and poignant. I decided that I could enjoy this and have some fun with it.
And then the anxiety attack went away.
Oddly, I was disappointed. It seemed the panic attack wouldn’t be the grand adventure I was hoping for. But I did learn a valuable lesson about mental health. People who have panic attacks will generally spend quite a bit of time in therapy, on medication, practicing stress management and struggling to “work through the problem.” Yet, in a period of just a few moments I accidentally found a way for an anxiety attack to drift away. It seems that the solution wasn’t in learning how to deal with feelings but in changing the way I thought about it. By changing my beliefs about the feelings, by considering the feelings beneficial rather than something to be fear, those feelings just seemed to drift away. They were no longer a threat.
Of all the things we’ve discovered working with substance abuse and mental health issues the most impressive is the resilience each person possesses. Many times the work of a counselor consist more of helping the individual discover the tools he or she already has. More often than not the greatest challenge we have in change is allowing ourselves to change.
John
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