Rings around the moon.

I've watched a lot of YouTube videos. Obviously. I feel like I'm drowning, I cling for dear life to anything that promises me a way out of Hell! The question that came to me today (I'm sitting on a wall as I write this, on my way to the shops) is: what could I have known, if I'd used first principals derived from physiology? Answer : everything has to become calm. So far so good.  I was convinced that I could only get to calm through openness and acceptance.  Sounds logical.  I wanted him to make me feel OK. Yep, that's where it starts to go wrong  And when he didn't I became louder and my heart, mind, soul, body and spirit felt drenched in acid. What I could have known is, the advice that talks about openness and acceptance comes from a tradition in which this makes sense. Basically a Christian perspective. Also people may be invested in getting you to watch their videos and a slightly confessional, punitive theory is quite honestly addictive,  Because it feels...

I will begin to write again. In pain drenched letters, with a heavy heart. Our family is whole, my husband, my children - no one died. But we are splintering and fractured and it is almost too much to bear. I've been looking at the work of Claire Weeks. An immensely sensible person who described the effects of prolonged stress, the 'sensitization' of nerves, and the way adrenaline and then endorphins - well no, Claire doesn't mention endorphins, but they are now understood as playing a part in the maintenance of severe anxiety - how adrenaline and then thinking about stressful things, and then reacting to the feeling of stress, and also having to go 'cold turkey' when stress is over and you no longer get that hit of endogenous morphine...can take even the sanest person down. So now its my turn. And this is just about the hardest and the worst period of my life right now... I need a hand to hold, and so I write.

And then things got worse. One more bad thing occurred; on the 27th of September. And because I needed to be strong and can't be, things got worse. Not yet at peak worse, yet I perceived only a few centimeters or degrees before that point. And this experience has shown me how easy it is to fall into depression - that sense that there is literally nothing I can do that is right - is confirmed by the parade of tragic memories confirming this. Panic may start with a sensation of falling, insides full of fire, and guts churning as if I'm being eaten from the inside out. But the truth is there is nothing to hold onto! My all too human reaction to pain is to seek help and comfort, but my crying and pleading feeds the inner 'demon'. For me no help will come. That I've named what is happening and the help I need has made it worse. ...No reassurance is forthcoming so my panic deepens, entrenches itself, has wrapped itself around every organ in my body...And when the ne...

As I drove closer to my son's address, the phone rang. His brother told us that Josh had just called another ambulance... We arrived before the ambulance crew. Josh was sitting in the kitchen, as white as a sheet, shaking and telling everyone that he was close to death He told us that this began the previous night while at work He had become unable to walk His legs turned to jelly... And I wondered how he had got home? But his legs had been OK for that... So he called an ambulance this morning And another just now He was convinced that he was about to die. I just saw someone having a massive panic attack. So I could be reassuring, and it was easy not to be caught up in his story... But I have never seen anyone so far gone before. The ambulance crew arrived Spoke to him kindly Reassured him that this is panic Took his blood pressure and temperature... Filled in forms... His brother stayed outside, the flat smelt of damp and everywhere was dirty. Perio...