Tuning Out

Panic attacks are the worst. I think that actually having the world cave in on me would be better than feeling like it is.  Maybe my fight or flight instincts would kick in and I would deal better. I tend to be able to handle actual emergencies... but things like handing birthday gifts to my daughter in front of our family makes my stomach turn and I start shaking and my heart starts racing and I can't handle it.  My normal self screams inside my head "WHAT THE HELL! NOTHING IS GOING ON!" But my crazy self keeps right on panicking.

One thing I do to help stop the panicking is to tune out. I have absolutely no idea if this is healthy or not, but it can help me step back from a scary situation (rational or not) and calm myself down a small bit. My favorite way to tune out... GAMES.

My iPod has been a necessity since we bought our house a few months ago. The stress from everything brought about constant panic attacks and they have since hung around. I can tell that when I get slightly stressed (even the good kind) my brain feels like it's being threatened and reacts accordingly, though it's uncalled for. I am addicted to Tetris, Solitaire, Angry Birds, Yahtzee, Sudoku among others. I also play on the computer if it's available.

Does anyone else have anything like this they do to help the panic attacks? Another thing I do?  Write. This post is because my iPod is dead right now. I can't play on it. So this is the next best thing. A way for me to take whatever it was I freaking out about and turn it around.

I was having a HORRIBLE panic attack a bit ago. For some reason writing about it tends to help get my mind off it as well... pretty much doing anything to get me away from what is causing the attach is good. My iPod has been on the charger for a little bit now, long enough that it will atleast turn on and I'll be able to play a couple games and calm myself down. Tuning out helps me the best when I need to calm down immediately.

So here I go... Tuning out.