What I Did Today & How I Deal With Anxiety Attacks

Sorry for the mediocre title, it was the best thing I could think of off the top of my head.

My parents decided that I should attend "Cope Sessions" with the pediatrician, where they basically do talk therapy for mild-to-moderate anxiety and/or depression, as well as getting kids on the appropriate meds. I will admit that the prospect of attending the session gave me several separate anxiety attacks over the course of the past 24 hours, but I believe that I handled them fairly well.

Anyway, I was quite nervous to potentially be going on meds, because while what goes on inside my head is crazy, it still seems to be who I am. I do know people who have been positively impacted by beginning meds, so I wasn't completely upset about it, but I was still apprehensive.

Luckily enough, they did not begin me on meds yet. They wanted to after I scored "off the chart" on the anxiety test, but then they realized that they probably were dealing with bipolar disorder as well, and decided that a psychiatrist would be a better fit in terms of knowing what would keep both in check. They also had trouble distinguishing what were psychological disorders and what was gender dysphoria. In other words, I have too many issues for them to deal with appropriately.

They did tell my mother that the only thing I really need from her now is acceptance and support, so I hope that both she and my father can learn to deal with it in the near future. I managed to have an anxiety attack while they were explaining this to her, but focused on breathing and no one noticed.

The pediatrician did say that they'd find me a trans-positive psychiatrist that could help me through this and hopefully talk some sense into my parents.

I'm sorry for the short, fairly boring post, but I've had a lot on my mind that I need to get off my chest. In order to compensate, I'm adding a second part to the post, which is how I deal with anxiety attacks so far.

The first step for me is recognizing which type of attack it is. I've noticed two main types so far, though there can be a bit of overlap:

In the first type, and the one I have more often, I stop automatically breathing. When this happens, I open my mouth as wide as I comfortably can and take deep, loud breaths. This ensures that I get maximum amounts of air, because if I don't, I begin to feel lightheaded and dizzy. If it doesn't cease within a few minutes, I open YouTube and listen to this video (JustAWhisperingGuy's Watch this if you are having a panic attack). I've found it to be immensely helpful and can't recommend it enough, although obviously its effects will vary from person to person.

In the second type, my heart rate speeds up and I hyperventilate. I find that it's best to just let this type end on its own, which generally takes between one and five minutes. If it doesn't end, it's the beginning of a manic episode, which can be taken care of through exercise and managing the underlying problem*.

Something that I've found helps with both types, though, is music. The music itself depends on what mood I'm in, but I can generally count on either Blue Öyster Cult, Cracker, the Eagles, or fun. to help. Sometimes I'm not in a position where I'm able to listen to anything, and then I really just have to focus on breathing. I've heard that meditation can also help with stress, so I'm going to begin practicing in hopes of one day being able to end an attack by using it. It has to be worth a shot, right?

After the attack is over, I try to reflect on why it happened, how I handled it, and how effective my response was. I believe that I've been dealing with anxiety attacks for years, though I wasn't able to recognize them up until these past few days. I've only consciously dealt with about ten so far, though, so my methods will probably evolve further. My current system is working for now, though, and that's what matters.



* - although sometimes, manic episodes of mine aren't caused by problems, but by victories, so then I have to find a constructive way to use all the energy, whether it be exercise, writing about it, or something else.