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In this series our clinicians will answer common questions on mental and emotional health, giving you practical tools to use in just a few minutes.
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WHAT TO DO WHEN I HAVE A PANIC ATTACK?
I am Scott Abbott, licensed mental health counselor here at Abbott mental health counseling and we're going to do a little series of questions that I answer pertaining to mental health.
One question I get asked a lot is what to do with a panic attack. The thing about a panic attack is that it makes you feel out of control, like you're going to die. And, no rational thinking seems to be able to confront this in the moment, which is because the rational part of your brain, your prefrontal cortex, has actually gone offline when you've been triggered into a state of panic. There's no shame there. You just you physiologically can't. So what do you do?
Well, do things that try to get that part of your brain back online. How?
The body. Get into your body. Start as basic as need be.Breathing, the thing we take for granted, what we're always doing. Just slow down. The best timing for this tends to be about 5 1/2 seconds in though the nose and about 5 1/2 seconds out through your mouth. Start with the breath.From there we build up to noticing and naming anything in your body. Do a scan head to toe as if a scanner was slowly going from the top of your head down to the bottom of your feet, without analyzing, just notice the name. Any sensation, emotion, feeling. Say it. Write it down. Just name it.
Then in your surroundings use your 5 senses to notice and name colors, what you see, smells, tastes, what you physically can feel. If possible, you want to ground yourself in reality. You may engage someone. If you're at the airport, there's no one around, you’re traveling alone. Just ask someone “Excuse me? What time is it?” Or a basic question that allows you to just bring your whole brain back online, reorient your body to the here and now of what is actually true. In a panic attack, your brain and your body are caught in a feedback loop picking up on some things that are actually happening in the body or in your brain, and then just spiraling to the point of “Oh no, this is a life or death situation.”
So by breathing, notice and name in your body, using your 5 senses and your surroundings, to ground yourself in the here and now. Then you can use a little bit more of that that part of your brain that can think and tell the truth and say “OK I'm noticing I'm having panic attack right now” and you can talk yourself down from that hyper-vigilant state just by narrating what's going on. You give your brain your body a sense of understanding, I have some control. I can't control everything, but at least being able to name what's happening is a sense of grounding.
From there your body will regulate. You'll be able to metabolize the neurotransmitters of epinephrine and adrenaline cortisol that are coming through your body. Once those things get get reabsorbed into your bloodstream, the panic dissipates and you get back to normal.
HOW DO I ENGAGE FAMILY WHEN THEY HAVE HARMED ME?- EPISODE 2
I'm Scott Abbott, licensed mental health counselor. Today we're talking about family and how to deal with them when they have harmed us. I don't just mean in a particular instance, but kind of in general. There's been patterns that have been unhealthy. This is a complex issue with many different tributaries, which I will get back to at later date.
Today in the New Year, coming back from the holidays, I'm hearing two storylines from people who have gone to be with extended family. One is “thank you Scott, for the game plan. Things went better than ever when I went to visit or go back home with them.” The other is “what just happened that was a train wreck.” And, so I will post later in the year with some of the gameplay ideas. The thing that I would encourage you to do is to reflect on the what just happened and the strategy here is there's no good treatment plan that can happen without proper diagnosis. Diagnose what is the problem here. Is it, substance abuse? Is it narcissistic personality disorder? Is it just old family systems where they are not going to allow you to change? They want to keep you in that that box that they put you in years ago.
Understanding what it is will then allow us to figure out what the best plan is. Some of those plans might be to cut off a family member, might be to limit the time you you spend. It might mean you only visit as a as, not a guest who stays there, but a guest who rents a place down the street. It might mean that you establish healthy boundaries. It may mean they could use some help as well. I don't recommend you lead with “you guys need therapy,” but maybe you want to share a testimony of how you've been getting help or how you've been working on certain things and then kind of cracked the door open to then encourage them to get get healthy and we can go more into some of the specifics in the future, but start with the diagnosis and then we'll get into the treatment plan.
WHY DO MY SPOUSE AND I KEEP HAVING THE SAME FIGHT?
Today's question is “why do my spouse and I keep having the same fight?” The answer that quickly probably pops into your head is because they're so selfish, but that's not very helpful. What the research has found actually, is that in marriages that go the distance, 69% of the things that they disagree over never actually get resolved, meaning you'll never end up seeing eye to eye on 2/3 of the issues in your relationship. Going round and round about the same things where you're never going to see eye to eye is really wasting your own time and theirs.
So, take a better tack. There's other things that can be fruitful in how you discuss and what you say about the issues about which you don't agree.What does that look like? You you have two cameras pointing at the same event, and you see it differently. Each of you share your perspective, not pointing out how the others is factually incorrect or any of those subjective interpretations. You honor each other's perspective. Then you you want to identify how you feel about that situation. What does it mean to you? What does it mean now in relation to your story? Is there significant background information that would be helpful to your partner about why you're having a particular view or reaction to something? Next you invite your partner into why a change would make a difference, why them hearing you would would be important, what that would do for you if they at least respected or sympathized with your perspective, and then you can wish for how you would like things to be different in the future.
There doesn't have to be a winner and a loser. Having a 0 sum game is not a way you want to do a relationship, and so being willing to live in the ambiguity of seeing things differently is a great place to get out of that old cycle.
Authentically you
Brooklyn based therapy practice providing biblical and clinical psychotherapy for anxiety, depression, addiction, trauma and marriage.