Helping your Loved one through an Anxiety attack



*Disclaimer*
I am neither a licensed therapist nor a professional counselor. What I am offering here is something one therapist taught, which worked for my bride when she was heading into, or in the middle of a panic attack.

Many people in our world today experience anxiety attacks. I have experienced a couple of very mild ones myself. However, people with DID or PTSD and other Psychological disorders may experience them more frequently or more intently.


An anxiety attack feels like a sudden surge of overwhelming panic; It feels like you are losing control or going crazy; It causes heart palpitations and/or chest pain and possibly a loss of consciousness.

This moment where your partner needs someone with a steady and calm voice to guide them back out. They need you, above all to be grounded. Don’t try to figure out where the panic came from, don’t try to fix it, but in a calm voice, get your partners attention. Their eyes may be darting back and forth and they may look like they have become a caged animal. Calmly ask your loved one to close her eyes, and wait until she is able to. Now, ask her to imagine that she is on an airplane while continuing to speak calmly. Once she is there, ask her where the plane is. Is it in the air? Is it on the runway? Where is it?


She will instinctively know where her plane is. If the airplane is flying at an altitude of 30,000 feet, you know it’s extreme. Sometimes they feel like the airplane has not left the ground yet. No matter where the plane is, your goal is to help her land it and get it back into the hanger.  

Calmly encourage your partner to take control of the airplane. She can’t land it if she is cowering in a corner of the plane. While speaking calmly, hold her hand, and patiently guiding her. If the airplane is in the air ask her (don’t tell her) if she is ready to begin a descent. If she is not ready yet, don’t push. If she is in the air encourage her to begin circling the airport a few more times and ask her again if she is ready to move to the next step. If she is not, circle the airport a few more times (all of this needs to happen at her pace).

Help her to begin her ascent a little at a time, from 30,000 feet to 20,000, to 10,000 and so on until your loved one is prepared to and land on the runway.
Once on the ground, we can help her taxi the plane back to the hanger.

If your loved one never left the ground, you may need to walk her through not taking off and then moving the plane back to the hanger.

Be liberal with your encouragement and praise all throughout this process. This is hard work for your loved one and she needs to be assured. 

Once your partner has successfully parked the airplane in the hanger, it is not over yet. She is still fragile and whatever it was that triggered her to put that airplane back on the runway in a second. Give her time to settle back into reality. Hold your loved one giving her a secure and safe place to reconnect with reality. You will know if and when this episode is over.


This method does not always work, and it may not work for everyone. Sometimes I found this method to only help my wife go from 30,000 ft to 10,000, and then she remained there for a while. Be patient and encourage your loved one, it is not easy work living in their world.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

12 Ways to Build Trust with Someone Who has DID

Image
As we all know, trust cannot be demanded, it cannot be forced and it cannot be bought. Trust is built one day at a time and one interaction at a time. But trust can be lost in a single moment because of one action or one poor decision. While trust can be a tricky landscape to navigate in the best of relationships, those who love someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder battle can face more difficult terrain to navigate. Often, to no fault of our own, some of our loved one’s parts have no trust toward anyone, not even us. For those parts who do give us their trust, we want to be careful not to betray. It can be painful to overcome the backlash if we do break trust with our Significant Other’s parts. Here are some ways that I believe can help you build and maintain trust with your loved one’s parts. Do what you say When you say something, make sure that you also live by it. Be consistent always, showing your loved one that you are a man (or woman) of your word. Hono...
Read more

6 Myths about Dissociative Identity Disorder

Image
1) DID isn’t real Many people, even professional therapists don’t understand DID. People either dismiss this topic completely, or they believe it’s not real at all. In the 1980’s, this disorder received it’s first large scale attention. At that time it was known as MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder), which quickly fell into disrepute. In the 1990’s it was re-categorized as a dissociative disorder. Since the increased attention given to PTSD, DID seems (in my humble opinion) to have received more validity, even in the therapeutic community. 2) DID makes people dangerous or violent With Hollywood churning out movies like “Split”, the myth of DID is perpetuated.   These types of movies make it seem like people with DID are both dangerous and violent. By and large, people with DID are often no different than anyone else, accept that they have more than one pronounced personality. People with DID may pose a danger to themselves, but not usually towards others. 3) DID ...
Read more

Compare Dissociative Identity Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder

Image
If you or someone you love has DID, then you know that there is much confusion about what DID actually is. I have heard people compare it to schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder and others. Some of these may, at times, look similar, but once you drill down to a more complete picture of the symptoms you can begin to see the distinctions. What I have put together here is a general list, it is incomplete and one or the other symptom may manifest itself in one of the disorders that I did not list. But I wanted to offer a quick reference for three specific disorders. ·        Borderline Personality Disorder is at its simplest defined as: A mental disorder characterized by unstable moods, behavior, and relationships. ·        Bipolar Disorder is at it’s simplest: A disorder associated with episodes of mood swings ranging from depressive lows to manic highs. ·     ...
Read more