Trauma – PTSD

Question:

Brighten up Gwen, we all slip back a step or two from time to time. "Crutch" is a subjective term….could be a cup of coffee for some, donut for another, insulin for others, prayer, bag of potato chips……everyone has some kind of a ‘crutch’ to get through life.  It’s not a bad thing…….more like a security blanket.  Don’t turn your security blanket into a guilt quilt. KC Cindy Hope this helps

Well…yes…it does…I feel much better about the bag of Ruffles I was drowning my sorrows in.  I guess I am a bit touchy about the *crutch* thing,   seems lately people in my world haven’t been all that supportive.  Nope, no guilt…a perfectly useless emotion, IMHO.  :) Gwen

Response:

: : So here’s my vote, because I’ve written too much already, I vote that PAs, : PD, and GAD are entirely mental, but I do not believe that the so called : mental therapy world has developed anywhere near the tools neccessary to : fix how I deal with the problem.  You see, I believe the original problem : is still there, the question is, can I face it on my own, or will I need : the crutch for the rest of my life.   Hi Kelly, I think the simplest way to view the issue is psychological vs. biological (since ‘mental’ is a bit vague). The psychological aspect regards information processing in the brain while the biological regards the mechanisms that support such processing; like the difference between software and hardware in the computer world. Either may become dysfunctional in anxiety disorders, but the bias varies from case to case.                                         Best Wishes,                                         Arthur

Response:

Hi Kelly:  Your analysis is very thoughtful.  Is PD a mental disorder or a – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – physical disorder?  I think that the mind and body are so inter-related that this     question is indeed, a difficult one to answer.  It is my feeling that the cause is biochemical in nature. I’m not sure we have a choice about the chemicals our brain decides to emit when faced with a panic situation or an out of the blue incident.   However, I also believe that the chemical aspects of this disorder do not prohibit one from learning to cope without medication if that be his or her choice.  My experience provides an example.  Although I learned to deal with panic attacks before there were drugs to help, the physical sensations of a panic attack are still there.  While I no longer feel the actual tormenting panic, I do feel the heart palpitations, the stomach churning, the sweating – all the good things that accompany a good attack.  Although   these sensations no longer bother me and do not last long, this says to me – this thing is indeed physical in nature.

Response:

So are you saying "mental" is "physical?"  … Or are you saying that you can conquer the physical by using your mind (mental ) to overcome the physical thing … mind over matter?

Hi Tasha, I sure am glad you snipped it, because, to tell you the truth, I don’t remember what I wrote.  The one thing I am sure of is that I wrote too much of it.   I guess, if I were to some up my current thoughts on the subject, which are in no sense related to any previous thoughts on the subject–all thoughts on any subject can contradict any previous thought on that subject – *The Princess," Enrico Machiavelli’s little sister. In any case, This is what I currently believe: It soon will be possible to quantify anything that happens in the brain as the result of a physical reactions between chemicals of the body. Therefor, in a true sense, we are all part of a tick-tock world where everything is preordained.  This means that some people are built to better handle panic and stress and such. OTOH, We all, I believe, possess something called a soul.  This soul is, for want of a better explanation, is God’s gift to the Universe.  The answer to Einstein’s imortal statement: "God does not play dice with the Universe." would be, "Of course, he does, that’s what people are for. What I mean is: I believe in some spark of inner self that upsets that tick-toc universe that doctors and psychiatrists would have us believe in.  Therefor, what I am saying is this: Regardless of the physical cause of the thing that makes us react as we do, I believe that we each have some extra bit that helps us over the hump, and maybe, just maybe, sometimes that extra bit is incapable of helping us, and that is why some of us need drugs to kick this habit or feeling. God, I’ve gone and done it again.  Sorry if I didn’t answer the question, but I seem to have written too much already. Kelly

Response:

Gwen, I still beleive in chemical. My son who has been panic free for over ten years and has been off medication Xanax for seven years. Called to say,"its back". His thyroid, which he has "Hashimotos Thyroiditis", was not within the boundrys of normal. So thus the sysmptom of p/a had returned. He said he was back in the "fog", disassociation. He was downing a bottle of "scotch", to help get rid of the panic. I suggested he get some Xanax as it worked when he had it before. He needs to get increase in the medication for the treatment of his thyroid condition also. If all hold true from the past when his thyroid is within normal bound his panic will subside but until that time he will have to live with the condition he had as a child for awhile. lori – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – So here’s my vote, because I’ve written too much already, I vote that PAs, PD, and GAD are entirely mental, but I do not believe that the so called mental therapy world has developed anywhere near the tools neccessary to fix how I deal with the problem.  You see, I believe the original problem is still there, the question is, can I face it on my own, or will I need the crutch for the rest of my life.   Ouch!  After just having a doozie last night, the hubby frustrated, ME frustrated and going back to that place that says deep inside I should be able to handle this myself, seeing the word *crutch* makes me feel awful. There goes my self-esteem for the day. Gwen

Response:

Hi all, Without having to place all those little ” ’s in front of the previous posts on this thread so that everybody knows what I’m talking about, I’m just going to say: < Snipped all previous posts Now my turn, Panic Disorder, Panic Attacks, GAD and all those other anxiety associated neurosis are, pardon me for making an ass of myself ( but that’s never stopped me before ), totally mental. Now before you pull out the guns and start shouting "Flame war," here me out.  Suppose, for a moment, that you are sitting in your chair typing on the computer, totally absorbed in what is happening.  The room is dark, and the door is open, but you think everyone else is asleep.  Anyway, suppose you’re sitting there, the fan is going in the background, and its midnight, and what you are typing seems really cool to you, and all of the sudden someone reaches out and touches you lightly on the shoulder.   You know, almost immediately anyway, that the hand belongs to that of your five year old daughter, and also that she just wants a hug, and she didn’t say anything because she’s still asleep, but she did touch you.  The point is though, how did you react?  I would bet, that most people would jump out of their skin, but I would also bet that there are a fair number of people who would just turn and react calmly, while a smaller group of people would then need to take a trip to the bathroom, or the hospital depending on if their bowels gave out before their heart. The point I am trying to make here is that how you react to a sudden shock is almost entirely mental.  The brain tells the body to pump the adrenaline and pull the blood in away from the skin, and to scream or poop your pants or whatever.  It isn’t as if the body suddenly got this big shock of suprise from a hand landing on its shoulder.  The body feels that kind of stuff all the time and it never kills anyone for it.  In other words, the body is doing and behaving the way the brain tells it to behave. Now, take a look at it from a different tact.  Suppose something unexplainable happens inside the body.  Something maybe causes the heart to skip a beat or maybe causes the heart to beat a little faster, or maybe even suppose something kicks a neuron or two in the brain and it sets off some sort of biochemical feedback thingy that suddenly launches you into a Panic Attack.  See, while the cause, is in fact, physical it is how our brain chooses to deal with that information that makes it a Panic Attack. It never ceases to amaze me that there are so many people who are so incredibly ill and yet they don’t seem to have this giant hand of God hanging over them ready to smite them for their mortality, yet that is precisely what scared the hell out me during the worst of it.   To put it bluntly, I do not think I would be better without the pills.  I need the pills.  The pills do something in my brain that blocks the signals that caused the original panic.  However, I believe the pills are blocking a real physical thing.  I except that at some point in time I will attempt to get off of the pills, and then we will see if I have learned out to deal with the PAs and PD.  If I haven’t then it will be back on the pills. So here’s my vote, because I’ve written too much already, I vote that PAs, PD, and GAD are entirely mental, but I do not believe that the so called mental therapy world has developed anywhere near the tools neccessary to fix how I deal with the problem.  You see, I believe the original problem is still there, the question is, can I face it on my own, or will I need the crutch for the rest of my life.   Kelly

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