So there is but fire In you, in me?

Today is the ninth day of facing, accepting and floating through my panic attacks. Though I have  reason to feel panic, panic is only of use when fight or flight are called for. As I'm usually inside a building and everything is OK except my thoughts,  limp and give up  is the only way to go. Just not in an uncontrolled, sad or negative way. I am not allowed to seek answers.  So I've learnt second fear - fear of first fear.  For nine days I've been going limp and giving up because the argument to do so, makes sense. I can't change anything for the better by asking a question. I don't get reassurance, and I feel bullied.   For a day or two anxiety became gut-panic, a constant feeling of needing to go to the toilet. But, I just have to go limp through that feeling too. That ended. Lying in bed to sleep and my body wants to run! I also have to ignore that...This is so difficult to do. Nine days without crashing is the longest I've managed since mid July last year.

I will begin to write again. In pain drenched letters, with a heavy heart. Our family is whole, my husband, my children - no one died.  But we are splintering and fractured and it is almost too much to bear. I've been looking at the work of Claire Weeks.  An immensely sensible person who described the effects of prolonged stress, the 'sensitization' of nerves, and the way adrenaline and then endorphins - well no, Claire doesn't mention endorphins, but they are now understood as playing a part in the maintenance of severe anxiety - how adrenaline and then thinking about stressful things, and then reacting to the feeling of stress, and also having to go 'cold turkey' when stress is over and you no longer get that hit of endogenous morphine...can take even the sanest person down. So now its my turn. And this is just about the hardest and the worst period of my life right now... I need a hand to hold, and so I write.