Panic attack in a restaurant...

Okay so I may have had my reasons. Granted the place I was at was a bit crowded and well the biggest thing being a prior abuser's girlfriend used to work there or possibly still does. So i spent the first 4 hours feeling like I couldn't breathe and was going to have a heart attack in case I saw her. If that happened it would have been a very bad situation.

Ironically I did better when we moved to a different part of the restaurant and more people showed up (while uncomfortable due to social phobia, by that time i was able to determine she wasn't working). I did what I could to breathe through it but as I am experiencing one now with just thinking about the situation, I'm a bit at a loss on how to learn to cope with these when they are simply thought induced.

My logic and intelligence doesn't always do the job when its related solely to a more emotional and self preservation response. Any ideas?

Kunoichi

Kelly with these times, and I have plenty because I hate visitors at my home and now it happens on a daily basis, is to just pick something to turn your focus to and stick with it, if you feel yourself going back to the thoughts immediatly stop yourself and go back to your focal point, what usually works best for me is having someone there with me that I trust and know that if anyone/anything does try to harm me in anyway I have people around me that will protect me, and if im alone well thats where a cell phone or laptop comes in handy lol

dinky wrote:Kelly with these times, and I have plenty because I hate visitors at my home and now it happens on a daily basis, is to just pick something to turn your focus to and stick with it, if you feel yourself going back to the thoughts immediatly stop yourself and go back to your focal point, what usually works best for me is having someone there with me that I trust and know that if anyone/anything does try to harm me in anyway I have people around me that will protect me, and if im alone well thats where a cell phone or laptop comes in handy lol

I think having a room full of firefighters helped. For me, because he hunted me down for a year, it isn't fully irrational that she would tell him he saw me. My mom pointed out though that I'm moving in 2 weeks so in that sense it helped me calm down. I just had to ignore it best I could and as you put, go back to my focal point. In this case, it was about Carlos's retirement party.

Thats good hun, and like I said eventhough i'm doing a lot better I still have my moments, like the other day we had a cookout and there were a lot of people up here, all i wanted to do was hide, but I had 2 very sweet children waiting on me outside so I went back out and focused on my son and my friends little girl Riley, that got me through the day