paging Dr Marvin Monroe....

*flips shock switch*

I hear you. Wish I was in the UK to help.

After my therapy session last night I had this great feeling. It's helping and that rocks.

Although as an agoraphobe, I will probably spend a lot of my life medicated and that is okay by me!

I'm not in the UK so I can't help you with finding a local doc, but I will say that the decision to get therapy a few years back was one of the best I ever made. Just make sure you find someone you're comfortable with.

This is kinda hard to do by yourself, but my mom used to have anxiety attacks when I was a teenager, and I'd have her sit down on a stool or a low-backed chair, I'd put my hand on her shoulder and hold her wrist with the other hand, and I'd get her to let go of all the muscles between her shoulder and her hand, so that she could feel that the only thing supporting her arm was my hand -- she had to let go completely and not resist at all. I could feel, through the hand on her shoulder, when she started breathing again, and I'd switch sides and do the other arm, and the whole time I'd talk to her about that feeling, letting go of muscles, letting go of anxiety, just letting go and trusting herself to breathe again.

She used to get real cold, too, but as soon as she started breathing again, the coldness would go away. Smiling helps, but it's really secondary to dropping your shoulders and letting the tension leave your body through your fingers and toes, and letting your breath back into your self.

Take care, times can be rough, but remember gravity is always there and it sometimes helps all the anxiety just slide to the ground.

Later on she told me about a mental image a doctor suggested to her. When anxiety starts to snowball, and you can actually feel that spinning ball in your head, you let that ball just roll into the air and onto a ping-pong (or table tennis) table, and just watch as it pings back and forth, light and hollow, back and forth, until the anxiety dissipates and you can think clearly.

Hope that helps.

Take it easy, By the Grace of God.

Anxiety's miserable stuff. It's so treatable, too, though. So BtGoG, do see about the therapy thing. Make sure you click with the person. Once you take some steps to get rid of it, you'll probably feel a lot better.

Hugh, those are some good tips for managing the moments when anxiety strikes. Thanks.

BtGoG, a friend of mine (Brighton-based) has tried this, and one is considering it: http://www.emofree.com/

It looks like a cross-NLP/acupuncture with some good old natural-language psychology thrown in.