This is kind of long, but please read through - I need help with exposure/ goal planning and don't know how to do it:
I have had 4-5 nocturnal panic attacks total over the course of about 1.5 months. They stopped about 7 weeks ago. I have occasional anxious moments, but no attacks since I learned what they were and some relaxation methods. I had my first nocturnal attack after having a benign positional vertigo attack in the middle of the night(the room spun and I couldn't focus my eyes for several minutes). I have been diagnosed with Meniere's disease and deal with a small amount of dizziness daily, but that attack was very acute and scary and I was alone with my kids. I had some pretty anxious moments during the days following that and then I went on a trip with my husband and had attacks nightly. Each one made me vomit, have diarrhea, not sleep and be sick for quite a bit of the next day. (I saw the MD at the hotel and got xanax and ambien after the first one, but I still had the attacks at night). I got home and my dizziness was (and is) worse than ever. (I have had similar dizzy episodes before after flying and surgery, but they always responded to drugs.) My headaches that I got occasionally for 2 years changed to constantly having one and I now have eye pain as well and tingling in my head and hands on and off, but it's not just when I'm anxious. My MD prescribed Lexipro which made me ill (vomiting and diarrhea) for a month. I am off of that now and feeling better since I'm not physically sick every day. I am seeing a psychologist and I understand the anxiety and ways to relax/challenge my thoughts. I can reduce the anxiety pretty well and only occasioanally use 1/4-1/2 a Xanax .25mg when it doesn't go away easily at night. My physical ailments, however have not gone away and my MD and Psych have told me to see specialists for the dizziness and head pain. The dizziness, diarrhea, thoughts about the pain and what it may be caused by are my triggers for anxious thoughts. Since the dizziness hasn't responded to meds and time, I had a CT and my ear specialist thinks I may have a tear in my inner ear. He's referred me to a colleague for a second opinion. For the headaches/eye pain - I saw my allergist, who sent me to a sinus MD (another C
