Hi, love trees

I am sorry I have not responded to your post that you left on my thread until now. One thing an educator said to me was to practice sleep hygiene. She mentioned a few suggestion about what I could do I think she realized like you I am not getting much sleep. So as usual, I looked up sleep hygiene to see what the various things I could do. One of the things mentioned (nothing to do with attacks) was to get out if bed when you are not sleeping. The reason given was that you begin you associate the bed with not sleeping when you stay there ruminating. After reading this, it occurred to me that this is how you and me could expose ourselves to lower anxiety and not have an attack. I have been getting up if I wake up at 2:00 am and I start writing all the things that I would be normally ruminating about. Alternatively, in your case the thing you dreamt about that are causing you to wake up with anxiety. By the way It is quite normal for people to experience bed time attacks it’s just that we are on a site dealing with agoraphobia and are less likely to come across people who have attacks in bed because they get them from going outside.

In here lies one of the clues if an agoraphobic can relate panic attacks to going outside then the same relation for you and I can happen in bed. If you were to get out of bed and have the thoughts about being alone would they cause an attack out of bed. Maybe a better question is does the thought of dying alone cause an attack in bed. If it does not then challenging this thought is useful but is not getting to the reason for panic attacks.

This is where you and me may be getting confused about core beliefs and there influence. A true core belief will come from being a child and having a parent tell you constantly you are stupid and no good. If the parent or someone close to you keeps saying this as a child, you do not have the ability to challenge it so you accept it as true because you do not know anything else.

I am not sure what Davit means by core belief does he mean the clinical meaning as mentioned above or does he mean a trait that you have developed in your life. If you have been reading the educators, writings about self-esteem this could be a trait you have without it being a core belief.

One of the traits the people with panic attacks and anxiety in the toolbox mentions relationships. This is where you could find help on the feeling of dying alone. Perhaps you do not have a social network to gain support from, so you view your life as empty. This belief was probably developed thought years of avoidance of social situation but I do not believe it is a core belief from child hood unless someone told you as a child that you are worthless and going to die alone. What I am trying to get at is that you can work on relationships, which will increase your self-esteem. Both these things may be the result of having attacks but are they the cause of the attacks. It is as if you were searching for the thing that caused us a 10 in emotional upset. The most distress brought up from my past and writing it down because we figured that there had to be a strong emotional reason for the state we are in.

You could see if expanding your social network would give you more self-esteem. The more self-esteem you have the more you are to look at life as a challenge that you can adapt rather than doomed to die alone. Both these things can be worked on without challenging negative belief. I now realize why I am the way I am and I do not need to know why all I need to do is start facing my fears about relationships. If you face your fear, the fear will go away. This is possible where Davit mentions core beliefs by changing the one (not having enough social support) impacts your self-esteem, your sense of purpose; bring some structure to your life. The list really goes on depending on who the person is.

There is nothing wrong with looking in you past and challenging negative thoughts that you still have or that apply to a new situation in life. To get to our goal is to stop the panic attacks and I think you have to concentrate on the thought when in bed that are causing the attacks. If the thought about dying alone is the one then expose yourself to it.  Perhaps instead of waiting in bed for the thought to cause, an attack you can out of bed before it the attack happens and do exposure yourself right then even if it causes you a 10 on the anxiety scale. If it does not cause an attack then I think you are reducing the effect the thought has on you. I have learned that exposure cannot always be the exact way you want it to be. So maybe exposing yourself to a 10 every morning you get up from bed before it causes an attack you will reduce it after weeks to a two. If you accomplish this then you have accomplished you goal of reducing anxiety towards the thought. Then if you want, you can try in reinforcing the lesser anxiety state by thinking about in bed the thought that caused you a 10 and see if you have an attack happens in bed. This would be another form of exposure to the thought once you have reduced it to a two.  This is what an agoraphobic does gradually expose himself or herself to a situation until it does not cause an attack.

Another place to look for an answer if the but statement, this statement is sure in me. I go to a support group where I live and the author says you ignore the initial improvement. Which was the case in me when I have an attack it is generally low in intensity “but the effect last the day”. Notice the “but” statement, I will give you another one I can stand the attack “but” it causes me to feel confused all-day and dizzy. Therefore, I cannot work because I will make mistakes. This is another place where traits that all of us in my group have some of them are perfectionism, being afraid of making a mistake, finding the right and wrong in everything and usually insisting we are right. This for lack of a better word could be a core belief. However, someone did not telling me that I am wrong all the time that I keep making mistake from childhood when I did not have the mental ability to see what the person was saying was incorrect.

You can see where the fear of making a mistake comes from if you are a perfectionist. Working on these traits by saying all I have to do is my average best not mediocre but my average best is in fact tackling a lot of myself talk during the day. Another one is I finding the right and wrong in my boss because she did not do thing the way I would have I have. I saying excuse her for the sake of my mental health and drop the right and wrong in many situations every day. These things cause me anxiety, or anger which simulated anxiety, by stopping them it leads to a more peaceful day. However, these thoughts do not cause an attack in me.

I think the “but” statement is causing me to have an attack, because the genesis of my attacks cause confusion and the way I dealt with it for 25 years was to tense my head up. There lies the danger for me I am still experiencing confusion only this time I do not want to deal with it by tensing up my head so that I can think for another 25 years. However, using the challenge sheet is tensing up my head temporarily such a bad think because what is different now is that I know where the confusion comes from and I do not have to be afraid of maintaining tension because I have tools to relax and abdominally breathe. Also with the tools that I mentioned above, I will not get as worked up as I did before about trivialities of making a mistake.

One final point is that you should look up the sleep hygiene because I also found in there that supposedly exposing yourself to sun light in the hours 6:00 to 8:30 in the morning you are resetting you sleep rhythm clock. This will give you a better night’s sleep. As with all things on the internet, I found another site that said this was unnecessary. However I did it for three days and on the forth I actually slept into to 6:00 am for the first time in a while. I do not expect you to try this I merely suggest you look in the sleep hygiene sites for things you can try. Guess what not getting up at the same time everyday is, “avoidance”. I have not felt well for a long time and have developed a poor sleeping habit by not getting up the same time every day.  

To sum up I believe an educator told you to go back to session 1 to 3 because this is where we find the thought causing an attack. This is where you can challenge the thought. You should stop looking for the most distressful emotion or thought as the cause of an attack. If it is not present in bed when whatever you are thinking at the time gives you the attack. I am not saying to disregard distressful emotions but first get rid of thoughts associated with the attacks. You may find that the distressful thought of 10 of dying alone will dissipate if you stop the attack. We tend to color everything we think of when were in an anxious or depressed state with that emotion. I am saying feelings are not always facts.

One last thing I think Davit is right on is that sometime exposing ourselves to the 10 of die alone will lead to an epiphany that never occurred to you before because it was being blocked by dying alone.

Your friend

dizzy