Stephen Fry is my role model. He is incredibly smart, humble and (in my opinion at least) funny. He studied English literature, I studied English literature. We both tend to dress like tweedy English teachers. We both struggle with ourselves. Last year I read his autobiography, The Fry Chronicles and I watched his documentary on mental illness, The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive. I highly recommend both of these! I struggle with anxiety and anxiety attacks. It can be so frustrating when even the people you love just don't understand - I can't count how many times I've heard "Just don't worry about it!"... if only it were that easy! Fry perfectly echoes that sentiment in this article where he says: Luckily, my condition is not so bad as his. I mostly have my anxiety under control except for times of great emotional stress (at one particularly bad time I had 4 very strong anxiety attacks in a month). Also luckily according to his twitter feed, Fry is doing much better these days.That’s the point, there is no “why?” That’s not the right question. There is no reason. If there was reason for it, you could reason someone out of it.
I'm sorry that you and Cithryth have to experience anxiety attacks. I recently had a friend tell me that he is starting to experience them. His mother recently died unexpectedly and even before that I think they were rearing their head. From your experience is there anything a friend can do to help?
1) Never tell them to "just stop worrying" or to "just stop thinking about it" if they are in the midst of an anxiety attack. It does nothing. If you could just stop worrying about whatever it is, we totally would. 2) Remind them to breathe. Different people have different numbers, but basically concentrating on how long to breathe in, how long to hold it, and how long to exhale helps a lot. I was originally told to do 4 seconds in, 6 seconds hold, 8 seconds exhale. Over time I've changed it to 5 seconds in, 2 seconds hold, 5 seconds out, 2 seconds wait. Your friend can find the numbers right for him and it will help a lot. 3) Often times you just kind of have to ride out the attack and wait for it to end. Personally I always find it helpful to be by myself with a nice set of headphones and music of my choice. My college roommate said it always helped her get through attacks by just doing stream-of-consciousness writing. Maybe try different things with your friend to find what helps him calm down - maybe it's reading a good book, listening to music, writing, gardening, gaming, whatever. Anxiety attacks are no fun. But if you can help your friend get through them more easily, he will definitely be grateful to you.