Dr Thomas M J

 
This section presents experiences of people who have lived through and coped with their problems. The descriptions are  from real people with their names and email ids, so that others who want to know more  can contact them directly. More of such experiential descriptions are wecome in order  to educate people  about such probelms and how to deal with them.
 
 
 
LIVING WITH ANXIETY

My purpose in documenting my experience with OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder)  and anxiety disorder for the last two and half
years is to give hope to people who suffer from extreme anxiety, panic attacks or OCD; to tell them  that they are not alone, and that given the right treatment along with counseling, they can face and possibly overcome the problem.

I am 30 years old and have been working for the past 7 years in an IT industry in Bangalore as a Senior software engineer. It was 24th October 2005 when I returned to Bangalore from Thailand from an onsite company assignment. It was a very frightening four-hour flight because of severe turbulence which lasted for about 30 minutes. However we landed safely in Bangalore and I heaved a sigh of relief.
 
That night after I went to bed in my paying guest apartment,  I went through one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. Around 2 am in the morning all of sudden  I awoke,  sweating profusely, with my heart beating as if  I had just run a 100 meters race. I had severe palpitations and body became cold. I felt very afraid, there were so many thoughts going around in my mind, and I thought that I was going through the last few seconds of my life. My landlord was in the next room, but  I was reluctant to disturb him at that hour. After about 30 minutes things calmed down a bit and  I began to feel better but just could not fall asleep. The next night, I faced the  same frightening experience after going to bed. The day after, I left for my home town, full of fear and  feeling totally stressed out. With the help of my cousin I went to a couple of doctors (Physician and Neurologist) and finally ended up with a psychiatrist in Mangalore who diagnosed my problem as panic attacks. He prescribed medication for me for a year.
 
The next two years of my life was full of anxiety, fear, insomnia and obsessive thoughts about death. I found it hard to balance work and personal life. I felt that my life was collapsing around me, and kept wondering why all this was happening to me. The symptoms of a panic attack are no different from those of a heart attack  - it is like facing the  last minutes of your life. I used to get these panic attacks at least thrice a week. The body becomes cold for no reason or starts sweating, the mind goes blank and you forget what you were saying in the middle of a conversation, you feel your heart missing beats or skipping beats, the stomach feels bloated and  you get the feeling that the body is going to give up any time and that you are going to drop dead.
 
During the first three months of the treatment, I felt  so drowsy  during daytime that I just couldn't sit in my cubicle in the office. For fear of getting noticed and getting embarrassed, I would take naps in  the office toilets. This continued for about three months until the doctor reduced the  medication dosage. In fact there was a phase in those two years where I just could not fall asleep at night, and I used to get very anxious, wondering if I would sleep the following night. For more than a month, I had  less than 3-4 hours of sleep a night. This affected me a lot, and I found decision making difficult.
 

All the symptoms continued for year despite taking the medication prescribed by the psychiatrist, which were supposed to control anxiety and induce sleep. My efforts at doing pranayama,  voraciously reading self help books like "Power of positive thinking", "What to say when you talk to yourself", exercising, spending long hours on the net reading about panic and OCD,  did not yield any solutions. In that year I blew up about fifty to sixty thousand rupees  on  physicians and cardiologists at various hospitals in Bangalore just to assure myself that I have did not have medical or health problems. In fact I remember one night when my heart was beating irregularly (skipped beats) for about three hours, I called one of my close friends to get me admitted to hospital to confirm if there really were skipped beats or was it only in my mind. The doctors in the emergency  care told
me  that the ECG  showed some missed beats, but assured me that my heart was in good shape and that even people without any heart disease can get missed  beats. 
 
By now continuous anxiety was such a part of  my life that when I travelled by autos or on a two wheeler with a friend, a mild braking or jerking of the vehicle would cause me to check my pulse or heart beat to see if everything was ok. A flip of a paper would  wake just as I was about to fall asleep. Fear of not waking up the following morning after a panic attack was always present in my mind. All these affected my decision making so much that I had to drop a marriage proposal at the last minute even after liking the girl and saying yes. This affected me socially too.
 
 At the  office it was getting  more difficult to handle work. Work with deadlines made me more anxious. All of sudden work which I could finish easily under normal circumstances became extremely difficult to finish. I felt that my brain ceased to function under these circumstances. Finally I broke down in front of my boss and  informed him about my problem.
 

The medicines given by the first psychiatrist had helped to some extent. After about a year and half I moved to another company because the job I held earlier needed me to travel a lot by air and I could not travel on planes because of my anxiety. But the situation was worse in my new organization because of work pressure and project deadlines, which only aggravated my problems. I quit taking medicines and tried to face my problem on my own but was unsuccessful.
 
Finally there came a memorable time in my life. About  a month after I joined the new organization I came across a corporate counselor in our office who was part of some ergonomics team. She came like an angel into my life, and suggested that I meet this  psychiatrist who was consulting in a hospital in Bangalore. He worked his magic on me with some medicines, and once I started taking them, within two weeks there was about 50% improvement in my attitude and symptoms. I also started sleeping like a baby. All the disturbing symptoms diminished one by one as months went by. I was called once in three months to check my response to medication and  to reduce the dosage.
 
Today it’s been about eight months since I stopped medication. Life is more exciting than before. I don't remember when I last thought about death! It feels like it’s been  a fight between myself and my fearful personality. It has  been an anxious and thrilling two year roller coaster ride. The doctor educated me that changes in inherited brain chemicals cause this problem, which is corrected using medicines. What caused these imbalances I really  do not know. Was it triggered because of my orphaned and scary childhood days that were filled with anxiety and fear (I lived away from my parents for 25 years), or because of the frightening turbulence in the plane, or because of my negative attitude? I do not know!
All I can say  is, if you have this problem, don’t be hard on yourself and have a negative outlook towards life. Don’t blame yourself and your attitudes. Going through panic attacks is like running into a quick sand of negative thoughts. Find help!
 
I have stopped looking for reasons today. I believe there are certain things in this universe which are beyond our power, logic or imagination. We need to accept certain facts  that we cannot change and leave the rest to God. I feel a sense of triumph when I think of how I finally came out of two years of living through hell.
 
In future if I get such attacks,(which I get sometimes mildly, even now)  all I can say is: I know this thing, it is a part of my life, I can handle it with medication and counseling. I would like to end with some favorite one-liners which I keep at the back of my mind in any adversity.
 
"This too shall pass"! -"However good or bad the situation, it will change"!
 
I hope that after reading this article, some of you who are fighting a lonely battle with panic, phobias and OCD, will find hope. Some of you may be confused about what is happening to you and around you, some of you who may not have got the appropriate help or guidance from a doctor or counselor.  More importantly some of you may be reluctant to discuss it with your friends or family because of social stigma and wondering whether they will think you are mad. I am sure there is help available out there. It starts with a single step. Speak to someone about it. God has  a plan for everything. Life is calling!
 Few do’s and don’ts
Few Do’s and Don’ts which I have tried, can help you deal  better with panic.
 

Do’s

1. Accept the fact that there is a problem and  that you need to get help
2. Never be hard on yourself because of negative attitudes towards life. Stop blaming yourself.
3. Whenever there is a panic  attack or any physical symptom, tell yourself ‘ here comes another one’, and  ‘this too shall pass’.  This needs some time and practice.
4. Find the right psychiatrist and counselor. You may not be comfortable discussing everything with your friends or family.
5. Read at least one self help book a month. Reading only newspapers and watching television won’t do any good; sometimes they can worsen our attitude towards life.
6. Take a few days off in a month to spend  time with your loved ones. Socialize (Not on Facebook or Orkut!) – it’s the need of the hour!

Don’ts

1. Do not self investigate at hospitals. This can leave a big hole in your
   pocket.
2. Stop all harmful habits like alcohol and cigarettes. Limit you caffeine
   consumption.
3. Avoid late night television watching and surfing on the net. This gets into a pattern and can become an obsessive activity, especially with Techies.
4. Avoid arguments.
5. Avoid boredom.

Try practicing the Do’s, and the Don’ts will take care of themselves!
 
CHARLES ANIL DSOUZA
 charles_anil@rediffmail.com