Overcoming anxiety and Panic Attacks.
- Thread starter gehadoski
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+100 for what Lamont said... go slow, go easy, and if you find yourself feeling the niggle at the base of your skull, do what you were taught in OW class, stop, breath, think.
Sometimes as you get anxious you start shallow breathing and building up CO2 which will actually make your anxiety worse. Thinking about 'when am i gonna feel it', as Lamont mentions, only reinforces it.
I also agree with finding something outside of your head to focus on, be it your buddies fins, the fish, something alive and something you can wrap your head around that is not looking off into the abyss or out onto a sandy bottom or plankton field that has no visual stimulus. Also that weird ambient flat ambient light as the light is going away due to depth or on a bad vis day or at dusk is notorious for making a narc feel weird if you are susceptible to getting wrapped up inside your head.
Sometimes as you get anxious you start shallow breathing and building up CO2 which will actually make your anxiety worse. Thinking about 'when am i gonna feel it', as Lamont mentions, only reinforces it.
I also agree with finding something outside of your head to focus on, be it your buddies fins, the fish, something alive and something you can wrap your head around that is not looking off into the abyss or out onto a sandy bottom or plankton field that has no visual stimulus. Also that weird ambient flat ambient light as the light is going away due to depth or on a bad vis day or at dusk is notorious for making a narc feel weird if you are susceptible to getting wrapped up inside your head.
scagrotto
Contributor
Sounds to me like your survival instincts have kicked in a bit later than they should have, and a bit more forcefully than necessary.
Have you considered consulting a therapist, or somebody else that has real professional experience with this sort of thing? You might get through it on your own, but where I live an hour with a therapist costs no more than a boat dive, and it won't injure you or cause a panic attack no matter where you're located. An experienced professional might offer insights that we won't, and may even bring up issues that aren't related to to diving.
If you do work at it on your own, you've already gotten some good advice. Panic is a natural, if not ideal, response when you're in serious danger and feel you don't have (enough) control over it. If you're having panic attacks on easy dives where you're in control and not at risk, I'll assume it's because the past experience still prevents you from feeling that you're in control or that you can stay in control. Bob's story about the jellyfish is a great teaching example. By focusing on one easy task the diver accidentally accomplished a similar task that she didn't think was easy. Once she'd done it that time it remained easy because she believed it was easy and that she could do it.
Before you even get in the water you can do some dives in your head. Just relax where you won't be disturbed, close your eyes, and imagine an easy dive in as much detail as you can. Check and assemble your gear for real, then imagine putting it on, getting in the water and descending, and so on. Imagine doing some safety drills and checking your gauges. Imagine feeling warm, weightless, and in control of your dive. Imagine a slow, controlled ascent, and don't forget the safety stop. After doing that a couple of times try some easy dives in a pool or very easy open water and include a bunch of easy tasks that will give you something to concentrate on, instead of thinking about possible problems. Standard scuba skills seem like a good choice for the first tasks. Flood and clear your mask 10 times. Take it off, put it back on, and clear it 10 times. Switch to your octopus and recover your primary reg (including the drop the shoulder and sweep for the hose routine). Hover at a fixed (but shallow) depth while remaining horizontal for 5 minutes at a time. Find a hard bottom at 10 to 15 meters and do a very controlled descent, just as you would with an ascent. Try to hover 1 meter off the bottom while remaining horizontal. Do some simple navigation stuff. 15 fin kicks or 30 seconds then turn 120º, and repeat twice to swim a triangle back to your starting point. Swim some squares, and a pentagon. The tasks will hopefully prevent you from worrying, and at the same time they should help you believe that you've got the skill to be in control of your dive.
Advance slowly, and don't try to make big jumps. The primary goal is to stay, and feel, in control at all times. Not having panic attacks should just be the free prize that comes with feeling completely in control, rather than an itemized goal.
Scary story to start with! "Advanced" PADI divers going to 72m with a single on air, diver with a planned dive to 35m without depth gauge, a DM I hope I never dive with who planned a dive, broke the plan and lied to a diver who was under his responsibility endangering him and leading to a traumatic experience!
As to how to recover from this situation... sometimes people may need professional help and there's nothing wrong with it.
You also need to desensitize your body to the cold water feeling and good viz. It's triggering a panic response due to what has happened. You need to regain trust in yourself and the environment and not perceive it as an immediate danger.
As to how to recover from this situation... sometimes people may need professional help and there's nothing wrong with it.
You also need to desensitize your body to the cold water feeling and good viz. It's triggering a panic response due to what has happened. You need to regain trust in yourself and the environment and not perceive it as an immediate danger.
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I would like to thank you all for your really useful adivce. I will try to make an appointment to get a professional help, I feel no shame of it. When I find a good time, I will try to do some dives in my head, some easy and simple dives. Also I am trying to dive more often, I believe to spend more time underwater will help me to gain confidence underwater. The problem is diving here in Egypt need money and time, but I will figure something out to do more dives. I will keep you all update
THANK YOU ALL
THANK YOU ALL
gehadoski,
If you go for professional help, try to get someone who is also a diver. Many who are not do not comprehend the extent of difficulties that you experienced.
For those tending to criticize, think about being at 240 feet of depth, somewhat narced, and having both your regulator and mask kicked off your face. I think that this diver handled the situation rather well, and is back to talk about it.
SeaRat
If you go for professional help, try to get someone who is also a diver. Many who are not do not comprehend the extent of difficulties that you experienced.
For those tending to criticize, think about being at 240 feet of depth, somewhat narced, and having both your regulator and mask kicked off your face. I think that this diver handled the situation rather well, and is back to talk about it.
SeaRat
Cutter1470
Registered
The most comprehensive material I've seen regarding stress response, anxiety and managing it has come from Grossman "On Combat". He goes quite deep into the physiology of stress and gives some training advice for dealing with stress as well.
There is also a "Four Pillars of Mental Toughness" that apparently came out the Navy SEALS program that is pretty simple, clear and concise. It in corporates goal setting, mental imagery, positive self talk and arousal control. Taken in that order it is a good practice for training. Reversing the order is a good way to address an acute stressful episode that needs an immediate response.
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There is also a "Four Pillars of Mental Toughness" that apparently came out the Navy SEALS program that is pretty simple, clear and concise. It in corporates goal setting, mental imagery, positive self talk and arousal control. Taken in that order it is a good practice for training. Reversing the order is a good way to address an acute stressful episode that needs an immediate response.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I was thinking yesterday and trying to find out if there are other factors for anxiety. I found there is a major factor. I didn't know how I missed that factor from the beginning. That factor is MY WIFE 
. Seriously, my wife doesn't like swimming either in salt water or even in a pool. When I tell her that I going to dive, I know that there will be a fight somehow. Sometimes the fights are direct other times the fights are indirect. Direct fights comes from that she doesn't like me be away from her and she worries about me when I go diving. indirect fight, She is not saying NO that I want to dive, but there are other priorities in life and diving is least of them. People dive for fun and to enjoy. The incident I said previously was just before I got married. So when I go diving, I am facing two factors that causes anxiety not. First, being stressed from convening my wife that I am going on a diving trip. Sure after such struggle, it is not easy to get in water and get back the confidence and control underwater
. Seriously, my wife doesn't like swimming either in salt water or even in a pool. When I tell her that I going to dive, I know that there will be a fight somehow. Sometimes the fights are direct other times the fights are indirect. Direct fights comes from that she doesn't like me be away from her and she worries about me when I go diving. indirect fight, She is not saying NO that I want to dive, but there are other priorities in life and diving is least of them. People dive for fun and to enjoy. The incident I said previously was just before I got married. So when I go diving, I am facing two factors that causes anxiety not. First, being stressed from convening my wife that I am going on a diving trip. Sure after such struggle, it is not easy to get in water and get back the confidence and control underwater
I had a very interesting experience with the diver I referenced above. We sat down and talked at length about how her diving was going . . . it turned out that she was plagued with "floaty feet" in her dry suit. (She insists on using plastic, positive fins, which most of us don't.). We talked about strategies to move weight around and fix that problem. Apparently that was an unrecognized source of significant diver stress, because once it was fixed, she did three days of relatively challenging diving without an episode of anxiety.
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