Hmmm. I have a slightly different take on Acewall's issue than many posters. First, some background. Almost 40 years ago I suffered two panic attacks seemingly "right out of the blue," and I subsequently learned a great deal about psychiatric issues. Here's the story.
At the age of about thirty I decided to go on a mountain-hiking expedition. To prepare for this adventure I did some things that, in retrospect, were incredibly stupid. I went on an extreme diet and began exercising like crazy. At that time I was in charge of a large construction project and supervising a large number of employees and subcontractors. I had to solve dozens of mind-bending problems on a daily basis.
At lunchtime, after eating almost nothing all morning, I would strap on a heavy pack and go running through the countryside. In the afternoons I would lift weights and do other exercises. In the evenings I would race through heavy traffic forty miles to a nearby city, pick up a date, and party til two o'clock in the morning. At sunup I would race 40 miles through heavy traffic back to work, drink a single cup of coffee or orange juice and go back to work. I did this day after day for about three weeks. It is amazing that I lived to tell this story. AAR, one day after three-weeks of this crazy lifestyle, I was walking up a hill and suddenly felt all of the energy drain out of my body. I fell to the ground and found that the body was on the verge of collapse. After fifteen minutes or so, I stood up again and walked very slowly and shakily to my apartment. I was as weak as a puppy for several hours, but by the next morning my energy seemed to have returned. I went to work, but I didn't feel normal all day. That night after I fell into bed, I suddenly had a huge panic attack and thought I was going to die. It was the first non-ordinary psychological experience I had ever had. The experience ended after about three to five minutes, but it left me shaken to the core. I had no idea what had happened to me.
That night I only got a few hours of sleep. The next day I awakened, raced through traffic, and went back to work. At lunch I decided to go eat a regular meal to increase my energy, and I went to a steakhouse cafeteria. I got my food, sat down at a table, and suddenly had another huge panic attack. The entire room became surreal, and I had an inordinately powerful desire to jump up and run out of the restaurant. In abject fear I held onto the table with both hands, and after a few moments, the attack ended. At that point I was totally freaked out. I ate a few bites of food, got into my truck, and drove forty miles to see my personal physician. I called ahead to tell his nurse that it was an emergency. As soon as I walked into his office, I broke down in tears, and told him that I was afraid that I was losing my mind. I then told him about the two panic attacks and my severe exhaustion. He listened and then assured me that I was not going insane. He gave me a prescription of Valium, a tranquilizer, and told me that I had been working too hard. He suggested that I take some time off. He did not ask me many questions, so he never got a full picture of how crazy my lifestyle had been during the previous month. He did not know that I had been "running on empty" for more than three weeks.
The valium was like a wonder drug, and while taking it I felt great. After a week or so, my panic attacks seemed like nothing more than a bad dream, and I thought I was back to normal. Ha ha. Just about the time I got to my last Valium pill, I got into an argument with my brother about something, and in the middle of the argument, I realized that I was about to lose it, and that the only thing keeping me normal was the valium. I ended the argument and took a hot bath trying to calm down, but the fear was growing bigger moment by moment. That night I took my last pill, and realized that I was in desperate need of help.
In the morning I rushed back to see my doctor, and after seeing me, he realized that I was on the verge of a complete breakdown. He immediately sent me to see a psychiatrist on an emergency basis. The psychiatrist suggested that I spend a week in a hospital, but I refused. I simply wanted to understand what was going on. The psychiatrist never asked me anything about my lifestyle and only told me that I needed a rest. He prescribed a powerful anti-psychotic drug--Thorazine--and sent me home. He asked me to return to see him in one week. This is where the story gets very funny.
Several days later I went back to see him, and I asked him what could explain my situation. First, he asked about my sex life. I told him that if my sex life were any better, I'd be dead from too much pleasure. He was not amused. He then asked me about my childhood. I told him that my childhood had been extremely happy. I could see that he didn't believe me. Again, I asked him what could explain a seemingly happy normal person suddenly experiencing mental problems. His answers made me think that he might be nuttier than I was. As we continued to talk, it became obvious that my opinion of him was becoming extremely negative, so he suggested that I visit a psychotherapist who, over a long period of time and talk, could help me resolve what he perceived as underlying problems arising from my childhood. I concluded that he was a total idiot, and that the whole field of psychiatry, as a branch of medicine, was questionable at best.
I left his office and went straight to a bookstore where I bought ten books on mental health and psychiatry. I went home and started reading because I knew that my mental problems had nothing to do with either my sex life or my childhood. The first book that got my attention was titled "Nutrition and the Mind." The second book that suggested an explanation was titled "Orthomolecular Psychiatry" which was a medical book for doctors. After reading all of the books, I finally realized what had happened to me. I had destroyed my physical and mental health as a result of following a calorie-empty diet while pursuing heavy exercise and a mind-boggling work schedule. I had unknowingly stressed the body to such a degree that the mind had become affected.
I then went back to my personal doctor and asked him to perform a glucose tolerance test, a thyroid function test, an SMA 24 blood test, and several other tests. He was mystified by why a layman wanted so much technical information, but he agreed to have the tests performed. After I saw the results, I knew that my analysis was correct. My body's carbohydrate metabolism was highly abnormal.
I then set up a regimen to regain my health. I started taking tons of vitamins, walking an hour each day, eating lots of protein and healthy food, getting a normal night's sleep, etc. Following this regimen I gradually regained my strength, but it took an entire year before I was back to what I considered "relatively normal." Even then, I never got back to my original physical prowess. I always remained more susceptible to stress than prior to the panic attacks and extreme exhaustion. I would guess that I eventually got back to about 90% of my original condition.
During that year I learned about the Hoffer/Osmond Diagnostic Test, a written set of questions that could be used to determine a person's psychological state of mind. When I first took the test, I had a relatively high score. It was not nearly as high as the score of a schizophrenic, but it was high relative to normally functioning adult. Over a period of months, I took the test repeatedly and watched the score drop lower and lower until it finally fell into the normal range.
As a result of my experiences, I concluded that many, if not most, mental health problems result from abnormal brain chemistry, and that many times abnormal brain chemistry is caused or exacerbated by stress. Stress can be either physical or mental. In my case I had abused the body by not eating and exercising like a madman. After the body had burned up all available calories from food, it began to burn up the body itself. In fact, I subsequently read about some people in Israel who had gone on starvation diets and suffered psychosis as a result.
A year after my panic attacks I visited some orthomolecular psychiatrists (psychiatrists who view almost all mental conditions as malfunctions of brain chemistry) who told me some amazing stories. For example, people who do not eat enough potassium can go psychotic. I later met a man who hated bananas and lima beans and all of the usual sources of potassium. He almost died before a blood test showed that he had no potassium in his blood. People who lack other specific vitamins and minerals can also go psychotic. People who undergo heavy mental stress, such as battle fatigue, can suffer a wide range of mental symptoms including psychosis. People who think too much can have nervous breakdowns or go psychotic (Nietsche?). There was a woman in Alabama who had suffered catatonic depression for years and had attempted suicide many times. Shortly before she was to undergo a pre-frontal lobotomy, her parents took her to an orthomolecular guy who returned her to normal using nothing more than vitamins and drugs. Orthomolecular folks think that all abnormal mental conditions (schizophrenia, etc) probably occur due to abnormal brain/body chemistry. Schizophrenics, for example, excrete chemical compounds in their urine that normal folks do not.
I have met many people who suffered milder mental illness, such as depression or anxiety, who have been returned to normal with drugs. One woman I know suffered extreme post-partum depression and was returned to normal using Elavil, a mood elevating drug. Another woman I know was suffering depression, but she didn't want to take drugs because she was afraid that it would interfere with her spiritual progress. I learned that she was crying for hours every day, so I called and told her that taking drugs would NOT interfere with her spiritual life, and it would NOT prevent her from becoming enlightened. I suggested that she ask her doctor to prescribe Lexapro. She started taking Lexapro and was almost instantly returned to normal. In all probability her serotonin levels had gotten out of whack, and Lexapro brought them back into balance.
Acewell, I would suggest that you go find an understanding doctor who is willing to prescribe a range of antidepressants and experiment a bit. There are lots of drugs that can be used to cure depression. Many of them have side effects, and the trick is to find one or more that will work with your body chemistry without causing bad side effects. Paxil might work for one person but not another. Clonazepam, Citalopram hydrobromide, Prozac, and dozens of other anti-depressants offer a wide range of possibilities. I know people who were not helped with one drug, but another drug in the same family of medications changed their life enormously. I know people who have suffered severe side effects from one anti-depressant who were subsequently returned to normal using a different anti-depressant. One size does not fit all.
Here's another interesting fact. In one double-blind study of depressed people participants were divided into three groups. One group took drugs, one group underwent psychotherapy, and one group was asked to walk at least one hour per day in silence. Amazingly, the group that walked an hour per day improved the most. The group on drugs also improved, but not quite as much, and the group using psychotherapy improved the least. The scientists conducting the study concluded that walking, alone, directly changed brain chemistry by reducing stress and/or inducing relaxation. They did not think that walking, alone, would be an appropriate therapy for people suffering extreme dysfunction, such as severe depression, but they thought it would be worth pursuing in all mild mental illness as well as a conjunctive therapy with drugs in the case of severe illness.
The biggest problem for a patient is finding a doctor who is willing to experiment with different drugs and different treatment modalities. I would strongly encourage anyone suffering from either depression or anxiety to walk for an hour in silence every day and find a doctor willing to prescribe one or more drugs in order to find the best treatment possible. JMHO. Best wishes from someone who has had some personal experience in this field of medicine.
