Panic Attacks in woods

[Kadushu]

The thing I'm most scared of in the woods in Britain is being shot.

 

[tsitenha]

It varies with different people, I am diffidently uncomfortable in a large city, just the strangeness of it.
Keep on, you'll get there

 

[backpacker]

When I was much younger I used to be scared of the dark as I was the same with thunder and lightning, I don't why? but as I got older and up to the present day it doesn't bother me anymore, I remember I was once wild camping in a small woodland on Dartmoor some years ago and I was with a friend and at the time it was a moonlit night and the moon cast some wierd and wonderful shadows which at times looked as though someone was standing in the shadows, I will admit it was a bit scary at the time, at around 2am I woke up to a loud bang and lots of flashing I almost jumped out of my skin! the moonlit night was now a raging thunder storm and heavy rain once again the lightning was casting weird and wonderful shadows after a while you start looking into the dark and think you are seeing things but that was just my mind taking over and making you think you are seeing things as for my friend he was scared stiff and wouldn't even pop his head out of his sleeping bag! as for me I thought the best way around this is to face any demons I may of had head on so I just sat there taking in all what was going on around me and after a while I got used to the thunder and lightning and all the weird shadows that was cast that night.

Now years on I go wild camping on my own in all weathers and I treat the night as a freind and not an enemy, just don't let your mind run away with you because if you do that will cause you to have a panic attack, as for my freind, well he never ever got used to it and to this day he is scared stiff to camp out on his own at night, he will only go in a large group......it takes all kinds I suppose!

 

[unruly]

Just found this thread and found it really interesting.

I like to think I can tough out most stuff but pine forests at night still give me the heebie jeebies. Maybe it's the deadened sound, lack of sensory input?

Conversely I've done some diving and never fancied night dives. (saw Jaws at impressionable age).
When I did eventually try one I found it didn't bother me at all, I was slightly bored. What I did find really exhilerating was the the safety stop.
Turning our lights out and just hanging suspended in the darkness for a few minutes.
We're irrational creatures.

 

[Pterodaktyl]

Speaking as someone who suffered badly from panic attacks in my teenage years I can attest to the fact that they are no joke. Once you get to the hyperventilating stage you start experiencing physical symptoms (dizzyness, tunnel vision, numb and tingling extremities, lack of coordination) which cause even more anxiety. If you're used to experiencing panic attacks you can understand that they are a side effect of the hyperventilation and adrenaline release and not something to be worried about in themselves, but for anyone having an attack for the first time they're very scary symptoms indeed, especially if you're in the middle of nowhere. For me, counting breaths (count to three whilst breathing in, count to six whilst breathing out) helped stop the hyperventilation and once I reached my 20s the attacks stopped almost completely.

I've only come close to loosing it in the woods at night once, and that was while I was out trying to get sound recordings of owls in Fernworthy Forest on Dartmoor. I'd finished recording, packed up my gear and was headed back to the car. I was already slightly on edge as while I was recording a couple of shots had been fired somewhere in the forest. When I played back the recording later they were very faint and probably miles away but at the time it sounded like they were somewhere in the trees just to my left. So there I was, walking across a clearing, whistling and generally trying to appear as un-deerlike as possible to the hordes of poachers I now suspected were stalking me. Up until this point it had been a dark night with thick cloud cover, but at that moment the moon hit a break in the clouds and came on like a floodlight. Looking round the newly illuminated clearing I discovered that I was standing dead centre in one of the stone circles which are scattered throughout the forest. I'm not particularly superstitious, but I'd challenge anyone who has just been lit up by a shaft of moonlight in the middle of a 3000 year old sacred circle not to feel a shiver down their spine. "Just chance", I told myself. "The clearing was obviously made around the circle so it's not surprising that you ended up in the middle, and the forecast said the sky was going to clear." I walked out of the circle and headed on towards the car. I was another 100 yards down the track when I developed the absolute, unshakable certainty that I was being followed. As I walked I could hear a faint tap of footsteps behind me. If I stopped, so did they, and when I looked round the track was deserted. The rest of the walk back to the car seemed to take several times as long as the walk out had, and it wasn't until I swung my microphone tripod off my shoulder to unlock the door that I noticed how the loose audio cable tapped against it every time I took a step...

 

[Laurentius]

Speaking as someone who suffered badly from panic attacks in my teenage years I can attest to the fact that they are no joke. Once you get to the hyperventilating stage you start experiencing physical symptoms (dizzyness, tunnel vision, numb and tingling extremities, lack of coordination) which cause even more anxiety. If you're used to experiencing panic attacks you can understand that they are a side effect of the hyperventilation and adrenaline release and not something to be worried about in themselves, but for anyone having an attack for the first time they're very scary symptoms indeed, especially if you're in the middle of nowhere. For me, counting breaths (count to three whilst breathing in, count to six whilst breathing out) helped stop the hyperventilation and once I reached my 20s the attacks stopped almost completely.
.

Panic attacks are indeed a real physiological phenomenon as I know from experience. I have ended up in accident and emergency more than once as a result. They tend to be self re-inforcing, the physical symptoms increase the panic and so on. My Dr has prescribed me beta blockers to take as needed. They interupt the physical cycle and allow you to get a mental grip on things.

Curiosly enough though one place I do not get panicked is in woodlands at night, though I can get a bit disoriented (well it is dark). It is the things associated with modern living that stress me to the point of panic. The natural world to me is an antidote to that.

 

[Filterhoose]

Try having a wee look at mindfulness. It helps focus on the present moment through concentrating on the breath. It takes a lllllllot of practise but can stop the spiralling thoughts that anxiety induces along with the physical symptoms which are scary.

Windy

 

[peaks]

I'm a hypnotherapist and regularly get to deal with clients who have anxiety/panic attacks. They are no joke for those who experience them.

Mindfulness can certainly help as can other techniques. All take commitment and effort.

If anyone wants any suggestions/advice or pointers to resources, please pm me.

I've got a lot out of this forum, it would be good to be able to put something back.

 

[Laurentius]

I think it is an unfortunate combination of hyperawareness and hypevigillance. You are acutely aware of your surroundings and every change in them, and likewise the natural sensations in your own body. When you start to attach an exagerated sense of danger to that, then you have made an unconscious error of judgement that leads to the spiral.

It is just taking those natural survival instincts a step too far, where instead of being an aid to you, they become a hindrance. We all need to be aware else we would be falling into the fire all of the time and not caring about it like comatose drunks, but senseing werewolves in the shadows, or muggers in every street doorway is taking it further than it needs to go.

 

[Tengu]

How did people in the past manage?

They had so many more bogey men, after all

 

[Laurentius]

How did people in the past manage?

They had so many more bogey men, after all

Stress has so much more of an impact in the modern world because there are not the outlets to get rid of it. It all comes from the basic physiological fight or flight response where the body prepares itself to deal with a threat. In simpler times that was what you did you either fought off whatever it was that was threatening you, or you ran for your life. In modern times what happens is that you are subjected to this threatened state for much longer than is physiologically and psychologically healthy, you do not use up those stress hormones in the way they evolved to deal with threat.

I don't think we know enough about how people dealt with stress in historical times, we do know that it was a real phenomenon in the first world war, but of all the psychiatric cases before that, well I don't know and that is for certain.

There were bogey men for sure, I enjoy all the old tales of Beowulf and Grendel and the like. Perhaps the answer can be found there in the stories, told over camp fires since time imemorial.

 

[boatman]

I am not sure that they did have more bogey men in the past. As with religion it is not improbable that there were approximately the same proportion of sceptics in the past as today. In addition many of those likely to fear the bogey were equipped with tools to do the job (pointless as they were) from Witch Bottles to throwing salt over your shoulder.