Is it me.....

I recently joined your stress management website and requested a consultation but I was having technical problems and I don't think all the info came across.  To make a long story short...
In the past year and a half.... I quit my stressful job, sold my home and moved back to where I grew up.  That seemed to be going well for myself and husband and three kids.  We reduced our debt 4 fold, I've been able to take classes at the college, join the bell choir at church, join the gym, hook up with old friends and family.  To me my life was finally stress free and happy....until June.  In June I had 3 episodes that may have been panic attacks....heart pounding, sweating, lightheadedness, ears ringing, blurry vision, pain in the back of my head and neck, a flushing sensation down the back of my head.  Since these episodes I've had almost daily headaches which I've never had before.  The only thing that changed in my life in June was a stronger dose of hormones for my pms, nightsweats, long heavy periods and fatigue. (I'm 36)  Every little thing seems to bring on these tension headaches, things that I normally enjoyed.  I stopped taking the hormones on Oct 8 but the headaches still come.  I used to have a great deal of stress in my life and it used to show with stomach aches and sweating and shortness of breath but disappeard quickly after the situation was over.  I used to hold three titles at work: Systems Admin, Human Resources and Head of Accounting.  I held the family together when my husband went through a long serious illness.  His handicapped mother and grandmother lived with us for 7 years and I cared for them on top of working and the kids.  I've made ammends with my father who left before I was born and my grandmother who raised me after my mother was killed by a drunk driver when I was a child. She didn't want us and let it be known.  I lost a baby at 15 and suffered anorexia and overcame it.  I guess the point is that I've come through a lot...and finally got to a point in my life where I was calm and resovled and enjoying myself.  Now the headaches, my dr thought maybe it was allergies but I tried the meds and it didn't help.  How can I pin point the source of these headaches?  Its amazing to me that such little things could stress me out after everything else I've been through...why would a simple evening at a ball game watching the kids stress me out?  I just don't get it...

[Roger Gould, M.D.]

I am sorry you had technical problems getting the consultation. You can email the tech support on the site and they can help you.

I understand your perplexity. It does seem unusual from a common sense point of view, but almost every case I have seen of these sudden panic attacks seems to come "out of the blue", for no apparent reason, but in counseling we almost always find the reason and resolve the issue.  I urge you to consider counseling..either online with my site or with a local therapist. You might also ask your doctor for  a prescription for Zoloft or some similar medication which is a good interim relief while searching out the cause.

I can give you my impression, or guess, about where you start looking.  Your life has been so full of challenges, that in order to survive and flourish you have had to be super competent and totally tuned into the world outside yourself.  Now that you have a little peace and quiet, there are memories and feelings and thoughts about being 36, this time of your life, your past, etc.  which you really don't want to deal with because they disturb your peace.  They are breaking through.  The answer is to allow and work through these thoughts, no longer trying to suppress them.

HOpe this helps a little.