Читать книгу Self-Help for Your Nerves: Learn to relax and enjoy life again by overcoming stress and fear - Dr. Weekes Claire - Страница 12

At this stage the sufferer consults a doctor, who usually succeeds in reassuring him and banishing his fear. However, he may not be sufficiently reassured and may be unfortunate enough to be put to bed and advised to ‘take things carefully’ and to ‘be sure not to overdo it’. When so advised the average person, particularly if young and not yet protected by the philosophy of age, lies in bed brooding over his ‘bad’ heart, afraid to move for fear of straining it further. This patient was already in a state of nervous tension worrying about the palpitations. Can you imagine his tension now? Perhaps you have experienced it?

On the other hand, should the doctor, in an effort to reassure, make too light of the palpitations, the patient may stay in bed of his own volition, convinced that the doctor is witholding the worst and has not told him all. If he remains tensed and afraid he is certain to have further attacks, and the more frequently they come the more he hugs the couch. The more he rests, the more time he has to brood and the more tense and apprehensive he becomes. His finger is continually hovering above his pulse, and in response to this anxiety his heart constantly beats quicker than it should, although not as fast as when palpitating. Actually he thinks it is beating faster than it is, because he is conscious of every beat. To him it is thumping, banging, racing. One ingenious woman arranged her pillows end to end, so that she could lay her ear on the crack between them – in this way she thought she heard less thumping.

The sufferer by now is really sorry for himself. He loses appetite, loses weight and dreads being alone ‘for fear of having a turn’; at the same time he is afraid to be with people for fear of having one and making a fool of himself. It is not long before he develops most of the sensations of breakdown – the churning stomach, sweating hands, pains around the heart, racing heart, giddy turns, headache – in other words, the full fear-adrenalinfear cycle.

If fear of palpitations has not drawn this person into this type of nervous breakdown, fear of some other upsetting bodily sensation generally has. Perhaps he has had pain in the region of his heart which he, in alarm and ignorance, diagnoses as angina. Perhaps a strenuous, anxious, highly tensed life has given him a constantly churning stomach or ‘shaking’ heart at which he becomes alarmed. Whatever the cause, in answer to his continuous apprehension his adrenalin-releasing nerves become sensitized and gradually burden his day with the new, upsetting sensations described above. He tries to fight or escape, until he too becomes caught in the same fear – adrenalin – fear cycle as the person afraid of the palpitations.

As mentioned, these people have these sensations as a more or less constant background to their day. They may have moments of respite; for example, some on waking feel strangely calm and may be able to lie at peace for an hour or so before the churning starts. Others feel calmest at night. Others know no peace.