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| Panic
attack By Karen Gosling, counseling Director |
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 In this series of real-life case studies, Karen Gosling recounts client stories compiled from Gosling International's files. The permission of clients has been obtained to present these case histories. Names and places used have been changed to protect cilent privacy. |
| Introduction | |
| Meg, a 35 year old Australian woman, who had lived in Singapore with her husband and family for 8 months, came for counseling at the recommendation of her doctor, whom she had seen that same morning. She has been experiencing depression and increasing anxiety over a few weeks, and had now been to the doctor with symptoms that the doctor told her was a panic attack. | |
| Meg had woken the night before, out of the blue, with a feeling of intense panic. For a period of what seemed like hours, but was perhaps only 20 minutes, Meg said that she was unable to breathe, and her chest was tight. Her heart was thumping so loudly she thought it would burst out of her chest wall. She was certain she was going to die. Meg told me that she got out of bed, as she just wanted to run, to escape. But her legs could barely support her they were so wobbly. She was sweating profusely, and her entire body was shaking uncontrollably. Meg remained distressed and panicky as the feelings were of doom, and she could not rid herself of the fear even after the physical symptoms subsided within the hour. | |
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| Recent events - Build up of stress | |
| Meg
had a 4 year old son and an 11 month old baby girl. She had been extremely
anaemic during her pregnancy, and not well, and so the proposal to
move from Melbourne to Singapore during this time had not been met
with great excitement, in fact it filled her with dread. Her husband
John went on ahead of her but came back to Melbourne for the birth
of their baby. Meg arrived in Singapore several months after her husband's
transfer, with the baby in arms and the toddler in tow. She said that
she tried to be strong so that John wouldn't worry so much as he was
travelling a tremendous amount and doing the job of three people. |
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| Meg's
mother came from Australia to help her, but stayed 3 months which
was far too long, and the relationship between the 2 women, just OK
at the outset, deteriorated. During this time, Meg had lived in a
serviced apartment (where she first had heart palpitations strongly,
but did not recognize it as anxiety), and gone house hunting with
agents, sometimes an all-day ordeal, whilst trying to manage the children
in the heat and in between meals. |
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When the family moved into the house, the promised repairs had not
been done, and renovations seemed to go on for weeks around them -
it felt like camping, she said! There were at different times, no
stove, no water, and no phones. Meg had the use of John's car, but
on her first trip out, with mother and children in the car, she had
a traumatic experience getting lost on the PIE when low on fuel, taking
a wrong exit, and not being able to negotiate roads and Singapore
drivers in the peak hour traffic. She pulled over to the side of the
road, and sat in the car experiencing what she later came to know
as a panic attack. But not wanting to seem weak in front of her critical
mother, she suffered in silence. |
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The stresses
continued. Other family members came to stay, when Meg did not even
feel settled herself. Her son started school following anxious decisions
re "which school?". Meg and John knew nothing about the schools, and
Meg had had simply no time to make friends from whom she could ask
recommendations. |
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| The
family returned to Melbourne for Christmas, and with it came all the
known stresses of travelling with young children. Meg had expected
this trip to be an emotional "top up", as she had several close girlfriends
whom she knew she could talk to and gain much emotional support. But
it was not to be. Unmet expectations! One girlfriend had had her father
die the week before, one was going through a marriage break-up and
the third had a child fighting for his life in hospital following
an accident. Meg saw all these friends, but gave emotional support
to each - and received nothing in return. She felt she had no right
to ask for any, as her friends seemed to have real problems, compared
to hers! |
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The week before I saw Meg, she had hurt her neck whilst picking up
her toddler, and the baby had rolled off the double bed after she
had finished changing her diapers, and Meg had turned to put something
away. She felt a hopeless and inadEQuate mother for days following
this event, and experienced extreme anxiety that her neglect would
result in her daughter receiving a serious injury. The day before
this appointment, Meg had gone to the hairdresser to treat herself
to a bit of pampering, and had left the hairdresser with the worst
haircut of her life. That night she woke up with the full-blown panic
attack. |
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| Intervention | |
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| Outcome | |
| Meg
commenced a course of anti-depressants prescribed by her doctor, after
understanding that her depression was induced by the stress and after
being reassured that it would only be for a few months, and then she
would be weaned off them again. In addition, she benefited by having
prescribed anti-anxiety tablets in her bag at all times, in case she
felt the anxiety creeping up again. Then she would take one to diminish
the physical discomfort of the anxiety. |
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| Meg
continued counseling over a few weeks, to learn the psychological
strategies to rebuild her self-esteem. The combination of medication
and counseling resulted in a fast-forward of her recovery to emotional
health, which Meg recognized by her feeling of "being back to her
old self". |
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Karen Gosling is counseling Director at Gosling International. She is a graduate of the University of South Australia and holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Adelaide. Karen is a Registered Social Worker in Singapore and is a member of the Australian Association of Social Workers and the Singapore Association of Social Workers. Gosling International is a leading emotional leadership consultancy based in Singapore, serving committed clients worldwide. Goslings mission is one of education and empowerment; to elevate emotional well-being. Gosling International provides face-to-face, telephone and email emotional leadership consultations for individuals, couples, and family groups. If you want a professional to help you with behavioural change or deal with your emotional distress, personal problems, or are simply troubled by your feelings, phone Karen or Mike Gosling on (65) 6281-5157. Consulting
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