Question

Will hypnosis help?

Answer

Hypnotism can produce a very positive response in the short term. The result will not last if we have no understanding of the disorder and don’t know how to manage the attacks and anxiety ourselves. In conjunction with panic/anxiety management skills, hypnotism can help while we work with aspects of the disorder. If we use an audio tape of the hypnosis session during periods of high anxiety and attacks, the tape must teach us how to control the anxiety and the attacks. The control does not come from a cassette tape.

Some people use subliminal tapes in an effort to ease their symptoms. We must know what the subliminal message of the tape is and, more importantly, we should consciously know and learn how to manage anxiety and the attacks ourselves.

Question

I have heard about people becoming housebound. I am the opposite. I can’t bear to be in the house. As soon as my husband goes to work I have to get out of the house. I spend my days travelling on buses or walking around shopping centres. Is this part of the disorder?

Answer

This does happen to some people. If they have difficulty in being alone, going out and being around other people is better than staying home. It can also happen to people who were housebound, but for another reason. As people progress in their recovery, some may go through a stage where the thought of being home all day brings back too many memories of their disorder. They prefer to go out as much as they can. This stage does pass.

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Dr Michael Terman from Columbia University originally showed that simulating a summer dawn in the middle of winter could have a salutary effect in people with SAD, helping them to wake up and feel better during the day. He accomplished this by means of a machine that turned the bedroom lights on gradually, as though the shade on the window were becoming gradually brighter as on a sunny morning in the summertime. Since this initial observation, dawn-simulators have become more compact and affordable and have been shown to help people wake up in the morning and have anti-depressant effects in controlled studies. A commonly used version fits easily into the palm of the hand and can be connected to an ordinary bedside lamp. Although not usually sufficient in itself to reverse the symptoms of SAD, a dawn-simulator is an excellent way to get the day off to a brisk start and is a very useful part of the overall programme for managing this condition.

Another innovation to come out of Terman’s department at Columbia is the use of high-dose negative ions – charged air particles emitted from a small device that looks like an air purifier. According to one study, negative ions in high dosages may have anti-depressant effects in SAD patients. More work is warranted, though, before this treatment can be recommended with any degree of confidence. Negative ions are emitted from flowing water under natural circumstances, whereas positive ions are emitted from all sorts of indoor machinery.

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Work in pairs. Allow your partner to sit in the chair in the position that has been discussed, with closed eyes. Support their forehead and gently massage the scalp from the hair line to the back of the neck. If headaches are a problem, support their head on your chest and work with both hands, stroking their brow with the first fingers from the centre to the temples, using firm strokes.

You and your partner will soon get over the embarrassment of being touched when you realize how relaxing massage can be. Continue to support the forehead and with the other hand move the muscles of the neck on both sides of the spine in a circular movement. Switch off your intellect and let your hands do the work. Next place your hands over the shoulders with the fingers pointing towards the chest and the thumbs on the back. Use these to massage the muscles of the shoulders. Find out from your partner any areas that need particular attention. Continue by supporting your partner with your arm across the top of their chest, tipping them forward and working around both shoulder blades and down each side of the spine. Finish off by stroking lightly and rapidly from the head down the back. Place one hand on the upper and one on the underside of the arm and use the same stroking to the finger tips. Repeat with the other arm. Take at least fifteen minutes over the massage. The person in the chair might want to sit for few minutes, enjoying feeling more relaxed, before doing the same for you.

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Some of the action of the drugs is on the temporal lobe of the brain. During withdrawal, this area is trying to get back to normal. For a time this may result in temporal lobe symptoms. Perception difficulties are included. This means your senses (sight, sound, touch, taste and smell) may appear to be playing tricks on you. Your senses have been dulled by the drugs for so long that you have slowly become accustomed to altered perception. This may increase a little before it clears. Don’t be alarmed if things seem odd at first. You will realize that this is how the world looked before drugs. Lights and colours may seem so bright at first that you need sunglasses. Many people have forgotten the pleasure of colour and are thrilled by their gardens. One woman kept scrubbing her carpet thinking it looked dull. When she came off her drugs she said she felt as though the colours were leaping out at her they were so bright. Overbreathing also heightens perception. If you see a dirty mark on the wall as a beetle or a coat hanging behind the door as a person, these are perceptual disturbances. If there is no mark on the wall nor a coat behind the door, and yet you see these things, these could be hallucinations. Many people say that faces seem to change as they look at them, or heads appear larger than they should be when they watch television. Buildings can appear too tall and thin, or bent at the top. These are temporary disturbances and will go in time.

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If your attitude is ‘I will die, be sick, faint, wet my pants, etc., if I don’t fight this panic attack’, you will encourage more attacks. It will become a trigger for stimulating more hormones and more fear. If you teach your body to give the correct messages to your brain, you can break this chain reaction.

When an attack comes, breathe out long and hard, and pause before you breathe in. Dr Hibbert suggests putting a cold wet cloth on the cheeks. This acts on the diving reflex and slows down the breathing very effectively. If you slow down your breathing (by breathing from the abdomen) it will be impossible for symptoms to become worse. Abdominal breathing is allowing full lung expansion by raising the abdomen on the in-breath.

Cupping the hands or hold a paper (not plastic) bag over the nose and mouth whilst breathing normally will increase carbon dioxide levels and help to calm you within a few minutes.

Try not to be embarrassed about letting those around you know what is wrong. One young woman who shouts for help during attacks has learnt to explain that she is suffering from drug withdrawal symptoms, and that it will pass in a minute.

Dr Weekes’s book was not written for people coming off drugs, but the illness she describes, which many would think of as a nervous breakdown, is very similar—a chemical nervous breakdown if you like. Some people are afraid of the words ‘nervous breakdown’. It really means exhausted nerves. You will recover, no matter how long you have been ill, if you after your attitude from ‘I feel so bad I will never get better’ to ‘I know I will get better if I accept the illness, help my body to cope with it, and wait for time to heal’.

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If you are in the ‘Catch 22′ situation of feeling ill whilst you are taking the pills; worse when you stop; and have symptoms of increased anxiety and depression, panic attacks, sweating, insomnia—see your doctor.

You will need the doctor’s advice before reducing your pills. Tranquillizers are also used for conditions other than nervous illness. You may need an alternative prescription.

It may be that your doctor has a good knowledge of withdrawal procedure, and is sympathetic and willing to guide you through. If this is not the case, and he refuses to believe how ill you feel, or is hostile because he feels you are trying to tell him his job, seek help from a support group. These are run nation-wide, usually by ex-users who have a great deal of experience because of the enormous numbers of people coming for help. All you need is your doctor’s approval to come off, and then you can refer to your nearest group. They will help you to work out a slow withdrawal programme that can be carried out at home.

The Elderly and Tranquillizers or Sleeping Pills

Complete withdrawal in the elderly dependent person is often inadvisable, although it may be necessary to reduce the dose slowly until the side-effects (toxic confusion and loss of balance) are minimized.

Write to the following addresses for your nearest contact:

Middlesex HA3 7QX

or telephone your nearest MIND group.

RELEASE

169 Commercial Street

London El 3BW

Tel: 01 603 8654 (24 hours)

Remember: It is dangerous to stop your drugs abruptly, Acute withdrawal should only be carried out in hospital.

Tranx

17 Peel Road Harrow

MIND

22 Harley Street London Wl

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