Let’s Go - My Journey to 100%

[LetsGo]

Maybe condescending wasn’t the word I was looking for lol, apprehensive seems more suitable.

Also again, my post has nothing to do with you. It’s something I just felt like I had to get of my chest but didn’t feel like making a thread about it. In retrospect it did come of a bit strong and I probably should not have dumped this turd in your personal log, my apologies hehe

It’s just weird sometimes when I read things like some dude curing his PFS when it seems very unlikely that trib will rid me of panic attacks and insomnia. Just because my PFS isn’t his PFS.

My vemoheb arrived today, curious to test it out vs my old generic trib in my rotation soon.

No worries, thanks for the clarification!

If you have your own thread that might be a better place to talk about this, but if your only PFS symptoms are panic attacks, anxiety, and insomnia, then you should double and triple down on meditation, breathing, cold showers, see a talk therapist if you’re allowed to do that without losing your pilot’s license, etc. There is a hormonal component from PFS anxiety and panic, yes, but you have to attack PFS from every angle, and that includes un-learning the thought patterns and catastrophic thinking that is heavily contributing to your panic attacks. Your body is not a machine that is just having panic attacks due solely to hormonal/neurosteroid dysfunction, you are also a psychological being.

Your thoughts massively affect your emotional state, which in turn affects your thoughts.

When you fix the psychological side of the equation, you will be left with only the PFS causes, so the symptoms will be a lot better. And by the same token, even if you 100% recover hormonally/chemically, if you habitually engaged in catastrophic thinking, guess what? You’d have panic attacks even after recovering from PFS. So you’re going to have to address it at some point. Even though it started out as PFS-induced, if your anxiety and panic continued, then it builds its own momentum because you’d still have the catastrophic thinking induced panic attacks.

I’m going to guess that maybe you’re laying awake at night thinking: “I really hope I never have a panic attack while I’m flying. Oh man, I’ll lose my medical certificate. I’ll probably get fired. Oh man, oh man. I’ll be so fucked. I can’t do anything but fly planes, if I lose that, I’m finished. I’ll be homeless. If I can’t get cured it’s just a matter of time. Oh man, oh man…” Well no wonder you can’t sleep! And that lack of sleep makes your anxiety worse, makes you more vulnerable to panic, makes your PFS symptoms worse. That type of thinking is called catastrohpic thinking, and it literally causes panic attacks, even in non-PFS people. Anyone can give themselves panic attacks if they get into the habit of catastrophic thinking (which is addictive) and you need the right therapist to un-learn all the unhealthy coping mechanisms that PFS “taught” you. Once you’ve addressed the psych angle then your PFS symptoms will be “on their own” and your overall symptoms will be less severe.

A CBT or REBT therapist is the right kind to see about this. REBT is arguably the best for that. Usually you learn all the techniques within a few months, it’s not the kind of thearapy where you lay on a black couch and talk about what dreams you had last night or what happened in your childhood. So assuming you’re allowed to do that in Europe and keep your medical certificate, go do that and consider it part of your overall recovery strategy. Just remember: don’t let them tell you to take drugs. If you’re truly not allowed to see any therapist period, there are resources where you can learn about it yourself and try to be your own therapist by reading the works of Albert Ellis. The techniques are learnable on your own, but it’ll be better and faster if you have an REBT therapist to work with.

Vemoherb is good stuff, hopefully it’ll give you good results. I’m surprised at how strongly I respond to it.