YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

It is really bad here, my mom is having panic attacks daily and nightly. She went from having two panic attacks per year to just in the last couple of days having them reliably every day. I know that subconsciously my mom has these panic attacks because when she has them, she can rely on someone dropping everything and running to take care of her, and she finds the idea of that, very soothing, because of some medical trauma in her youth

I think I’m going to get a referral from my psychiatrist for a good geriatric psychiatrist, and not even care if the doctor is in my mom‘s insurance network, just pay out-of-pocket, if we get a good one, it will totally pay for itself, because right now we’re having my mom never be alone at night, and that is just unsustainable going forward.

Right now, my sister and I are admittedly not giving my mom much grace because (1) we never received any grace from my mom around medical stuff growing up, (2) my mom doesn’t do anything to help herself. She just wants to gobble up all the pills and rely on pharmaceutical solutions. She totally throws away any agency she has around, taking care of her health and taking care of her mental health.

She has really bad Restless Leg Syndrome , she should be exercising every day to help herself out (ha ha what a joke she has no interest in exercising) and she should hop on the stationary bike during a restless leg attack (ha ha what a joke that’s the last thing she would ever do). If it’s not a pill, she is not interested in it.

Hello Manny,

Why do you think she ramped up so much recently with the panic attacks?

And I guess the restless legs happens at night, right?
(I had them for a short time many years ago, for unknown reasons. Didn't make sense, and sure was annoying)

Howdy SnoringDog!

I think it is medication based, one of her meds she changed a month and a half ago

Hard to say because she takes a <lot> of medicines

I wish she would exercise on the recumbent bike, during the day and also during a restless leg attack, even with the resistance set to zero

I feel so sorry for you. Your mom could really benefit from non-medical methods like guided meditation, but it's sad that she only wants to take pills. That situation must make you really anxious because you feel like there is no way to help her. Don't forget about yourself. You have to spend a lot of time with your mother now, but you can take 15 minutes out of your day to meditate as a preventive measure.

thank you for your kind words!