This was a reply from RLR posted on another thread that I think is brilliant and relevant to this discussion:

Now if you're unwilling to take the time to sit yourselves down to work toward gaining the proper understanding concerning these palpitations and their true nature, then there is nothing I can do to help you. It is felt by some that it's more safe to believe them to be dangerous and simply use this forum for reassurance from irrational fears. Well I am considered to be advanced in age and growing older as the years pass since this forum was created. I won't be around here forever.

You need to face yourselves, not some voice from a forum, and produce the discipline necessary to gain a firm understanding about these palpitation events. Now I have spoken ad-nauseum in hundreds of threads about the true nature of these events and how they are entirely dissociated from absolutely any form of pathological arrhythmia whatsoever. I have explained in detail what causes your palpitation events to occur and the furthest extent of their inability to harm you in any way. Yet, if you look at the threads, there is most always a brief acknowledgement of my posting that generally states to the effect "Ah, I see now Dr. Rane. Thank you so much for your post and I realize now that these things are harmless and cannot do anything serious to me. I'm much better now and your explanation makes perfect sense. . . .. . I just have this one other question and I swear I'll never ask again. Can these palpitations cause me to suddenly die? I know you talked about the regular kind of palpitations but these ones I'm having now are different. They go thump - bump - bump instead of the other way around. I've been reading that if you get those kind you're going to drop dead and now it has me scared. I don't want to leave my family or children. Please help me."

This example depicts the compelling nature of anxiety and its ability to avoid the truth in favor of irrational fear. The affected individual feels an urgent and driven need to persist in their beliefs because the moment they cease such vigilence will be the very opportunity for tragedy to strike. It's anaolgous to the old entertainers who used to marvel us by balancing spinning plates atop of long sticks. They must continually run back and forth to plates that are beginning to slow down and wobble and keep all them running perfectly in order to prevent them from falling and shattering. That is the life of a person stricken with, and controlled by, anxiety.

All of you need to be aware that anxiety is not a clinical illness or disease, but a state of mind. It is produced by thinking patterns which have been firmly established by repetition in the absence of logic and adherence to reality. It means that you believe in things that are not possible and you guide your lives accordingly because regardless of the facts to the contrary, danger is close and vigilence must be maintained. It is the elective striving to project into the future to prevent any negative course of action by altering circumstances in the present. It is the belief that total preparedness is the only method by which life can proceed safely and orderly in such a fashion that no mistakes are made. This pattern even spills over into forging these patterns into the lives of those around the person with anxiety. It is felt certain that they cannot do it right and something will certainly faulter if the anxiety-stricken individual does not step in and bear the responsibility of preparing life for them or instructing them along the way. There must be order and it must be timely and well in advance and preparation for life's oncoming daily events, covering any base necessary to avoid alteration. It is the fervent attempt to control life itself and defuse any changes from occurring. There is no spontanaiety, but rigid planning to preclude any unforseen and unexpected problem.

Life isn't forged of egg-shells, but rather granite.

Jennifer, hi, I am also a Jennifer (Jen to most)

agree with you to an extent but for me its also about history.

I have been retracing my years of having therapy (a condition of being one is to have much oneself).

Something I came up with in my notes to myself, had been the idea that I am "Too" open and honest. I remember discussing this with my therapist and how in close relationships I tell all. Its hard to explain what I mean by this, but I guess what I am saying is I also have a tendency to do all the work in relationships...I am not enigmatic in any way. However, at some point I felt as though I wanted to keep more of myself back, not hidden, but back.

I did for a while, and it really helped me feel more in control, not of others, but of me and what happened to me.

My friends would describe me as warm and/or friendly, and I liked that. But in truth I was overly, psychologically giving. I was an open book. It then for me, becomes about be empowered.

Not making much sense I know but in short, I give over my self power quite easily in close relationships. I stopped doing that and had to have a sticker by my bed saying "Dont give yourself away today" ...when I moved I forgot to put it back up and coincidently slid back to my old habits.

The reason I am like this, I believe relates to my history: youngest of four children, dominating father, passive yet strong mother, older sibling rivalry esp sister...(believe me she was very envious of me her little sister) a lot of how things were incited my behaviour, which was there as a defence at the time and helped. Its hard when we grow up to let go of those defences.

I have read many, many books on psychotherapy and on the theory, but by far the nest book in understanding families and how they work and how you work, is a little book with John Cleese the comedian, and a therapist "Families and how to Survive Them"

Hi all,

I'm new here but followed this thread with interest and have just re-read the entire thing.

I got the impression that you were really getting somewhere and it helped me over an anxious period just beginning to address things.

What happened as it seemed to be going so well and then just ground to a halt? Did it help you guys at all?

Chris

It sure is an interesting thread which, no doubt, has given many people a better insight in what "anxiety" is. Told in a metaphoric way with the "do you drive a car"-question. So far, so good.

My benign palps don't show very often these days, and when they do, I don't care much. Maybe I'm cured. Maybe I have "adressed" or "faced" the anxiety, as you often have put it, RLR.
And yet those very two expressions ("adress"/"face" the anxiety) have also irritated me quite a bit. For what does that excactly imply?
I had quite an extended period in which I certainly believed that my palps were due to some kind of "anxiety", and I certainly (intellectually) "knew" that this wasn't caused by some disease in my heart (due to two medical tests - ecg and all ...).
But still with that knowledge present, palps came and went. Sometimes quite bothering/scaring.
(By the way: it sometimes feel as if cause and effect connect the other way around, so that palpitations cause anxiety. Could that be true?)

So even if I could say to myself: Yes, the whole thing started in a stressy time when my stepfather died, and it went to its peak in a situation where I lived alone in a foreign, big city for two months and had to sort of recreate an everyday life, a new rythm of living. Even with that knowledge present in a very concious level - I think   - the palps didn't cease to come.

But maybe you need to be very patient and realize that EVEN when you have "adressed" or "faced" your anxiety, it can take quite a long time for your heart, sorry; vagus nerve to stop teasing you.

I wish it could be less of a riddle what "adressing" or "facing" your anxiety actually implies.

Anyway, thanks for many good thoughts, which I believe has done their job in curing me.

I'm sure this thread receives little attention because most of us, myself included at times, come to this site for reassurance.  Looking at the root cause of things is really different than looking for assurance!

I've been working on this for a little while......if it takes a doctor's assurance to tell me I am ok, I will be forever and always running to the doctor.  I'm now taking note of any symptoms, writing them down along with any pertinent information, and planning to wait a couple of weeks before going to the doctor.  Almost without exception, the mysterious symptom has come and gone well within the span of a couple of weeks.  A few have persisted, and make the "list" when I go to see my doctor again.

This has helped me be less reliant on an external source for my reassurance and instead pushed me to be observant of my own body.  It's been good!

RLR....I apologize as I am one of those that just view rather than get engaged.  I have had Palpitations for 5 years now and have gone through the ups and downs that anxiety has caused...even to the point of agoraphobia. It is not a fun road to take at all and I think most people are exhausted and have given up hope.  I know I have...at least until I found this website.  I have been able to travel and do things I havent been able to do in the past.  Mine all started when I had 2 of my sisters and my mother all diagnosed with Brugada's disease and they all had difibrilators put in.  I had all of the test and was found not to have it but part of me believes maybe they could have missed something.  At this same time I changed jobs, had my first baby and bought my first home!  What I think I have learned from you is that I need to accept 100%!!!....not 99% that these things are the vagus nerve stimulation.  If I do this then I will not be bothered by them and they will reduce significantly in numbers, intensity and then I will at the same time reduce all of the other anxiety symptoms that have manifested because of the palpitations and the anxiety they have caused me.  I am to the point where I am really tired of living with anxiety so I think I am closer now than ever to making that so called jump into the fear pit and trust that nothing bad will ever come from these darn things.  I not only have to make that jump...but I have to stay in that pit and never look back.   We will see if I have the courage to do so very soon : )  Thanks for all of the help RLR.

Dodger wrote on Jun 23^rd, 2011, 1:14pm:


Great post Dodger and I agree 100%. I've been reading this thread for a while now as really I just stumbled across it. I was a little disappointed to have "missed the boat" so to speak when it was really going last year as it seemed an enlightening discussion so it's nice to get a few new responses.

I agree it's odd that we seem to take risks every day in our lives without thinking twice about them, but as you say we get these beats and despite our doctors saying we're fine, the cardiologist saying we're fine, RLR saying we're fine, every piece of every document on the subject saying we're fine, we still panic and fear these darned beats every day!

I'd like to think I'm a very rational person. I also like to think I'm smart enough to work things out and base my thoughts on the evidence rather than some suspicion. And yet this is different somehow.

That's the big question I guess!

But I agree with you, since reading this thread I've taken a new view on my health anxiety as a whole and I seem a bit calmer. There is of course a long road ahead, a lot of work to be done to undo the tension and stress I've felt over the last three years, but we have to start somewhere and this is as good a place as any!

Chris