Had a massive anxiety attack at a public swimming centre that (for me) was quite 'off the charts' (for me)
Took my 8 y/o daughter to a different than normal public swimming centre yesterday that has an awesome waterslide and four different pools.
All good for first hour, then I started to have a massive anxiety attack triggered by lots of things:
- crowds/noise (one of the pools had uni waterpolo games happening).
- female attraction (to many of the cute mums etc.) knowing I'm not really allowed to look at or admire women I find attractive and also knowing as a mature guy I'm a hasbeen romantic relationship reject (if one of them had actually said hello or interacted with me I would have had a total meltdown and paniced).
- generally feeling sick from going on the waterslide (I had to come off that early).
- feeling my emergency fight-or-flight triggering and building up lots of adrenalin with increased heart rate but knowing I was there for my daughter I just had to cope.
- feeling increasingly 'unsafe' in a way that nobody else could have understood.
We were there 4 hours, and for the final 3 hours I fought the anxiety attack hard. In the last hour I told my daughter I no longer felt safe and wanted to leave but she partly didn't believe I was having a really difficult time coping and partly was loving being there with me.
I felt really out of my depth socially and just kept to myself when I wasn't swimming/watersliding with my daughter. I know one way to combat chronic social fear/anxiety is to face it head on, but yesterday was probably too much (for me).
I can tell you that once we got home I suddenly felt hugely relieved as I was back in my 'safe place' again.
It's great to see my daughter loving swimming though that was something internatlised just within myself as somewhat of a 'defence' against the high-level anxiety. As a very experienced person with that I'm really good at hiding my anxiety from other people until I find it too much and have to leave.
All good for first hour, then I started to have a massive anxiety attack triggered by lots of things:
- crowds/noise (one of the pools had uni waterpolo games happening).
- female attraction (to many of the cute mums etc.) knowing I'm not really allowed to look at or admire women I find attractive and also knowing as a mature guy I'm a hasbeen romantic relationship reject (if one of them had actually said hello or interacted with me I would have had a total meltdown and paniced).
- generally feeling sick from going on the waterslide (I had to come off that early).
- feeling my emergency fight-or-flight triggering and building up lots of adrenalin with increased heart rate but knowing I was there for my daughter I just had to cope.
- feeling increasingly 'unsafe' in a way that nobody else could have understood.
We were there 4 hours, and for the final 3 hours I fought the anxiety attack hard. In the last hour I told my daughter I no longer felt safe and wanted to leave but she partly didn't believe I was having a really difficult time coping and partly was loving being there with me.
I felt really out of my depth socially and just kept to myself when I wasn't swimming/watersliding with my daughter. I know one way to combat chronic social fear/anxiety is to face it head on, but yesterday was probably too much (for me).
I can tell you that once we got home I suddenly felt hugely relieved as I was back in my 'safe place' again.
It's great to see my daughter loving swimming though that was something internatlised just within myself as somewhat of a 'defence' against the high-level anxiety. As a very experienced person with that I'm really good at hiding my anxiety from other people until I find it too much and have to leave.
