Married to someone with anxiety

Take a quick break from work in the mid-morning and walk outside for 15 minutes instead of drinking coffee. Go out for half an hour (or whatever) at lunchtime, go for another 15 min break in the afternoon instead of more coffee. Occasionally invite a coworker to go with you. If you can discuss business (on occasion) you can keep working while you walk. Then another 20 minutes in the dark after work.

And some days less, some days more, and extra on weekends.

The requirement to obey strict walking rules will end up CAUSING the anxiety it's supposed to relieve. Just make it a fun break and take fun breaks here and there when you can.

Most of your description feels familiar but there were some interesting nuances.

There were certainly situations, especially involving other people, that would trigger rather strong anxiety attacks. Sudden tunnelvision and extremely strong urge to get out of the situation. At the time I had no clue whatsoever why I would suddenly have this reactions. Years later reflecting on it I have realised it was probably only because the people, or situations, simply worked as reminders of things that I was subconsciously scared of. I imagine PTSD sufferers experience something similar when specific sounds, or smells, can be a trigger.

But there were also other attacks that were much, much worse. These times I was completely overwhelmed. My sense of self and reality would be gone, I was convinced that that the only thing keeping reality together at all was my mind, and if I didn't hold on and fight back I would reach a point were it all would simply dissolve, or lose cohesion somehow. I could do nothing at all but lie in my bed and try to hold on. Any sensory experience at all was unbearable, sound, sight, touch, I just desperately needed everything cut of to avoid overload.

I remember how my (now) wife would try to comfort me, gently stroking my hair as I was lying there curled up on the bed and even that simple sensation was too much for me to handle. How utterly helpless she must have felt.

In any case, this lasted for a few weeks as I recall it, and basically stopped entirely once was I was ready to seek help and learned that there is such as thing as panic attack. I guess just knowing it was a thing was enough to break a negative feedback loop.

Years later reflecting on it I'm thinking that the main contributor to these episodes was simply growing pains. I was twenty something at the time, probably going through both physiological, as well as psychological changes and things were just unstable during the transition. I think the periods also correlates with jumps in belief systems.

While I've always been "open minded" and kind of accepted both atheistic as well as christian beliefs as plausible, I was busy making room for both buddhistic and some decidedly occult narratives. I guess foundational refactoring like that would cause some temporary distress.

In summary, I guess I just wanted to say few things.

For those lacking the experience of true panic attack: It can be pretty bad, way beyond a state where "do the thing you are so scared of doing" even makes sense to talk about.

For those suffering from it now: Perhaps it helps to know that it's not just you, and one day it might be just an enriching experience you went through

And for those trying to treat it: Perhaps CBT is not the right tool to approach it in all cases, if the underlying issue really is subconscious conflicts there may be other ways to help with resolving/integrating them.

However, I have upvoted you because I agree that probiotics can play a part in coping with anxiety for some people.

I have experienced anxiety attacks for the last several years (including several full on panic attacks). For several years before the onset of the anxiety episodes I have also had IBS like symptoms (which continue to this day). I have noticed a clear link between the two (anxiety accompanied by nausea and frequent trips to the toilet). I could go into the disgusting detail but I won't.

To cut a long story short, I have found that consumption of high dose probiotics containing B longum has corresponded with a decline in sympton severity & frequency [1]. I am not suggesting that this is a cure (or that it will help all anxiety sufferers). Other things that help are reductions in caffeine & alcohol intake, increased exercise (the more extreme the better) and acceptance of the physiological symptoms of anxiety - it is easy to think that heart palpatations etc caused by anxiety are a result of genuine physiolgical issues (which in turn causes more anxiety).

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Lalonde/publicat...

Now add in the usual stuff like people throwing themselves in front of a train (happened quite often to those whose train passed by a mental health institution), random technology breakdowns (some parts of Munich S-Bahn operate on a single rail for both directions, it gets nasty when something happens), cops/paramedics attending to people on the train, idiots blocking the train doors and causing delays, car drivers too stupid to see the tramway approaching (and only waking up once the tram crashes into their car, blocking the single tram to the university)... the delay record, I believe, was something like six hours total what should have been 2,5h.

And those affected most by long commutes and the "random" (aka daily) service interruptions usually were those with not as much money as the rest - because living as a student in Munich is expensive as ... and many poorer students had to live in the hinterland of Munich with a bus driving only 4x a day or not at all, and because it's easy to hail a cab and say "ok, f..k that delay, I'm getting out, here's 50€ to get me to university" if you have the money.