Long phone call

I just got off the phone with my dad who has had anxiety for a really long time and knows what I'm going through. It's funny because I don't feel anxious but my physical symptoms that are bothering me are somewhat making me anxious. Right now I have a tight jaw...I'm just relaxing it and not moving it much or chewing...and also I have this feeling like a lump in my throat. My throat feels tighter and possibly even sore. I'm trying to look at my symptoms like a doctor would..rather than react to them just observe and write them down. My dad kept reminding me that nothing bad happens from a panic attack, it just feels uncomfortable. I hope I can go back to not having a panic attack for a long time. I'd much rather have a year without one and then get one again than to have them every day like I am now. I'm going to try to get out more and go out to eat and stuff once my jaw feels better. Also, I want to start walking. Excercise definitely helps my anxiety..I remember when I used to work out and run a couple miles a day on the treadmill when we were on vacation going down to Florida that I felt great about myself and didn't have much anxiety at all. That's sort of why I don't want to take medicine either. If I was able to feel great then without medicine I can do it again. I feel like taking medicine is ok if it's like once ina while just to help when things are really bad, but if I take it every day I'm sort of giving up on really trying every day. It's doing all the work for me. My dad told me that it would be much harder to get over this without medicine which obviously is true because say you have a headache..you can either wait it out or take medicine to make it go away. Except with anxiety medicine you need to keep taking it every day and it doesn't really get to the root of the problem. I'm sure if I work on it myself I can make it go away for a while, and I'm also sure that I'll probably have a panic attack again someday just because thigns happen and stressful things occur or there's times that I just get anxious, but that doesn't mean I should just take medicine for it. If there was a medicin that was non-addictive, non habit forming and had no withdrawal, I would take it when I needed it...but I don't want something I HAVE to always take. I don't want to feel bound to something. I am my own person and I am able to get over this myself, maybe not forever...but I can do it. I can't really explain why I'm against medicine...I guess to me it feels like giving up. It's sort of like me saying,"I can't do this without medicine"..and I have before so I can again. Maybe I'll leave to take something one day if it's a really bad day, but that's a lot different than taking it every day.

Anyways, enough babbling about the medicine issue. I feel like my throat is getting worse...feels like there's something stuck in it and I'm already saying,"What if I panic from it?" or "What if my throat closes?"...my chest feels a little tight too. But I'm going to try not to think about it. Also I just realized I might have to change doctors already because if I was to have an emergency this town that my doctor is going to be in is a bit far...hmm. We'll see.

I can do this. I've done it before. So what if I panic? Then I panic. It makes me stronger.