Jan 24

 Hmm. Today I was doing ok... until I wasn't.

Fairly stable wake up routine. Hydrated. No food. Still stable through to midday.

Started playing games, still no food - needed to eat.

Ordered a sandwich + salad + drink. Bigger portion than I typically eat these days - I tend to eat very small most of the time.

I was fine, playing a game, about an hour after eating. I could feel myself slow down. And nausea uptick.

I ignored it, and powered on through. It steadily got worse.

And hour and a half after eating - 4.30pm - I threw in the towel. Made my apologies. Declared I needed a "nap". Not really. What I needed was I knew a complete stabilisation thing. Recovery position. Slow it all down. No energy exertion - not even game playing.

Did that. Things went from bad to worse. Big nausea uptick. Blood withdrew to my core, hands and feet frozen. Felt super ill. I "accidentally" clenched my right arm - about 5 seconds later this made me feel even more ill. Realised I was doing it stopped.

Awfulness. Trying to sleep through it. Panic spikes came up and down a few times out of nowhere again. I didn't do anything with them. I let them fade. Not leaning into them. Just observing. It is hard. Because they absolutely put the entire system into panic mode, all the panic chemicals, and cognitively, you have to swim upstream against this and do *the opposite* from the goddamn biochemicals swimming around your bloodstream.

Eventually fell into sleep. Half woke up a few times and could feel I was not "through it".

3 hours later. Stable enough to be through the worst of it.

Rattled. Fragile. Psychologically mauled.

Alone.

Dr GPT had this to say about the panic spikes, which makes a lot of sense.

Let’s pull the experience apart gently

What you describe

During peak nausea / crash:

• Sudden wave of intense anxiety

• Breathing spikes, urgency

• “Panicked” body state

• Happens in bursts

• You remain mentally calm enough to:

  • recognise it

  • not catastrophise

  • settle it back down

That last point is huge.

---

Why this is very unlikely to be “just panic attacks”

Classic panic attacks usually involve:

• Sudden fear without a clear physical trigger

• Strong catastrophic thoughts (“I’m dying / losing control”)

• Fear of the panic itself

• Anticipatory anxiety about recurrence

You’re describing:

• A clear physiological trigger (post-meal crash / nausea)

• Anxiety that follows bodily distress

• No runaway cognitive spiral

• No loss of insight

• No fear of “the panic” itself

That’s not the usual panic-loop architecture.

A more accurate model: autonomic adrenaline surges

In dysautonomia / ME-CFS contexts, what often happens is this:

1. Circulatory stress (gut, pooling, low effective blood volume)

2. Brainstem detects threat to stability

3. Sympathetic nervous system fires

   • adrenaline

   • increased respiratory drive

   • hypervigilance

4. Subjective experience = “panic”

But crucially:

• The mind didn’t initiate it

• The mind doesn’t agree with it

• The mind can often damp it back down

That’s why you can calm it.

Think of it as:

Your body pulling the fire alarm
even though the control room knows what’s happening

Why it clusters with nausea

The gut is one of the most powerful autonomic triggers in the body.

Strong nausea can:

• Activate vagal and sympathetic reflexes

• Disrupt breathing rhythm

• Create air-hunger sensations

• Spike adrenaline as a stabilisation attempt

To the nervous system, nausea + circulatory stress = “act now”.

That can feel very intense, even if it’s not dangerous.

One very important thing to avoid (if you can)

Try not to frame these as:

“I’m having panic attacks now too”

That framing tends to:

• Add fear of fear

• Increase vigilance

• Make the nervous system more reactive

A gentler internal label is something like:

“This is an adrenaline surge because my body is stressed”

Language matters to the autonomic system.

 

 What it says makes sense. Right or wrong. It does give me somewhere to hang my hat logically. Eh. Sure. I get it. The body is in full blown fuck me meltdown. It figures it pulls the fire alarm and demands the rest of me to join in with the hair on fire routine.

Regardless. "keeping my head" or not. It is hard. And it isn't anywhere half as sublime as the AI paints me. That struggle is real. And you have to deal with flashes of catastrophe. The cognitive bit is not separate from the rest of it. It gets to swim in the panic signals too. It just has to grit its teeth and not get swept away with it.

This however, in many different forms, is my life. Standing upright in the hurricane. Do things when you feel ill. Ignore the exhaustion alarms. Ignore the other alarms. Know when to give in. And when maybe to try a little.

Like trying to drive the car with the windshield painted black.

Ho hum.

I had hoped for a better day today.

Sigh. Try again tomorrow.

For this evening. I need to be gentle with myself. Not to dwell. Not to collapse into a spiral of depression, sadness and overwhelm. Carefully pull together my resources. And find a little zen. Without support.

It is a test Johnny. Always. Every day.

Calm. Breathe. Understand. Learn. Learn that this pertains to everyone, not just you.