Panic attack help through text message

This actually happened to me recently. My friend left a group thing early, and I texted her a littlebit after to see if she was ok. She said she was in her car having a panic attack. I couldn't get to her, so it was just through text, so it was short texts.I keep just talking to her and I told her how I manage my panic attacks. She said she would try what I told her, and then texted back a several minuteslater. She said she was better, good to drive,and thank you. I was quite relieved to see that she was texting like normal. I just tried to stay the friend like I was as if I was in person with her.

Hi! It's awesome that you are wanting to help your friends calm down through a panic attack!

Grounding is the application of a technique to center yourself in the physical reality around you instead of the irrational panic and dread you are experiencing. Grounding can come in a lot of ways. Here is a good PDF to read so you can maybe relay some of this information the next time you are faced with this situation!

https://www.e-tmf.org/downloads/Grounding_Techniques.pdf

Distraction is another technique people can use to help draw the focus away from the panic, so some people find it beneficial to receive several short text messages in a short time frame so they are forced to step away from their emotions to read and decipher each text.

Eme hit it on the head. Ask them to breathe and focus on their current surroundings, an "in the moment" observation and ensure they know that they are allowed to take time to wind down. There is no rush. Just close your eyes and breathe. I know it seems quite odd to advise someone to close their eyes while you are texting, but I have had members do this, close eyes, breathe, slow down all thoughts, heart rate, etc..they are gone for up to 5 minutes..then they come back and say "Wow, all better now. That worked!"

Good luck!

Hiya; it's very lovely that you want to help your friends when they experience a panic attack. A lot of the times, I find that getting someone to focus on their breathing can be very helpful. Trying to avert their attention to slowing down their breathing by taking deep breaths is great.

It's also really helpful on some ocassions to distract them by asking them about unrelated topics such as what they've done that day, what they plan on doing etc.

My friends often try to get me to focus on physical components and aspects in my surroundings. So they'll ask me to describe what I can see, what certain objects feel like and what stands out to me.

I hope this helps :)