deegee,
You continue to question God without acknowledging his existence. I'm baffled really.
I have not responded to all your points because I am responding from my phone. I don't always have access to a computer, when I have time I will attempt to address all your questions.
As for the panic attacks, I will give you a better background on how they began and all that I went through.
I used to live in Florida in 2016, but got laid off. I wasn't making too much money doing Uber and Lyft, and at that time I was still a JW, physically in, mentally out. I wanted to get out of being a JW, but I didn't want to lose contact with my mom, so I was able to get work as a medical interpreter in Virginia through the witnesses. I moved end of January 2017.
I managed to get a cheap apartment and also started working at a bank to supplement my income. The problem was I couldn't get away from the witnesses because they had contact with my mom, and so I was forced to go out in field service and to the meetings with them.
This made me very depressed. I was finding no escape. I had suicidal thoughts. I would play video games till 4 or 5 in the morning and sometimes only get 1 or 2 hours of sleep.
One morning I woke up early after 5 hours of sleep. It was on a Monday. I couldn't go back to sleep and I felt bad. I started to prepare to go to the hospital, I was going to drive myself. Before I was fully dressed, I had my first full blown panic attack. I had never had one like that before, and so I called the ambulance. I thought I was having a heart attack. My heart rate must have gone up to about 150? I laid against the door of my apartment on the outside waiting for the ambulance. I felt as if I were about to faint. It was a terrible experience. They took my vitals and my blood pressure was a bit high, but not too bad. I requested I be taken to the hospital. Obviously they found nothing.
This was only the beginning. I went to the hospital many times after that. In one episode my blood pressure was 166 over 95, but still my heart was working just fine. I had to quit my job and my sister offered me to stay at her apartment in California. She flew to Virginia so that we could take my car driving to California. I drove for as long as I could before I got a panic attack and then she had to take over.
Once in California, I almost immediately went to a psychiatrist. They prescribed Xanax(anti-anxiety), citalopram(anti-depressant), and gabapentin (for muscle twitches at night). I took these medications faithfully.
A therapist started coming to the apartment. I did all the exercises he asked. Breathing techniques, grounding, decatastrophizing, yoga, guided meditation.
I went several times to the hospital in California as well. I even ended up in the psych ward a partial night. I had had a manic episode the night before where I fled at 2:45 am in my car (the first and only time such a spontaneous act I committed) They didn't find anything sufficiently wrong with me to merit staying, but I still had trouble sleeping and so they prescribed Seroquel (anti-bipolar/anti-psychotic drug).
I tried everything under the sun. Homeopathic medicine, healthy eating, exercising daily, you name it. I took a long break from religion and decided just to live my life as I pleased. In California I had that freedom.
Nothing worked my friend. I would still have panic attacks. Some weeks more frequent, some less, but it persisted.
