Hi Mr. Ritz,

That sounds pretty accurate.

Okay… so you’re aware that in your childhood you were not allowed to show emotions?

My wife on the other hand will show the emotions right away, where I don’t. I should feel it at the time, but I don’t. I wasn’t sad, I was surprised but glad.

I guess you did feel sadness (or fear, or anger) as a child, but have learned not to feel it, because that was safer?

Unlike me, he’s healthy, active, does not have high cholesterol or blood pressure and is not overweight.

Maybe that’s the scary part? It could happen to anyone anytime regardless of taking precautions?

Well, it can happen to anyone, however I believe there are still reasons. They don’t always have to be physical, such as high cholesterol, but there can be psychological reasons too, such as stress. And I believe that suppressing emotions can actually contribute to stress and cardiovascular problems… Anyway, I don’t think it’s that random. But that’s just my opinion, I tend to believe in the mind-body connection and a holistic view of disease…

Hi Mr. Ritz,

That also should be true. This friend is one of the most relaxed mellow guys I know, but his wife is pretty intense. He may suppress some anger, but I’ve never seen him let it out.

Yes, it could be: if the guy is mellow and never stands up to his intense (probably angry, criticizing?) wife, it is likely that he has a lot of suppressed anger, which he isn’t allow to show. Maybe not even to himself. But the anger is building up and can cause high blood pressure, for example. Although you say he doesn’t have high blood pressure either, so that’s kind of curious.

In any case, I think it helps if we try to deal with those emotional blockages and let our emotions “flow” (best in therapy), because it might help prevent some of the physical symptoms too.

Hi Mr. Ritz,

So I’m wondering how to deal with this to avoid another incident?
If I’m not feeling any strong emotions when I hear the news, what am I supposed to do to avoid the anxiety later?

Well, you said that this suggestion of mine sounds pretty accurate:

But in any case, it seems like something is triggered – something that is beyond your conscious awareness. One possibility why things are beyond our conscious awareness is that they were not allowed to be expressed, typically in our childhood (say we weren’t allowed to cry or show weakness), and so we have suppressed them.

So if you have problems expressing emotions (let’s say fear), and it comes out indirectly, in form of an anxiety attack, then I guess you’d need to get in touch with that fear. It most probably stems from your childhood, so I think you’d need to work on some of your childhood memories (those that were hurtful) and process what happened to you.

You mentioned you’ll start seeing a new psychiatrist. Is she also offering counseling/psychotherapy? Because I guess that’s what you’d need if you want to address childhood issues.

Hi Mr. Ritz,

I am unsure but it said visits were 60-90 minutes. Any other Psy I have dealt with was 15-20 min.

60-90 min is the usual appointment duration for psychotherapy. So that’s good, you’ll have an opportunity to talk about issues in more detail.

Wishing you luck! Let me know how it went, if you’d like to.