My Panic Attack Solution

I’ve posted before a few years ago about my first anxiety attack, but since then I’ve noticed, my panic, anxiety and over all nervousness is just sucking me into a horrible hole. I’m barely 19, should be living my life to the fullest, having fun, doing things that make me happy. But my anxiety constantly pulls me back.
My number one fear? My father dying, It over comes me, day after day, I don’t know why, as far as I know hes healthy, works out, eats healthy, but something about it, just terrifies me. maybe its the fact that all these people are dying and they’re barely 50 (my fathers age)
maybe its because one of his friends is dying, and staying at our house for that duration
I don’t know, but its so overwhelming at times, I can’t take it. I just don’t know what I would do without him, without my number one fan. I let it take over mylife.
another embarassing thing? I went to a carnival (because I thought I loved rides….) I get on one with my boyfriend, and in the middle of it I start to freak out, "what if a screw comes lose and we fall head first to our deaths? the seat belts are gonna undo, we’re gonna fly off at the highest point!" its like come on, Im going to be 20 soon, the best years of my life, and I’m scared shitless.

please help

Well, seeing a psychologist helps a lot. All those fears are totally irrational, and I know what you’re talking about.

My psychologist is making me do an exercise that you could try, I feel it’s helping me right now.

Take a sheet of paper, make 4 columns.

In the first one, you will write the date of a negative thing that happened in the day, and the date.

In the second one, write the emotion you experienced( anxiety, fear, sadness… the negative ones)

In the third columns, write those immediate thoughts you had, the irrational ones, the first thoughts that comes to your mind like the screw one. Write them all down.

In the fourth one, try to find a rational thought about it, try to base your thoughts on real facts. For example, you can think about the screw, did this happened before? Do you know of any stories about that? If not, why are you worried? If you know of a story about something like that, then, your thought isn’t irrational because it actually happened already, so it’s not a bad thought, it’s not a distorted thought. You need to find rational thoughts to your irrational ones. You must believe in them at least a little bit. The more you find them, the more you’ll begin to have those rational thoughts replace the irrational ones.

This isn’t worth a psychologist though… but it can help for the moment.