After having my umpteenth panic attack in a supermarket the other day, I thought I would do my best to write down how my panic attacks feel. Primarily for the people close to me so they could have a little understanding but I have decided to post what I wrote here in the hope that someone else could possibly identify with something I wrote to stop me feeling quite so on my own!
You can feel it, building like an unstoppable snowball in the pit of your stomach. At first I just hope it's a dodgy stomach or indigestion, but my negative brain latches on to it, making me think and procrastinate on the slight unrest in my stomach. I start thinking about the feeling in my stomach uncontrollably, nothing can stop me prodding and poking it with my mind, swirling it ever faster. I cannot concentrate on anything else that I'm doing. I just sit and wallow in the feeling and how I know it will escalate into panic. I don't know why I am so certain that the panic will ensue. I suppose it's because it always has happened in the past. The only way I've found to stop it happening is to not let it get to that stage where I rest long enough for it to begin. The next step is my heart starting to beat harder and faster, adrenaline levels rise, my balls try and crawl up inside my body and my brain starts to fire out negative thoughts like a machine gun. I wouldn't call them hallucinations, but they are very strong visions (almost out of body) where I see myself being out of control with panic, crying, falling to the floor, upsetting and confusing everyone around me. I believe these visions are the future, that this will definitely happen and nothing I can do can stop it. A sweat starts to happen all over the body. It feels like your skin has another hot skin on the outside, like a bin bag, it moves over your body and never releases. Just round and round until you feel microwaved.
The negative thoughts keep coming like waves on rocks. I start projecting my feelings into the future. I will start a fight with feelings of never being able to go outside, being fired, not being able to afford the house, being a terrible boyfriend/son by not being able to keep sane when everyone is there to help, being ridiculed by friends and being taken away (or indeed going to the police to get them to lock me up) for being utterly useless. The visions are so real that at the time I have no doubt that all these worst case scenarios will come true. Every single one will happen.
At this point I cannot just sit still, I start pacing or moving around irrationally. Taking two steps towards something then recoiling as I start having negative thoughts about those actions. For instance thinking going outside will help, but that means going to the door. Head for the door, but what if people are in the garden, I don't want them to see me, but I can't stay here it's making me feel ill, but outside might make me feel worse. It's counter argument after counter argument. Utterly ridiculous and futile but all very real when I am panicking. I cannot make up my mind as there are at least two minds trying to kick each other in. I feel completely trapped by my brain. Also my vision is pretty blurred and chaotic.
The next step is the worst. The arguments in my head get so fast and so disturbing that my brain shuts down my body. I can no longer cope with the thoughts and feelings in my head and body. I fall to the floor, fully conscious but unable to stop what is happening. The sweat has completely covered my body and my heart feels like it's going to explode. I can see but the world is not like it should be. Like everything I see has peeled itself away from reality and now exists in a sort of fantasy world. I cannot move or speak for fear of the fear. The only thing to do is to wait for enough adrenaline to be created so that I can get up and get to safety.
At the very worst points of these panic attacks, I want the ground to open up and swallow me. It's odd, I don't think about killing myself at all, I don't want to give that impression, I just wish that I never existed in the first place. That my sorry state isn't a burden on myself or anyone else anymore. I feel so beaten up my myself, so unable to perform basic human tasks that I feel a failure of a human being. A waste of a man.
Well that was all very miserable, but maybe it shows why I am so petrified of it happening, why the choices I make in my life are what they are. I think that by restricting myself to routines that were successful in the way that they hadn't caused the panic attacks in the past makes me think that they won't happen if I just stick to the routine. If I eat the same cereal, if I go the same way to work, with the same people, do the same amount of work, in the same way, in the same place, go home the same way, do the same things when I get back then as it worked yesterday, it should work today without stressing me out.
Let me know if anyone can identify please
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