Can your trace back to when your Panic Attacks Started

[xtremx]

Just wondering can you Trace back to a date or event that you believe was the rott cause for your Anxiety/Panic Attacks.

I can trace back to a few times in my life that my problams started but one day stands out more that others.

I had been out for a drink at the beginning of february 2011 and was chatting to a few people (about drink spiking of all things alot of it had been happening in my local) I must admit I had never met before anyway I went toilet and returned and the people I was chatting to had left so I continued having my drink but about 10 mins later I started to feel really weird/wired spaced out sweating and really drunk only had half a pint really strange.

Anyway made it home was like I was drunk. So sleeped alot of that day.
But next day my wife had to go hospital so it was a early start for me out of bed 6am but I felt really bad.

My left side of my body was like it was still alseep felt heavy and my head was all over the place felt (felf really hungover) chest pain felt like a heavey weight on my chest and shoulder and arm pain and felt queasy , I was sweating and just wanted to do was sleep (hard to do when looking after a 2 year old).

Well felt like this for about 3-4 hours then the wife returned and I managed some lunch and then this wife popped upstairs to have a kip but then all off a sudden I started to feel really ill again chest pains (feeling really heavy in the chest) running down my arm could hardly stand up felt really sick and was about to pass out, So was able to call to the wife and she phoned my doctor who in turn phoned 999 and I was rushed into hospital in the amburlance my BP was 230/156 and pulse rate of around 160 (but the ecg was not reading anything abnormal).

Anyway stayed in hospital for 8 hours had all the tests done several ecg's all Fine, Chest x-ray Fine, Blood enzyme studie done That showed no damage to the heart.

So was discharged from the a&e at 10pm and that was that.

My doctors put it down to a major Panic Attack, But that still haunts me to this day, I have been rushed back into hopital once more and it was the same outcome, All tests ok. Have had two stress treadmill tests They were ok. I did ask months after if my drink may of been spiked but I was told it would not have had a lasting effect like that ie: causing a Panic Disorder.

But that is were I can trace it all back too, their have been things that have happened up until that day which could have had a factor in it all but that was the first time anyone have every put it down to Panic Attacks.

Does anyone have any ideas how I can use this to my advantage to combat what is happening to me and hopefull helps other at the same time.

I know This is a question we are all looking to be answered ie: what was or is the trigger

It is just that it feels like I am running out of ideas to explain it all

[BobbyDog]

My first panic attack happened when I was 11 years old. I had gone on a pot holing trip with the school. We had to slide through a really narrow crevice one by one, sliding along on my stomach, using my arms and legs to inch my way forward, I got half way through and started to hyperventilate. The teacher would not let me turn back because there had to be a certain number of tutors per child. I was absolutely terrified.

To my knowledge the second one was when I was 17, the time of the cold war with Russia. I was convinced that the USSR was going to bomb England. There was a programme on the TV about it. I just lost the plot and had a panic attack.

Not another one then until I was 30, I had a "breakdown", a slippery slope from then on.

[Emma86]

My first panic attack was when I was 15, a few months after I had lost my mum suddenly. I had no idea what was happening to me, I had a few months off school and many trips to the doctors. Thats when I started propranolol.
I was actually fine then until 4 years ago when my dog died, had him in my life for 14 years and again I took that hard. This time around I havent been the same since. Anxiety and panic did get better until 4 months ago and now I'm here again and trying to pick myself up again but its not working :(

[debbsi]

My first one was in December 2006, that year I had a bit of a health scare - although I didnt worry about it anywhere near as much as I would these days. Then I got rejected for a job twice, this resulted in depression setting in. Then out of the blue I had a panic attack and ended up in A&E, it all went downhill from then really, health worry after health worry leading to worry about lots more things. Got reffered for CBT, which seemed to help, this lasted a couple of years then started worrying again, more CBT this helped a lot more but the health anxiety remains, mainly around breast cancer.

Although I can trace this back to an A&E attendance and what I consider a full blown panic attack. I have always been an anxious person since a child and regularly couldnt face school because i felt sick - were these panic attacks? or just anxiety about school - shame the solution back then was for the headmaster to lock me in his office so I couldnt run home!!!! No wonder I ended up like this :(

I stopped having panic attacks after reading about them - mainly on this website :D

I am now waiting for a course of mindfulness cbt, and have just started taking magnesium, vit b complex and omega 3. Hopefully this will help.

[LadyAnne]

I've always been anxious, even as a child. I remember thinking I was going to die in my sleep all the time. However, I didn't have my first full blown panic attack until I was 17 back in December 2006. My friend had spent the night at my house and we were trying to see how late we could stay up and so we popped some caffeine pills (I have never regretted anything as much as I regret ever taking those) and the next morning, I drove her back to her house. It was a few days before Christmas Eve, it was snowing a bit, and I had been so lazy, I drove her back in my pajamas and didn't bother with a purse or a cell phone. On the way back to my house, I just had the most unreal sensations of being outside of my body, I thought I was going crazy. I pulled over and my heart was beating so fast, I thought I was having a heart attack and I didn't have my phone, so I couldn't call for an ambulance. I don't know how I managed, but I got home safely, hands shaking all the way.

What strikes me the most is how I kept that episode a secret from everyone assuming that I was a nut case and that it would never happen again. Unfortunately, it did...

But yeah, that moment will be forever etched in my mind.

[NinjaAnxiety]

I have also always been an anxious child. Full of worry. I don't remember much from my childhood in the panic attack sense, but I do remember other symptoms of anxiety. My life had alot of ups and downs, bullying, neglect, abuse, patents separating screwed me up a bit, my dad turning into an abusive alcoholic didn't help much. In 1999 I was going through alot, I was 13. I was at school, grade seven, no friends hanging with my big sister as I was lonely and she was nice and suddenly a group of kids started to pick on me, to the point they threw rubbish and fruit at me. There were alot of kids, seemed the whole school was apart of this or was atleast watching. I remember kids pointing and laughing at me, saying " look at the freak shaking!" As abuse was being screamed at me and I was shaking, twitching, feeling a complete mess. Although I've seemed to always suffer anxiety I've always stuck up for myself, hasn't seemed to get me far. Anyways, yeah. I guess that was my first panic attack. That I can remember.


I became so paranoid after 1999 I eventually left my home town and wanted to change my name so no one would find me. But that's a long sad story that ill relive another day (other then subconsciously )

life goes on.

[Annie0904]

I think the first really anxious moment was my first day at school at the age of 4. I had never been away from home before and was suddenly left in this room with a load of children I didn't know and a strange woman who ended up locking the door so we couldn't escape and then sitting me on her knee while I was screaming and shouting that I wanted to go home! My first real panic attack was during an English lesson in secondary school.