Panic in the middle of the night

[Mistraal]

I wake up in a panic. It last for hours. There is nothing to be afraid of, I know that. It's just there when I wake up. Sometimes it starts during the morning hours, then it gets bad, ruins my whole day. :scared15:

[xBettyBoopx]

Hi Mistraal

Panic attacks are hard to deal with, aren't they? They come and go and make us feel bad and shaky which can last for a long time.

I don't know why but sometimes our adrenaline system is more switched on than other times. Like at specific times of day. For you it is the mornings for others the mornings are fine it's the evenings that are bad. Regardless of when we get them or why, we have to ride them out, remembering that they cannot harm us.

I wake up a lot of mornings with a start and that will start my heart beating fast and off I go into panic mode. I know that sometimes I've had a bad dream which sets it off but otherwise I have no idea. Riding the panic attack out is all well and good but it leaves you shattered, we have to do it, we don't have a choice :weep:

[ana]

I've woken up in the middle of a panic attack many, many times. It's awful and disorienting, but it helps if you try and wake up fully, maybe go to the bathroom to wash your face or pace around, stretch and take some deep breaths before going back to sleep. For me, evenings are when I feel most anxious, but it's different with everyone, and the most important thing is to keep trying to come up with ways to help yourself and lower your anxiety levels.

[GingerFish]

Some of the worst panic attacks I have ever had have been ones that woke me up during the night. Those ones really do feel never ending. My heart pounds, I have a horrible doom sensation, I can't stand up, I'm shaking and I have that horrible half asleep dream like feeling on top of it. When I get one like that during the night, which is rare nowadays but used to happen a lot, I wouldn't wake my bf up most of the time, I would go to the bathroom and just sit on the toilet and try to focus on my breathing and if I felt like I couldn't sit still then I would walk up and down the flat and then sit in front of the window or fan and sometimes I would feel better within 5 mins and other times I still didn't feel right after an hour. When I felt ready to go back into bed, I would put on a funny tv show on my phone and listen to that on my headphones and use that to distract me and relax me into going back to sleep. I would still feel a bit rough after it in the morning too sometimes.

[Lisssa]

It is a mal function in your fight or flight response. Any stimulus your brain feels is over loading will trigger the adrenaline rush. So Yes can wake you too. There is a person who runs a site called anxiety guru. Its fantastic and maybe can help you tons.

[Mistraal]

I don't know why I can't just accept that I'm going to wake up around 4 am. There is no reason for me to panic. I almost always go right back to sleep and if I don't I can always go back to bed, I do have the whole day to sleep if I need to. And I have done that on many occasions.

I think it goes back to when I was very young, the way my mum used to wake me up in the morning. She'd come into my room, rip the blankets off of me and open the window shades up and start yelling at me to get up. I still feel that panic. She'd continue yelling at me, no breakfast, even while I was on the toilet TRYING to go, she wouldn't let me. I remember one time I was having a particularly difficult time going and it was half in half out and she made me get off the toilet like that. THAT was child abuse. I had to work the thing back up inside of myself, it was painful but I was more afraid of her than the pain I was experiencing. I never told her what she was doing to me. :weep: