JPF
01-02-05, 18:58
Hi all,
I'm a new guy to this forum - although I've been lurking for a week or two I've only just registered here.
A bit about me and what's been going on: I'm 33 and have just started with panic attacks/anxiety. It's all quite recent, I was experiencing one of my periodic bouts of insomnia, watching MTV (Fatboy Slim, Weapon of Choice, actually) and as Christopher Walken was dancing across the screen at about 2 a.m. I was suddenly seized by the strangest sensation I'd ever had. It was like my heart had stopped and then suddenly went into overdrive.. it felt like my chest and throat would explode and a terrible sense of doom, even vertigo-like feelings overwhelemed me. I was convinced I was having a heart attack. I ended-up on my hands and knees and was literally waiting for the blackness to overwhelm me but, of course, it didn't and as it subsided I suddenly thought - that might have been a panic attack.
So I've been researching them ever since, which is how I came to be here. This happened to me in the first week of January 05. I don't think I've had a full-blown one before but I think I've been getting mini ones at night since about 1992. I used to wake-up with a feeling like my heart was dropping through my body. Very weird! Incidentally, I had my heart checked-out back in the mid 90s as they thought I had a murmur but it turned out I had a noisy, overly efficient ticker.. stupidly, I remember thinking when I was having my 'heart attack' what a bunch of quacks those doctors must have been :)
I'm sure the cause of my panic attack was stress. I'd been ill over Christmas, I was working to deadline for postgraduate study, I'd had a promotion at work (more responsibility and more to learn) and had also split up with my girlfriend just before my birthday (New Year's Eve). I think the attack was a reaction to a lot of accumulated tension - reading other people's stories and experiences I see I've had a lot of the symptoms of anxiety before, without actually realising it..
I'm doing better, mainly through reading posts on this forum, taking Bach's remedies and trying actively to make myself stop thinking the negative thoughts which keep coming at me. Recently, it's been depersonalisation that's been troubling me, and morbid/panicked thoughts about dying/the meaning of life/existence and stuff like that.. Sounds rather weird and if I'd read this 6 months ago I'd have shaken my head at myself! Now I know it's just my body behaving in a certain way and that helps an awful lot - seeing other people struggling very bravely with their own problems has also inspired me a lot. So thanks everyone! :)
It's not easy but I'm trying to fight back and I won't give up until I beat it and get back to how I was feeling before this happened to me.
So hello and good luck to everyone here.
Cheers
J
I'm a new guy to this forum - although I've been lurking for a week or two I've only just registered here.
A bit about me and what's been going on: I'm 33 and have just started with panic attacks/anxiety. It's all quite recent, I was experiencing one of my periodic bouts of insomnia, watching MTV (Fatboy Slim, Weapon of Choice, actually) and as Christopher Walken was dancing across the screen at about 2 a.m. I was suddenly seized by the strangest sensation I'd ever had. It was like my heart had stopped and then suddenly went into overdrive.. it felt like my chest and throat would explode and a terrible sense of doom, even vertigo-like feelings overwhelemed me. I was convinced I was having a heart attack. I ended-up on my hands and knees and was literally waiting for the blackness to overwhelm me but, of course, it didn't and as it subsided I suddenly thought - that might have been a panic attack.
So I've been researching them ever since, which is how I came to be here. This happened to me in the first week of January 05. I don't think I've had a full-blown one before but I think I've been getting mini ones at night since about 1992. I used to wake-up with a feeling like my heart was dropping through my body. Very weird! Incidentally, I had my heart checked-out back in the mid 90s as they thought I had a murmur but it turned out I had a noisy, overly efficient ticker.. stupidly, I remember thinking when I was having my 'heart attack' what a bunch of quacks those doctors must have been :)
I'm sure the cause of my panic attack was stress. I'd been ill over Christmas, I was working to deadline for postgraduate study, I'd had a promotion at work (more responsibility and more to learn) and had also split up with my girlfriend just before my birthday (New Year's Eve). I think the attack was a reaction to a lot of accumulated tension - reading other people's stories and experiences I see I've had a lot of the symptoms of anxiety before, without actually realising it..
I'm doing better, mainly through reading posts on this forum, taking Bach's remedies and trying actively to make myself stop thinking the negative thoughts which keep coming at me. Recently, it's been depersonalisation that's been troubling me, and morbid/panicked thoughts about dying/the meaning of life/existence and stuff like that.. Sounds rather weird and if I'd read this 6 months ago I'd have shaken my head at myself! Now I know it's just my body behaving in a certain way and that helps an awful lot - seeing other people struggling very bravely with their own problems has also inspired me a lot. So thanks everyone! :)
It's not easy but I'm trying to fight back and I won't give up until I beat it and get back to how I was feeling before this happened to me.
So hello and good luck to everyone here.
Cheers
J