Was this a panic attack?

[Aspirant]

Hi all. Something very strange happened today. Not sure if it was a panic atack as I can't find the symptoms online.

First a bit of background. I am 34 and have suffered from depression/anxiety for as long as I can remember. I have also been recently diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder although my running diagnosis tends to change with each visit. I am not taking any medication. I have been there and done that and have lost any faith I might have had in the pharmaceutical industry.

I have a small history of substance abuse but have taken nothing for over a year. I started in Dec '02. I used marijuana, MDMA & magic mushrooms. With respect to the marijuana, I enjoyed the increase in awareness and it gave me a lot of confidence and "get up and go" It alleviated my depression very effectively but also made be very paranoid.

The MDMA was taked purely for the feeling it gives. For eight hours, all seemed right with the world. A nice respite from feeling down all the time.

The magic mushrooms I tried only a few times and found them to be too psychologically disturbing to be enjoyable.

I am under immense pressure at present. I am suffering from what part of me knows are delusional thoughts regarding my life and the other part convinced that they are in fact real. In short, I am very paranoid and it is difficult for me to go into too many details.

I left the office this afternoon to get some supplies. I got them from the shop with no problems whatsoever. On the way back I decided to stop off in a clothes shop and it was in here that every thing started becoming a little strange.

Basically my visual perception started going haywire. I couldn't look around my surroundings because everytime I moved my eyeballs, whatever I was looking at appeared to be "coming at me" I left the shop and the feeling subsided, so I continued walking around the indoor shopping centre. Then the feelings came back even more intensely. I literally could not focus - although my vision was not blurred, it was as if my eyeballs were racing fom one object to the next and everything seemed to be jumping out at me.

I left the centre and walked out into the street and I started feeling as if I was about to lose consciousness. I felt what were like pulses hitting my brain which were in tandem with the movements of my eyes. I want to call them electric shocks but they weren't that sharp. They felt like waves of energy but very powerful. I perceived everyone was walking towards me and watching me. I almost fell over but managed to find a seat and sat down for five minutes and felt terrible. I got up after 5 mins and felt very shaken and was very sweaty.

I also felt very paranoid as I walked into another shop and the shop assistant started to make conversation with me. I just wanted to get out although normally I would reciprocate.

I am pretty sure this was a panic atack. It was very scary but I can find nothing on the particular visual sympton and "energy pulses" that I suffered. Has anyone else had this experience?

Cheers

A

[Mikke]

If you are sure this was a panic attck, it propably was :)

According to the diagnostic systems used by therapists, at least 5 of the following sensations should be present during a panic attack to actually be diagnostic:

- Rapid og irregular heart beat
- Feeling of chocking or difficulties breathing
- Numbness or tingling, especially in hands or feet
- Narrowed vision
- Sweating
- Chills
- Nausea
- Dizziness
- Feelings og unreality
- Feelings of terror, fear of going insane or die

This is however subject to individual differences. Some people may experience most of the symptoms, others may only have a few or even one of them.

Let me tell you what happens with your vision during a panic attack. As your body charges for fight/flight, even your eyes prepares for action. Usually your vision becomes narrowed, as this is indeed functional. Your brain needs to exclude a lot of stimuli so that it can focus on the most important ones during danger, and this will lead to a narrowed vision. The process will certainly lead to difficulties focusing on things, as you actually for a brief moment have sort of a "tunnel-vision", and your eyes get hypersensitive to visual stimuli like light and movement. I have never felt pulsation during this experience, but everyone experience changes like this a bit differently.

Are you sure you are paranoid, and that's it not anxiety? Most paranoid people don't realize themselves that they are paranoid. You can get extremely paranoid suffering from for example post traumatis stress disorder, some phobias, obsessive compulsive disorders, and even panic disorder or generalized anxiety (all of them anxiety disorders).

[Anxious_gal]

I was watching an airport show where the guy was explaining that nervours people (possiable with illegal drugs on them) then to dart their eyes around, they dont rest on any object just consently look around and eyes darting so it migt just be a symtom of anxiety, somes times the area around you can seem to be closing in on you too.
i get pulsating sensations in my head n my head will also feel hot n i get a bunch of other sensations too.

[Jackson01]

Wow, that's a new one for me. Hopefully it was just bad timing. The best thing for you too do is try again, do something to get your mind off of it. I'm sure you'll think of something. If this Does Begin to become a common occurance See a Psych. It could be more than just "Bad Luck"
You best option is to take a chance, be possitive, and Have Fun!!!

[MyNameIsntRich]

Kinda sounds like an anxiety attack to a tee.... Of course if its a first time then go get checked out but i wouldnt worry too much. Your drug history isnt too deep so i doubt its anything to do with that but better safe then sorry as always. I would write it off to anxiety though. It has a bad habbit of cloaking itself with new symptoms nad feelings from time to time.

[ana]

It sounds like a panic attack to me as well. I experinced all sorts of symptoms in these past 7 years, they used to drive me crazy because as soon as I got used to one symptom, another one would show up.
The feeling you're describing (things "coming at you") sounds very similar to what I used to feel while experiencing claustrophobia and/or agarophobia... i used to feel as if objects around me were either too close to me or too far away from me (and each other).

[Aspirant]

Thanks guys, went to the shopping centre again today and was fine. Reason I questioned whether it was a panic attack is that I really didnt feel anxious and the feeling was more physical than psychological although I guess the distinction can become blurred. Only started to feel really anxious once the vision was really screwed up and I thought I was going to lose consciousness!

[ana]

I used to experience all sorts of symptoms and not feel anxious or panicky at all! But the thing is, anxiety is complicated, various symptoms that we sometimes interpret as a sign of a physical illness are really anxiety symptoms, nothing more...

Glad you're feeling better! xxxxx