Describe your first panic attack

[nikita]

and when was it? mine was 18yrs ago. I had just heard that my grandfather was in a car accident but was ok however the car was a right off. I remember feeling guilty for worrying how he was gonna take me to airport the next day as i was going to live in germany. I was ironing and suddenly felt a funny fluttering in my chest and felt exhausted all of a sudden. I lay down on the bed and just felt really strange. then i got unbelievable palpitations. i could hear my heartbeat so loud, and it was pulsing in my throat. I completely panicked and thought i was having a heart attack and went to my neighbours who got the doctor ( i was home alone at the time). the doctor checked my bp and listened to my heart - my palps had calmed down a lot by the time he came. he said it was nerves about going to germany and hearing about accident and prescribed xanax. that was the first of many. :( and the most frightening day ever.

[gel]

I have not had one in a long time and years ago I would avoid even reading things on this subject through fear of bringing on a attack by thinking about the symptoms too much , these days I deal with them much better and only get about 12 a year , rather than 12 a day. My first panic attack was so long ago and much more unpleasant than they are now.
So here is one of the very worse ones and what I felt and how I felt when they hit me.
The first thing was shortness of breath ( not knowing I was hyperventilating back then ) this was followed almost immediately by a tightening of the throat ( more physiologically thinking it so ) but I felt like s**t.
This was followed up with a feeling of walking on cotton wool and feeling dizzy and disoriented.
( terrible feeling like that in public )
So my sensations were.
Breathlessness.
Dizzy.
Sweating. ( hands legs and face )
Disorientation.
And I need to run away ( flight or fight ) yet try to remain calm as it was in public ( just trying to act that you are feeling normal when you feel like the above only makes me feel worse )
I have had countless panic attacks , and I still get them but I deal with them in a completely different way these days.
The things that bring on panic changes from person to person but my biggest trigger for myself is travelling car or train its all the same. Panic is never far away for me and that’s before I even get in the car or train. :wacko:


This post has been automatically edited by the NMP post filter

[The Fool]

uuuuh lets see i was 10 at the time and i was in this weird bus thing where you learn about the human body and stuff anway it was ery small and there were like 30 kids in this room.i took a breath in and couldnt breath out again i started to panic and left the bus aka my first panic ever

[lesleya]

I was 17 and on my way home from college waiting for my bus and for no apparent reason this horrible cold feeling came over me, i felt like i couldnt breathe, i was shaking like a leaf, sweating..then the bus turned up and i was terrified at the thought of getting on it with all those people. I still dont know how i got home that night because i was in a right state. I think that was the start of my agoraphobia too as i was terrified of it happening again while i was out.

[nikita]

how do you deal with the attacks?

[Tom_M]

When I was nineteen, I always thought what started my problems off was a panic attack. But now that I've learnt a lot about emotional problems, I now know that it was actually a depression attack - if that's the correct description for it. Of course the panic attacks came later, but initially it was depression that started me off.

Tom

[chriscml]

i was at work at one day and i got a realy bad fear wat cae over me then i started to panic n then i was aloud home cause i was finding hard 2 breath. #5 (http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/showpost.php?p=371540&postcount=5) http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/images/buttons/reputation.gif (http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/reputation.php?p=371540) vbrep_register("371540") http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/images/buttons/report.gif (http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/report.php?p=371540)
http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/images/statusicon/post_old.gif 10-08-08, 19:18
nikita (http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/member.php?u=9127) u want to no how u deal with an attack think of somet else than ur symtoms n just let it go

[Anxious_gal]

I had bad anxiety for years before i had a panic attack, I just felth that someting was really really wrong with me, I tried telling mu mum who overreacted which made me worse, then i got given out to........... I hate people seeing me panic it makes me feel stupid.

[ana]

I was 14 when I had my first panic attack. I was in a car with my parents when I suddenly started feeling very strange. I felt as if I'm going crazy and couldn't feel my limbs at all. My heart was racing and I started screaming. I was experiencing depersonalization and it was so horribly scary :weep: .... Most of the period of 5 years when I was at my worst, I used to experience depersonalization. Also, unwanted thoughts used to drive me crazy. I feel more or less ok now, but I'm not yet completely cured.

Take care
xxxxxxxxxx

[sunnydays]

My first one was six years ago when I had been doing the garden one Sunday morning. I came back in feeling shaky and faint. I then developed shortness of breath and felt sure it was the beginning of a heart attack. I lay down on the bed as I was so dizzy. I couldn't reach the telephone to ring for help and so I just started crying. Gradually the feelings wore off but I was left shocked and shaking.

The next day I went to the doctors, was examined and told that it was a panic attack. I was put on Citalopram and have been on them since. That panic attack was the first of many and was 'mild' in comparison with the ones I've suffered lately.

love
Sunny

[never2late]

I was in my early 20's (I'm 52 now). I was on lunch break, walking through the center of town. It hit me totally out of the blue, and it was fast. I went from being "normal" to feeling as if I had gone insane. I thought I was dying. I passed the side of a restaurant and was going to ask the kitchen help to call an ambulance, but for some reason I didn't think that it was "real" (that I was really dying or going to die) -- so I just kept on walking. In a few minutes it was over.

I continued to have a few per year for several years. Then I went for what could be decades without one.

Then, at age 48, I had just completed an dead-lift (weight lifting), and one came over me again. The combination of the heart racing from the deadlift, with the added heart racing of the panic attack was incredible. But, I knew what it was and just rode it out.

I now get them a few times a year again. My blood pressure goes really high when I have one now, so I have to be careful. The last one (two weeks ago) sent me to hospital with a blood pressure of 223/116. However, it was back down within a short time -- but its still within the range of a stroke (or so they say).

[JBaus]

My first panic attack was 2 days before my 18th birthday, which was 3 mnths ago now. I went from peacefully asleep to bolt upright, sweating, the whole room going almost like tunnel vision. My thoughts began racing as i tried to decipher what was wrong...
I first thought something drastically was wrong like i had a stroke, then i thought no that cant be it im going insane, and then i decided to go downstairs and write in the symptoms on the computer.
When it came up with panic attacks i assure you no relief came to me haha i was up for the next two days with panic attacks and have continued to have them daily for hours upon end.
They came out of the blue and im not even an anxious person.
Now i am severly desensitised to them, i never feel panicky or anxious, just intense discomfort.
I think im lucky, because many people continue to feel panicked and anxious.
I even go out to parties, shops, the movies... im not letting these *******s hold me back!!!

[Mikke]

It was 13 yeras ago.
I was watching the tv show ER with my girlfriend, and suddenly felt I was chocking. Started hyperventilating, and fainted.
I was picked up by and ambulance and was hooked up to different monitors in the hospital for 24 hours. Of course, there was nothing physically wrong with me :blush:

[JessicaTheGnome]

My very first panic attack lasted four days. It began a year ago, actually, and it came out of nowhere. I had been dealing with my grandmother's death and other things that were causing me stress, but I felt palpitations in my heart and I just snapped. I paced around my room from about 12:30 am till the sun rose, when I finally fell asleep. When I woke up, I panicked again, though I tried to seem normal. I had chest tightness, shortness of breath, palpitations, dizziness, and a distinct fear to leave my house. I've never had to go home from a friends house while staying the night but during the four days of panicking I couldn't stay the night anywhere. Mostly it was because I had no idea what was going on, and it was probably more than one panic attack strung together. I was afraid to go to the hospital and scared that I was going to die. Four days later I told my parents and they took me to the doctors, who told me it was a panic attack and gave me medicine. I've had them at random times (probably triggered by stress) during the nighttime ever since. Usually one every few months or so. I hate them with a passion. :(

[jesse08]

Asking this question has taken me back seven years and really opened up some stuff for me which I can't share online. I was coming home in the evening. I saw "something/someone" which triggered it. It was the first time I recall my breathing "going" and feeling terrified.
How I deal with PAs now is very different because I know what to do (most of the time) when they happen. What triggers them now is also very different; general stress mainly, like Post Offices, shops.
My main symptoms are hyperventilating, dizziness and jelly like legs.

[Dreamer029]

Mine was MUCH like JessicaTheGnome's. It lasted about 4-5 days and it came completely out of the blue. I had a really stressful curriculum and it was around my period actually. I was on OCP's and I don't think the hormones helped the situation at all. The panic attacks came one after another and I didn't get much relief from them. I just tried to work through it and went home for the weekend, but about 6 mo. later it happened again so I got on medication and now only get them once in awhile.

[trampslikeus]

it was about a year and a half ago, which doesn't seem as long as it feels.
i'd watched a show about a women who'd died after going into hospital and contracting some awful bug, and was lying in my dad's room because mine was in the process of being decorated, when i started feeling just so so ill. first it was my head, then my chest, then feeling sick etc etc, before i got the worst dread that i'd caught what she had and was about to die, utterly convinced actually, like you'll understand. the hyperventilation followed, then the crying and shaking, i've never been so scared.
luckily my dad was there to calm me down and look things up on the internet, he found a list of symptoms for pa's, read them aloud and that helped me to cool off a little, as did dylan moran, who turned my nervous energy into giggles.

[livingthedream]

I was 16, i have no idea what set it on, but i started feeling really ill. I thought i was having a reaction to something. I felt like i had something stuck in my throat and couldnt move it. In the end i went down to my mum who knew what it was because she had had them. But i was so scared, i thought i was going to die, i was shaking all over and i couldnt breath properly.
I managed to breath into cupped hands and it starting dieing off.

[LeeBee]

It was about 3 years ago just before Xmas. I was at work and I'd rushed back into the office after lunch. For a few weeks beforehand I'd become aware of ectopic heartbeats (I didn't know that's what they were then) in bed every night. I'd become convinced that I had a heart problem just like my grandmother, who'd died not long before of a heart attack. It turned out that she'd had a congenitally leaky heart valve, undiagnosed all her life (she was in her eighties when she died, pretty good going, but I didn't think about that of course!)

After drinking three cups of coffee in the course of the day (never again), I became aware of ectopic beats at work, which then developed into palpitations. I couldn't concentrate and became increasingly convinced I was having heart problems. My breath became shorter and I started to sweat, feel weak, dizzy, tight in the chest. Someone asked me if I was OK and that was it - the panic attack hit and I thought I was going to faint. My heart was pounding in my chest as though I was running for my life. I asked someone to call me an ambulance because I thought I was going to die.

Off to the hospital where they did an ECG - all normal. The doctor told me not to drink so much coffee and sent me home. So embarrassed at work the next day in front of my concerned and bemused colleagues.

I've only ever had a couple more full-blown panic attacks since then and now that I know what they are I can deal with them (and I have my Ativan to hand :)). Anyone who has them frequently has my absolute sympathy - they are horrible. Anyone who has never had one can't really imagine what they are like.

[purplehaze]

http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/image.php?u=4705&dateline=1196700514&type=profilehttp://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/image.php?u=4705&dateline=1196700514&type=profilehttp://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/image.php?u=4705&dateline=1196700514&type=profilehttp://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/image.php?u=4705&dateline=1196700514&type=profilehttp://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/image.php?u=4705&dateline=1196700514&type=profile



WELLthis how it felt

[northern_sky]

Mine was last April (07) I literally thought I was dying. It was a normal Sunday after a Saturday when I had drunk loads of alcohol.

I had chest pains, dizziness, couldn't feel my legs, couldn't 'breathe' my mouth was completely dry, all in all I was convinced I was dying.

My family called an ambulance by the time it came I felt a bit better but after I had been examined (very high blood pressure but heart ok) and it went I had another one. I wanted to call another ambulance but my family members told me to go to bed I think they were as or more exhausted than me.

For months later I had them regularly but I just stayed in bed for most of the time. Every time I went to the Doctors I had a mini one thinking it was ironic I was having a heart attack in the Doctors surgery.

After I got put on Propranolol (it took a while as I was convinced I had asthma and the tablets would make me more breathless!) I felt better but I still have the heart feelings (I have 'heartburn' now) and they still worry me.

[Alisonj]

I was sitting in my math class after being gone for a week because my dad ha died of a heart attack. I suddenly felt light headed and weak and I raised my hand to ask to go to the washroom. The teacher said no I could wait. So my heart started beating faster and harder and I starting sweating bad. I had to get out of that room. I stood up and ran to the washroom. I had to sit with my head between my legs and when I felt some what better called my mom and said something was very wrong and I needed her to come and take my to the hospital. They told me that I was ok and maybe just catching a bug. The next time I was in the classroom it happened again. Then it started in other classes. Then I would have one as soon as I walked into the school. I ended up dropping out. That was in 1991 and I still suffer today.

[jessicamercedes]

Well I thought my fist one was in college, I was 19 and it was the day after my sorority date party, I got out of the shower in my dorm and this wave of fear rushed over me, I felt dizzy and was positive something awful was about to happen. Called my boyfriend and asked him to drive me back to my parents in Dallas (4hrs away).

While at my parents I went to the doc and she said I had a panic attack.

Then while talking to my parents, I remebered a time that I was visiting a friend in another state (I was 13) and I passed out at the pool. Was taken by ambulance to the hospital. I was dehydrated and hadn't eaten which is why I fainted. The next evening my friend and I went to the movies and I flipped out thinking that I was going to faint again so we left the movies before they even started. Then I realized I had a panic attack way back then.

[Patrick S]

The more I read through this website the more I realise that when I thought I had my first panic attack, was probably long after when I had my first one. When I think back, there was one time I had been on a school trip into the city centre. I was 12 I think. I was due to go out bowling with a friend and his family later on in the evening. Sitting on top of my bunk beds I suddenly felt anxious, this was followed by a dizzy spell and a need to curl up because of lethargy. At that point my throat started to close up and I found it hard to swallow. I thought I was dying, so i closed my eyes and breathed slowly. I felt that if I died I would do so in my sleep. An hour later I woke up with my Mum saying my friend and his family were on their way. I was surprised to be in the land of the living. We went bowling and it must have distracted me enough because I didn' t think about it til today.
Still to this day, if I get anxious I find sleeping relieves the stress.

[Pansy]

I have always thought mine started in my late teens. After thinking hard I think my first attack was on a school trip when I was about 14. We were on a coach going somewhere. When we arrived there was a delay in us getting of the bus, we were supposed to sit and wait on the bus for a while. All of a sudden my heart began racing, I felt sweaty and sick, then I felt like I just had to get off, the fear of being trapped set in. I was in a terrible state.

For while after that I was OK.

Then I got pregnant and married (in that order!). We lived at home with my parents for a year and I was ok. Then we found a house of our own about 20 miles away. My husband worked shifts and so I was alone with a 1 year old, often all night. Didn't know anyone nearby. I was out shopping one day and all of a sudden.........WHAM!! My heart rate soared, I felt faint, wobbly legs, sweaty.....................and the fear that got hold of me.......OMG! I truly believed I was going to die. A lady in the Post Office walked me home, and as soon as I got there I felt safe. Of course, then I started making excuses not to go out and the agrophobia set in. This carried on for a few years, however I did managed to have another baby.

That was 35 years ago..............we were still in the 'Pull yourself together' era'. There was little or no help from anywhere. Eventually I did find some books which helped.

I did become 'normal' again for quite a few years, and led a relatively good life.

Now in my fifties it's back...................with a vengeance. I'm trying to work out why. I do know that I am in a place (work and homelife) that I don't want to be in. At the present it is not practical to get out of either, and I think this could be part of the problem.

I am doing my best to work my way out of this.................the agrophobia has gone, but in it's place is Health Anxiety. Could this be an age thing? I don't know.

I particularly sympathise with young mums who are going through anxiety/panic, I totally understand what they are going through. I wonder if it's because all of a sudden we have become responsible for another
person. We no longer have just ourselves to worry about. Someone once said to me me that it is a bit like a 'bereavement', of the life we no longer have....................free of responsibilities and able to please ourselves.

Sorry this is a bit long winded.

Pansy