Are these panic attacks?

[Claire79]

Hi everyone,

I really don't know what to write other than I think I'm having panic attacks and could do with some advice.

I had one earlier today and after typing in the symptoms this site came up, the only one I don't get though is the rapid breathing one, could they still be panic attacks?

I've been so scared for the last few months that I was going insane, in fact last week I went to the doctor convinced I was either schizophenic, bipolar of having a nervous breakdown. And panic attacks didn't occur to me because I've always thought they only lasted a couple of minutes and were cured by breathing into a paper bag.

Also mine don't come on really sudden, they take ages to build up and it's almost like I'm doing it to myself on purpose but cant stop it if that makes sense...does anyone else get that? Like today my 10 year old went next door and I watched him from the window but because I didn't actually SEE him go in the front door I started to think of all the worst things that could possibly happen. I phoned my neighbour in the end to check but by that point I was already worked up and 4 hours later I had what I think was a full blown panic attack. God that sounds so neurotic reading back.

I only ever get them when I'm on my own, or at least they only start when I'm on my own, it's almost as if my mind needs something to worry about and goes into overdrive.

Sorry for the rambling. Thanks, Claire.

[Veronica H]

:welcome: Claire. Glad you have found us. Many of the symptoms you describe sound like typical anxiety/panic symptoms. There is a brilliant book by Dr Claire Weekes called 'Self help for your nerves' published by Thorsons ISBN 978-0-7225-3155-6. This is available from the NMP Shop. I cannot recommend this enough as it really explains what is happening to us, and how we can recover. Her recordings can be downloaded free to your MP3 from the NMP Shop too. You will find comfort and support here.

Veronica

[jindivik]

sounds similar to me when my anxiety first started

i felt like i was going absolutely mad, schizophrenia was, and still is my biggest fear.....i would work my self up and think about it all the time, which in itself would make the anxiety worse and bring on the full blown attacks

easier said than done but try not to worry about it, maybe ask your doc about anxiety meds that might help

you are not going mad and sound completely normal/sane to me :)

take care and i hope you are feeling better soon

[redballoons]

hi
I get panic attacks which i can feel coming on for hours before the actual attack happens, in fact sometimes i just wish the attack to come so that i will feel better. normally i start to feel like my mind is racing and my muscles are stiff (from holding them stiff) and then i start to get shaky etc after that I normally get a panic attack within an hour or two - I can stop it sometimes but byt he time its got to that point its hard

sophie

[kenboon]

Hiya

It does indeed sound like an anxiety problem which builds up throught out the day to the point where you have a full blown attack. You can just get the odd symptom, for instance, i get palputations alot sweaty and pins and needles in my left arm alot. But this doesnt always turn in to a full blown attack where i get alot more symptoms, as now i can fend it off alot better.

I would reccomend reading this bit of the site claire http://www.nomorepanic.co.uk/NMPcms.php?nmppage=symptoms This may help you understand the way anxiety works and why symptom occur.

All the best

Ken

[Claire79]

Thank you everyone for your replies, I've actually felt much better the last couple of days.
I know it's absolutley terrifying at the time but knowing that what I've been experiencing all these years are 'just' panic attacks and high anxiety has made them less scary.
I've had it since I was 16 (I'm 29 now) and at times I've been so wound up thinking it was something more sinister I would get one just from reading the word 'disturbed' or 'schizhophrenic'. I would think that because my reaction was so strong there must be something I'm hiding from myself.
I faced my fears 2 days ago and looked up the schizophrenic symptoms and I know I don't have it so I'm not going to let myself be scared of it anymore.

My anxiety starts with feeling like I'm going to wet myself, so sometimes when I do actually need the toilet it starts them off! The same goes for shaking, if I shake because I'm cold that can start it off as well.

I really think (hope) that I've got it licked now, initially I was scared of not being scared because I thought that was what was keeping me sane (if that makes sense?! lol) but I really do believe now that the things I worry about are just a reaction to being sensitive and easily upset. I'm seeing this as a good thing.

I'm going to face it head on and deal with whatever happens. Keep your fingers for me!

Claire x

[Bexstar]

hey claire. I understand everything you put there.
I know the thoughts I put in my head are by me and my fault. But I still cant control them. I dont have time too! After an attack suddenly I feel myself again like I never had it and I can face my fears. I can also think about my fear and suddenly it doesnt worry me! Strange I know :(
and my heart wont beat fast. Its like the panic attack drained everything out of me that I am soo weak I cant worry. I am scared of something strange. I cant pin-point it exactly, but whenever I do something I feel 'aware' of myself. Like now as I just wrote that I suddenly felt 'aware' I was typing. I feel aware of my future and my past and im absolutely terrified when I notice something I do. Like I move..I suddenly realise I moved and panic. It is driving me insane and I cant sleep.
I pray for you! Im trying to face my fear too. Im scared of my room but Its like a safe place for me and I go in there anyway for some reason. Though when I walk there I feel in another world. Like someone else is controlling me :(
I do understand you and you sure arent alone here. Looks like a ton of people are going through the same thing as you and me.

xxx

[LACEYA1961]

I pray for you! Im trying to face my fear too. Im scared of my room but Its like a safe place for me and I go in there anyway for some reason. Though when I walk there I feel in another world. Like someone else is controlling me :(
I do understand you and you sure arent alone here. Looks like a ton of people are going through the same thing as you and me.

xxx[/quote

My bedroom is also a safe place for me except at night when I lie down and go to sleep. I can spend all day in there doing my art but when it comes to bedtime I'm anxious. What's strange is that the living room is a strange world to me except at night. Weird huh??? Like right now I'm sitting at the pc in our living room (it's daytime here) and I'm really uncomfortable. Another strange place for me is the shower...I have to rush through my showers because I get so off balance in there. I get out and have to lean against the towel rack and breathe and tell myself I'm okay. It wears me out to take a shower. I hate it. Sometimes I feel this stuff will never end and other times, like yesterday, I'm so optimistic.

Thanks for letting me share:)

Lacey

[Claire79]

God we really are all going through the same thing in different situations.
Lacey, I get that weird eerie feeling where I'm suddenly uncomfortable for no apparent reason too, it's horrible, like a big dark cloud is pressing down on my eyebrows which I can't shake off.

I was going to get anti-depressants for that very reason but then I thought 'well I'm going to have to deal with the root issue at some point so it may as well be now.'

It's such a relief to read what you said Bexstar about the heightened awareness thing, I get that sooooo bad, it's almost like everything in the room swoops in on me and I can't think of nothing else. It absolutley terrifies me. I read somewhere that if you're highly anxious and something triggers your adreneline your brain becomes super alert trying to seek out the danger so that you can fight it, if it can't find any danger it turns it back on your sanity because you reacted so badly. Maybe that's why most people with panic attacks are so worried about mental illness.

So anyway, at the moment I'm MAKING myself stay in uncomfortable situations, I'm a rational person when I'm not all charged up and I just know I'll have to face these things to get over them. Not just physically, mentally too. When I'm scared about whats around me or whats in my head I used to distract myself and sometimes it went, sometimes it didn't, now I've decided to sit it out (literally, like a statue!) and let whatevers going to happen.... happen. I must admit I've been getting it more often since doing this and my brain is coming up with new, scarier scenarios but the stomach churning panic is less severe.
Thinking about it I'm probably getting it more often because I keep 'checking' how anxious I feel because I want to hurry up and get over it.

To be honest I wasn't as scared of the actual panic attacks themselves because I was more scared of the strange thoughts which were causing them, but last night I had a revelation, if I didn't have such high anxiety about the thoughts then I wouldn't worry about getting them in the first place would I? That doesn't make sense at all but I know what I mean!

My next goal is to stop checking how anxious I feel every second of the day.

Sorry I've been rambling again! It's cathartic to get it all out and make sense of it in words though :)

Thanks for reading and replying x

[carla7777]

Hi Claire,
I have exactly the same thing... Some days i wake up feeling a bit offish which then turns into physical symptoms such as blurry eyes, fast heartbeat, fuzzy head and can't concentrate on anything.. and it can last all day until the night when i focus on something else without realising and it just goes. My GP thinks i have 'chronic anxiety'. I'm 31 and happily married with a 7 and 5 month old and have always felt more anxious than most people but since having the kids i think it's gone into overdrive! I worry about them all the time and also my own health etc. When i have the attacks they last for periods of about 4 days at a time, then nothing and i feel fantastic again until another one comes up and lately they are every month.. I have tried alsorts without much sucess because im still having them. I normaly throw myself into doing something else and then slowly it calms down and eventually goes. Lets hope we don't have anymore! Carla x

[Claire79]

Hiya Carla,
Yeah it sounds like the same thing doesn't it? I have 2 small kids too and even though I've had high anxiety since I can remember, it's definitely got a lot worse since having them. I worry about them so much I feel like running away from it all just to give my brain a break.
So what exactly is 'chronic anxiety' if you don't mind me asking? All of this is so new to me I'm gradually finding this stuff out and making sense of it.
x

[mlondon]

Absolutely sounds like panic to me, I have experienced all you have described and think to myself god this can't just be panic but it is. Saying that it took me a while to distinguish between panic and anxiety and it sounds to be like you are very anxious. I get both though now rarely my anxiety becomes a full blown panic attack but I do live with constantly daily anxiety and this can have lots of physical symptoms as well.

[Claire79]

Just had a weird one this evening, I was at work feeling absolutely fine (which is a first) when all of a sudden it was like my brain shifted down a gear and everything around me speeded up. I've had that feeling loads of times before before but because I'm usually so wound up anyway I've never seen it as a separate thing. This just came totally out of the blue.

I made myself go through it fully as it was happening saying to myself the whole time 'right, you know you're ok, this is just the anxiety working it's way out of your system, nothing bad will happen and you don't even need to try and make it go away'.

Then I had the usual pain in my chest and told myself the same thing.
I'm much better than I normally am after it happens but it's still left me a bit edgy 2 hours later.
One other thing I did for the first time was deciding that I wasn't going to worry about what any of the customers would think if I got really bad. I know them all quite well (I work in a pub) and they would probably understand if I said I was having a panic attack, and even if they didn't, I wasn't going to be afraid of it anymore.
Initially I felt really paranoid but managed to reason with myself that they weren't mind readers and really had no idea how I was feeling.

It's sounds strange but even though it made me feel sooooo horrible at the time, there was also a tiny bit of excitement too, almost like it's one more thing under my belt and one less thing to be scared of.

I'm so determined not to let this rule my life anymore. x

[Claire79]

Sorry if I'm using this as a bit of a diary!

I've been reading loads and loads and think that aswell as having high anxiety and panic attacks I also have a bit of OCD. Apparently the difference between anxiety and OCD is the range of stuff that worries you. I stress about EVERYTHING (which is anxiety) and obsess about a couple of things (which is OCD) but they're very very closely linked and from what I can gather the treatments are about the same.

I was talking to my husband about it just now and he said it sounds like I've had a near death experience, I know it sounds dramatic but it really does feel like that! I did a skydive last year and the fear I felt doing that (bearing in mind I'm plane phobic) was nothing compared to the fear I've felt when gripped by my daily fears. Not even close. This last episode has been without a doubt the worst thing I've ever experienced in my entire life.

Nobody would believe from looking at me or my life the hell I've been through with this, I have everything I need (great family, great mates, nice home etc) yet this bloody thing has been following me around kicking me when I'm down since I was a kid.

However, today has been another good day. I've not had any depersonalisation or major anxiety and I genuinely don't feel scared of anything at the moment. Maybe the rational side of my brain is taking over now?

Please feel free to comment.
Claire cx

[Claire79]

:-(

Is anyone around? I read something that pricked a fear an hour ago and it's set me off, not had a panic attack but I'm a bit worried it's going to happen if I carry on this way.
I read something which made me doubt it's 'just' anxiety and not somethng more serious.
Right I'm going to have to calm down, this is ridiculous. I feel like I'm internally shaking, dunno if it's just because I'm cold though.

Am I doing this to myself on purpose because I don't know how to live without it? Am I an attention seeker? I was ok yesterday and this morning, one stupid little thing and I'm back down that road.

I'm so worried that this not just anxiety and that I'm simply covering up a mental problem.

[never2late]

It's very easy to find articles out there that convince us that we've got some horrible fate awaiting us. We're very prone to having that happen.

Actually, all of the "symptoms" that have been discussed on this thread are what is usually expected with anxiety and panic. So, in a strange sense, what we experience is normal! At least normal for what we're going through.

ONE of the real secrets, is to not get upset about being upset. EVERYone gets many of the symptoms that we get at different times in their lives. Other people just wave it off (for the most part). Unfortunately, we have stronger reactions to the symptoms . . . and it is these reactions -- not the actual symptoms -- that take us over the edge (and many times, leave us there for quite a while!).

You'll find many resources here to explain things much better than I am capable of. But, as an oldtimer tip, if you can learn to just let happen whatever is happening to you at the moment, then you're well on your way to successfully coping.