Intense anxiety or something more serious?

[Panda22]

I'm on holiday and today we drove to a town to have lunch. I had been feeling anxious during the drive already, and when i sat down at the table, the whole time i felt panic coming on. It kept coming in waves till it felt so unbearable i just had to stand up to walk a little..

For like 10 seconds it truly felt as if i was about to lose all my sanity, an intense doom feeling and derealization. It's so intense and uncomfortable i can't even explain it. I did went back to sit down after walking for a minute and calming myself down. But the rest of the day there i had rushes of panic that feel so uncomfortable it's like i'm on the verge of panic holding on for my life

How can anxiety get this intense where it feels like your not even there anymore and are on the verge of completely losing your mind?
I'm seriously worried i'm overlooking a more serious mental illness that i will fall into next time..

[glassgirlw]

I don’t really experience the DP/DR side of anxiety. But my 22 year old daughter does - and she describes it exactly the way you are. A few minutes of pretty extreme panic and derealization and then she’ll have smaller “waves” of it for the rest of the day. That part does happen to me with my panic attacks. When I have one, it’s usually a bigger one. After that I have low levels of panic and anxiety that can go on for several hours. One of the members here, FMP, describes it well - it is like a bonfire - it doesn’t go out immediately. Little sparks keep it going for awhile. It will eventually die down, the important thing is how you react to it though, I’ve found. If you don’t give it the attention it’s seeking, and just move on with your day, eventually they are easier to maintain.

[BlueIris]

This is definitely what happens to me. In the past, a really bad anxiety attack would leave me feeling tweaky and on edge for up to a couple of weeks.

[Lencoboy]

This is definitely what happens to me. In the past, a really bad anxiety attack would leave me feeling tweaky and on edge for up to a couple of weeks.

Ditto for me BI.

For me the trigger would be sometimes be something that's relatively trivial and insignificant to most other people, e.g, people having loud arguments/fights in public places, certain sounds (power tools, lawnmowers, vacuum cleaners, faulty plumbing noises, souped-up cars, motorbikes, etc), certain environments, etc, can sometimes upset me for several days, weeks, months, or even years after the original situations/events, though such instances for me personally were at their peak back in the late 80s through the early 2000s and thankfully far less nowadays.

[LittleLionMan]

I'm on holiday and today we drove to a town to have lunch. I had been feeling anxious during the drive already, and when i sat down at the table, the whole time i felt panic coming on. It kept coming in waves till it felt so unbearable i just had to stand up to walk a little..

For like 10 seconds it truly felt as if i was about to lose all my sanity, an intense doom feeling and derealization. It's so intense and uncomfortable i can't even explain it. I did went back to sit down after walking for a minute and calming myself down. But the rest of the day there i had rushes of panic that feel so uncomfortable it's like i'm on the verge of panic holding on for my life

How can anxiety get this intense where it feels like your not even there anymore and are on the verge of completely losing your mind?
I'm seriously worried i'm overlooking a more serious mental illness that i will fall into next time..

This is exactly what happens to me in my worst moments. It’s the panic I fear the most.