Anybody ever had a really bad panic/anxiety attack?

Neebo

Well-known member
Hi I was just wondering has anyone ever had a really bad panic attack? And I mean a really,really bad one :evil: The type where you think your going to die or you think your going totally insane because of SA/SP? I myself Have experienced a few panic attacks that were very bad. One of them or my first one,was in the middle of a very busy and crowded Macdonalds restaurant at the age of 13 :oops: Another one was on a crowded train :oops: And my last one was last summer when I thought I heard a couple of girls the same age as take the piss out of me when I was walking outside to carry out an errand. I just blocked it out of my mind until I got home and then I totally lost it I had another full blown panic attack which came on unexpectedly and completely out of the blue :eek: Suddenly I couldn't breath I was hyperventilating and gasping for breath,I felt extremely dizzy and light-headed infact so much so, that I thought I would actually faint or pass out 8O Also add to that the other symptom of my heart beating faster than a drum and I also felt my head was going to explode because of the pressure :x Has anyone else had a similar experience? If so what triggered it off and did you have the same symptoms as I experienced?
 

black_mamba

Well-known member
I guess most panic attacks are so sever you feel as if you're going insane!

I don't often get panic attacks so when I do, they are monumental. I have passed out from stress once, this was due to a crazy argument between me and my two sisters. I've also like you, had my heart beating so violently I thought it may burst out from my chest. That would have been exciting to watch. :lol: That was due to someone bullying me in a very aggresive [verbal] manner.

Sucks doesn't it? Good luck to you in seeking help. :wink:
 

annie

Well-known member
Hi Neebo,

We all experience panic attacks in different ways. For me luckily of late I have them under control. However, when I have experienced a full blown panic attack they have always been at home, only once that I can remember was whilst I was walking to a community house or should I say run when I felt it coming.
When I have had them at home I don't feel that I am going to die, but that I will lose the plot and go insane. My heart is beating so fast and I try to get onto the phone and contact someone to calm me down. I feel hot as if I am burning up even though it might be in the middle of winter. A few times what I have done is scream, scream out loud and what that did was release some of the pressure that was built up inside me. Frankly a bit embarrassing to start screaming when you live in an apartment block, because the neighbours could hear you and think two things:
1. Oh boy she is having a good time :wink:
2. Oh boy she is in trouble or something like that.

I have been told if I want to scream just to scream in a pillow, but luckily I have my attacks under control.

Neebo we are all different therefore what we all experience will be different.

I hope you find a way to control them....tell them to F*** off, that is another thing I do when I am angry. When I get really angry, the anger takes over and the anxiety subsides, so get angry with IT.

Take care

annie :)
 

Horatio

Well-known member
yeah Ive had a bad one before

had heaps of panic attacks one week last year along with a rather bad spell of depression and it all built up to one massive attack

got gripped with chest pains, couldnt breathe and was rushed to hospital. at first the doctors all thought it was my heart and I was rushed into the emergency room and had all sorts of plugs attached to me along with one of those heart blippy monitor things you see in the movies.

it took about an hour wearing one of those oxygen masks for my breathing to stabilize and had to be xrayed and kept overnight for observation in case I had another one.

was given the all clear, it wasnt my heart but they said that severe anxiety or panic attacks can often mimic heart attack symptoms and they also warned me that if your overweight like I am and I have a massive panic attack it can actually trigger a real heart attack

the stupid thing was I didnt even have anyone to pick me up from the hospital. when your lying on a hospital bed being told your heart might be in trouble and they ask you who they should call and you say "noone" you know your a loser

on the up side, since that experience I have been a lot better at identifying the signs of an approaching panic attack and get myself out of the situation if I can
 

annie

Well-known member
Horatio said:
the stupid thing was I didnt even have anyone to pick me up from the hospital. when your lying on a hospital bed being told your heart might be in trouble and they ask you who they should call and you say "noone" you know your a loser

on the up side, since that experience I have been a lot better at identifying the signs of an approaching panic attack and get myself out of the situation if I can

Hi Horatio,

Sorry to hear about your panic attack and trip to the hospital.
Please stop calling yourself a loser - isn't it bad enough we suffer anxiety and then we give ourselves a hard time. Think good thoughts about yourself, not bad. You are not a loser, no one is a loser.

Take care

annie :)
 

Tsubaki

Member
I do recall having a number of attacks when i was younger (8-12).
Profuse sweating, and the whole world felt like it was spinning out of control, faster and faster. I couldn't catch my breath and my heart was beating unbelievably fast.

I usually found myself outside almost stark naked; I think I was trying to cool down. My attacks usually happened at night, 2-4AM. It sounds crazy, but it really felt like I was going totally insane.

Like Grumblina, I'm now 25 and I havn't had a attack since.
I'm holding down a job and except for the shyness, things seem to be getting a little better.
 

Cacophony

New member
I've had some very terrifying panic attacks in the past but I seem to not get them as bad and as often anymore. If i'm starting to get one i just kind of keep in mind and tell myself that im gonna get over it eventually and its not gonna stay forever. I know that it can go into severe depths of hell though sometimes, and in that case i will tell someone like my brother and have him just kind of sit with me for a while. That seems to help it for me anyways. This one time when i was 17 i had an acid flashback/severe anxiety attack staying at a friends house and i was full on hallucinating. I was so far into hell that i had to wake my friend up to calm me down. But it helped alot. As long as you have some one that can fully understand that what your going through is very serious and real it helps to be with them for a bit. Have them get you a glass of water or something. But that is another thing that everyone here should listen to, which is not to ever screw around with hallucinagens if you are a person with anxiety.
 

Remus

Moderator
Staff member
I've had two that I ended up in hospital with

the first one even concerned the doctors as my heartrate was hitting 180BPM
 

ScaredGirl

Well-known member
I've had really bad panic attacks when I was younger. Lately the severity has reduced but they are still there.

Yesterday I had one and have been reflecting on it every since. A really nice elderly lady I know - who probably has ADHD- wigged me out. She was talking so fast, jumping from thought to thought. She's a good person and I wanted to hear what she had to say, but HOW she said it was making me nervous. Basically, her hyper was making me anxious. I didn't realize how MUCH another person's calmness/hyper affected me before....I like and respect this lady but have this pit in my stomach that I will have to set up boundries solely because of her hyperness. :-( I must think on it some more......there must be a delicate way of handling this, one where I can keep her friendship and my sanity at the same time.

SG
 

Horatio

Well-known member
Remus said:
I've had two that I ended up in hospital with

the first one even concerned the doctors as my heartrate was hitting 180BPM

thats my worst fear as well... I don't know much about the link between panic attacks and heart attacks but from what I recall from my hospital visit one can very easily cause the other, especially if your overweight, smoke or are very stressed.
 

rfnatboy

Member
In the begining I thought I was going insane Id look in the mirror and wouldnt be able to reconize myself that scared the hell out of me . But eventualy it got less severe . Hope that helps .
 

Fredscars

Well-known member
i used to have more anxiety attacks then panick attacks. I never thought i was going to die...well..not exactly. I never thought i was going to die of like...a heart attack as its meant to be for a panick attack..
anyway
i used to get them at school more than anywhere..
itd start with just paranoid thoughts "those people over there are talking about me" "why are my friends whispering like that, they must hate me" which would then develop into "they never involve me in anything, im pathetic and useless, im just the one that hangs around" to complete nonsense, i'd be breathing really heavily, no matter how much i breathed i couldnt get any air to my lungs, or so it seemed. Id be fidgiting..like looking around me constantly, my vision would be going black, i'd see these like...creatures almost (i think its because im near fainting at this point) which like..crawled along the ground..and i could feel them all over me. By then i'd be screaming or crying..
I wouldnt let any one touch me..i'd be curled up in a ball, preferably a corner..i wouldnt have the faintest clue where i was, or who was there..like i'd see them but not recognise them.
My friend tried to touch me once, to hug me and stop me crying...i hit out at her because i thought she was going to.like..i dunno kill me or something..i was really close to breaking her nose, but i just missed and hit the side of her face really hard..
After a while they just passed, my vision would begin to grow normal and memories of who my mates were, and that i was at school would come back...
id be shaky for ages, but it'd calm down
so..uh yeh. thats my story. I used to have them regularly, but i havent had such a large scale one for almsot a year. I still have small ones, but nothing that really causes a problem.
 
The worst panic attack I ever had was when I was about 16, I had been talked into going to a club with the guy I was sorta dating at the time. We went into a bar and I went to the toilets and when I came back he had bought me a drink, me being a stupid kid thought I could trust him to buy me a drink because he'd been seeing me for like over two months, but I'm 100% sure now that he slipped something in my drink. After we went to the club it really hit me and I started flipping out, and I hadn't had hardly anything to drink. I thought my heart was gonna beat out of my chest, I was nearly throwing up, I couldn't walk. I was crying too, because I started having flash backs of when I was attacked by a different ex when I was 14. That was the worst panic attack I have ever had. I'm pretty sure he must have slipped me something that brought on a panic attack that severe for no reason.

Naomi
 

despise

Well-known member
i have had two really bad panic attacks, both in public places. once while shopping with my friends, and the other in class.
the one in class happened because there was only one seat left where i could sit inbetween my friend and a girl i really wanted to avoid, because she was so popular and bitchy i thought she would try to move if i sat next to her. so while everyone was sitting down i was still standing trying to get my friend to sit next to her so i could sit inbetween both of my friends instead (confusing i know). when i finally sat down i got a full blown panic attack. feeling my heart beat so fast, getting all sweaty and shaking. feeling like my head was getting some kind of really hot liquid poured over it and like bugs were eating and crawling all over me. it was awful. i just grabbed my pen and started attacking my book with it to try and calm myself down. my book was wrecked.. haha. but thankfuly nobody really noticed me except one of my friends.
when i was shopping with my friends they wanted to go look in a bra shop. so they all strolled in and left me in the main walkway with all these people walking around me and bumping into me. i ran inside after them and it happened. same thing that happened in the class room except i had nothing to do, so i was left standing alone, freaking out.
after hearing other peoples stories.. i feel very lucky i havnt needed to go to hospital before. your all really strong.
 

Hastur

Active member
My last panic attack was my most severe, I was in some club, alone, started to feel the panic, ran out, actively dodging people and hid outside in a darkened parking lot, hyperventilating and generally making my situation worse.
 

Shattered

Active member
My panic attacks get so bad I've been known to faint and vomit from it on several occasions :s

I feel like I need to run away but I don't know where I'm running to sort of deal. And yes I know what you mean by going insane. Like you just can't contain yourself any longer if you can't get away from the situation.
 

Shattered

Active member
By the way, the severe panic attacks I've had where I've fainted all involved police, which I have a very intense phobia of.
 
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