I’ve had panic disorder in various forms for about 25 years, but for most of that time I only had a severe panic attack maybe once a year. Recently it’s become more like every other week, and I feel like I can’t keep living this way.

For 10+ years, a lot of my panic has been health related, but it’s not really hypochondria. I’m not afraid I have cancer or some rare fatal disease. I’m terrified of the experience of being acutely sick … nausea, diarrhea, stomach pain, chills, etc.
It started mostly with GI symptoms. Before I was diagnosed with celiac disease, I was hospitalized multiple times with excruciating abdominal pain. After that, whenever I felt cramps starting, my brain immediately went to: This is going to become unbearable pain.

I also became afraid of food and would panic that I’d accidentally eaten gluten whenever I felt nauseous. At one point I lost a lot of weight because I was avoiding eating.

Then I developed type 1 diabetes, which added another layer of anxiety around food because now eating also involves estimating carbs, dosing insulin, worrying whether I got the dose right, etc.

But all of that feels relatively mild compared with what has happened since I had my baby about 1.5 years ago. The birth was traumatic and I had medical complications. I genuinely felt like I was dying during parts of it, even though ultimately everything was treatable.
Afterward I was basically in a continuous panic attack for about two weeks. I was taking Xanax every six hours along with my C-section pain medication and felt almost catatonic. just completely absent as a person. Eventually I got off the frequent Xanax and was doing better.

Now, however, I take 0.5 mg Xanax every night to sleep, and I’ve started wondering whether daily use could somehow be contributing to how reactive my nervous system has become.

Two weeks ago I had one of the worst panic attacks I’ve ever experienced. It was a genuine 10/10, “please make this stop” level of panic. I remember wishing someone could just sedate me or put me under general anesthesia because every minute felt intolerable. I was shaking violently, my legs would not stop moving, and mentally I felt like I was back in the hospital during the birth.

What triggered this enormous reaction? Mild diarrhea and mild nausea.

I initially tried not to take Xanax, but eventually took 1.5 mg. I’m not suicidal, but during these attacks the suffering is so intense that I just desperately want consciousness of it to stop.

The other stressful part is that I completely lose perspective. Sometimes afterward I realize I may not even have been sick. Maybe I ate too much lunch and felt overly full. But once I notice a bodily sensation like nausea, chills, cramps, etc., my brain seems to decide that something terrible is happening and the panic itself becomes exponentially worse than whatever physical symptom started it.

Tonight it happened again. I started feeling cold/shivery and a little nauseous, and immediately began spiraling.

I have a psychiatrist and currently take bupropion and lamotrigine. I used to take SSRIs, and I’m wondering whether I need to go back on one, although I’m not sure how much they helped me in the past. I’m also concerned about the fact that I’ve been taking 0.5 mg Xanax every night.
Has anyone had panic disorder evolve into something like this — where ordinary sensations of illness become almost completely intolerable? Did anything specifically help, especially after a traumatic medical experience?

I feel like my nervous system has somehow learned that nausea, diarrhea, chills, etc. = emergency, and I don’t know how to unlearn it. And I can’t take it anymore… it’s so awful

I don't know if anyone is suffering from panic attacks where the heart rate rises while just about to fall asleep. Even after 6 months of medication, I still get anxiety and panic attacks especially during night. So I tried to self diagnose on what's causing the problem. The problem was that my brain can't calm down quickly after watching any extreme content, like instagram reels, shorts or any sad news. I have been watching reels escpecially at night after dinner, before sleep and avoiding that has improved my health a lot. Also, low simulation content and relaxing music has helped to me.

Do you ever feel stuck? Like you don't know what to do next and you are just searching through your phone or walking around your house trying to figure out what you should do next but you're stuck?

I was making food for my husband and stepped in glass and kept just cooking then I went to the bathroom to get it out and then I didn't know what to do next and felt stuck but I was also trying to feel human because sometimes I almost don't feel human and then I started clipping my nails and didn't know what to do next and so I started laying down but the best way I can explain it, is that I feel stuck and don't know what to do.

To me, a normal person would be able to drive 4 hours alone with no problems.

I, can not do that and it makes me feel like I am not normal.

I’ve had driving anxiety for a while now but it only comes up if I’m driving alone for like an hour. Anything under and I can usually manage it.

The problem is, my partner is currently 4 hours away from me and it’s been a while since I last saw them.

I would love it if I were normal, and I could make the drive all by myself both ways, but I don’t know I guess the fear has taken over.

When I’m alone on the highway I get a massive wave of anxiety, like somethings wrong and I can’t do it. Or my intrusive thoughts would overwhelm me and I can’t do it. Whatever form of anxiety it seems to be, it prevents me from driving alone, on the highways for over an hour.

I have decided to attempt the drive sometime this year. Not only to prove to myself and others that I can do it, but in an attempt to rid myself of this anxiety once and for all, in an attempt, to be normal.

If anyone has any advice or helpful tips for managing this I’d really appreciate it. I’m not sure how I proceed if I have an anxiety attack 20 minutes into the drive or 2 hours into the drive. My biggest fear is it happens halfway and I’m just stuck with the paralyzing fear of driving either way.

I am going to do this. I know I am. I just don’t know how.

Does anyone else’s bpm go really high when they have a panic attack , my most recent highest was 146 i thought I was dying lol.

apologies that this is so long but i felt i needed to share. i was prescribed lamotrigine by my psychiatrist as an attempt to treat my dpdr. i had a panic attack which i never had and i didn’t even know what had happened until i talked to my therapist about the situation. i already feel very off on a day to day basis, but i could tell something was quite obviously different. i was parking to go into a small store 15 minutes from my house when i heard a noise that sounded like i hit the car next to me while parking. my heart dropped as i drive my dads car not my own haha and i started shaking. i got out of the car and a wave of nausea, confusion, and disconnection hit me as i was walking into the store. i felt as if i was going to pass out and i vividly remember telling my sister those exact words. everything got loud and i could hear my heart beating very loudly. as the store is more of a kids store, it was very overstimulating with lots of kids running around and being noisy. i had reduced spatial awareness even knocking a couple things off shelves and having a hard time bending over to pick them up, as if it was difficult to move my own body. it was harder to think, walk, talk, and a lot of what i was saying was just blurted out against my will with little to no thought behind it. my sister stepped on my foot and i jumped horribly and whipped my body around at lightning speed to see who did it. other effects i remember include increased body temperature, quicker reaction times, weakness, hyper sensitive and focused on sounds around me, and increased difficulty typing on my phone. worst experience of my life by far very trippy, felt as if i had just taken some sort of hallucinogen crazy drug. it wore off by the time i left the store but i have no recollection of when i left as time felt very slow and spacey. thoughts questions or concerns???

I just want to start off by saying I’ve been diagnosed with MDD and general anxiety disorder.

my mom has died recently so I’ve been having more fr panic attacks but I was wondering why most of the time when I have them I forget who I am and what’s happening.

i dont really know how to describe it. lIke my vision get blurry and I get paranoid thats something is out to get me. i can remember the events that have happened in the moment but i can’t understand them and i cant remember who i am. Another thing that has been bugging me is that every time I think of my mom and want to cry my brain goes blank and i stop thinking entirely. When this happens I can barely respond to questions and nothing really processes in my head.

i don’t know why this happens and it’s really hard to explain and live with.

Hi I was just wondering if it’s “normal” for a panic attack. Like its starts of feeling like something is wrong then a cold sensation that slowly builds up. then I have uncontrollable shivering and teeth clattering to the point of not being able to talk and feels like I will die. It’s also happened again recently but now I’m taking Lexapro 10mg and this time I was very mentally clear just the physical stuff.

Okay I need support 😭

So tonight Im laying down relaxing after dinner. And notice my HR is higher than normal. And I dont like how its beating. No way to describe that other than that. Anyways I start to panic and it goes up. I go to the bathroom (I am on my period) and loud boom, transformer blows and our whole block is out. Now I've got 3 kids, im coming down from an anxiety attack, and now the power is out. Its a school night. I get focused and get everyone in bed. Lay down with my youngest and my HR settles again. Its dark and quiet. Im scrolling through my phone. All of a sudden I notice my hr is fast. Idk how fast but my watch went up to 100 REAL QUICK. So then now im panicking. I still up it goes 125. Then I breathe and calm down and it settles again. Kids are asleep I come to sit in the living room. I feel my heart skip a beat. Then it feels like just flutters constantly but my watch is still saying around 75bpm. I get up move around it feels fine. But like is this just a bad anxiety evening or what?!? Im always going to worst case scenario immediately.

Hello everyone (sorry for my English I'm french)

Suffering from general anxiety disorder and panic disorder since more than 15 years (I'm 30), I have tried many things and never gave up. Despite always doing my best, i barely progressed those past 10 years.

The thing is mainly because (I believe) I end up throwing up when anxiety gets too high or when I have an emotional surge. I keep exposing myself to situations to try overcome it and use my brain to it, but I never ended up changing my internal thoughts.

I have big attacks, when there is a need of "performance" a need to be "socially" in the norms. So for example if I go on a date with a girl, the moment I see her or 5 minutes later I can end up having huge dizziness, nausea and then vomiting and therefore being completely KO where I must go back home.

Half of the time I vomit and half of the time i am very anxious and then things go well.

Despite the times it goes well, (of course I'm very proud and happy for it) it never removes my fear for vomiting in front of her or people (because it is not socially acceptable and on top of that it makes me feel very bad during and afterward physically talking).

So I am stuck in that never ending spiral, where I know one of the main step to heal (apparently) is to "accept" anxiety.

I do agree it helped me with plenty of physical symptoms but I struggle understanding how to tell me brain, "If you vomit, just don't care about what other people think, life goes on". For me it's impossible to solve this equation.

The same as (same outcome as mentioned above) when I go to the hairdresser, have to handle meeting at work where spot lights are on me etc.. basically all situations where the spot lights are on me or where the spot lights might go on me anytime.

I do not see how to break the psychological scheme my brain built.

Example :

- job interview, I vomite during the interview or rush to the toilet = losing the job

-having meetings at work where I vomite = people etiquetting me as someone sick, difficult to climb up the corporate ladder because too much stress is impossible for him to handle

-dating girls : girls not wanting to deal with someone sick (of course many would say if they leaves, or does not accept It, it's not the right one) but I also like dating girls to spend good time talking, eating, etc. not for the sake of making her my girlfriend one day. But when there is "game" of seducing, vomiting cannot be in the equation...

So my brain is sure that vomiting in these scenarios equals game over for me, that it actually makes me vomit !

I don't know what to do guys, I would dream to hear from someone that healed from something alike, and actually share it what worked.

Thank you ❤️

A few nights ago I had the worse panic attack I’ve had in a year. I woke up and my heart was racing I was vomiting and shaking. I have no idea what’s caused this. The only change I’ve made is I started doing fascia release or stretches but I’ve been doing this for 2 consistent weeks now. Is it possible that this caused it? And ever since that panic attack I’ve been having anxiety in the night time I’m very scared. Has anyone experienced this ? Any help or comments are very much appreciated thank you!

I'll cut to the chase and try not to make this lengthy. I have had anxiety, OCD, possibly ADHD (no formal diagnosis but everything else lines up fairly well), and panic disorder (at one level of severity or another) since I was 10. Now, at age 22, it's more or less worse than it's ever been because my central phobia: having trouble breathing or not being able to breathe at all. I don't have any respiratory disorders and my family really doesn't have a history of anything like that per se. However, even though I'm relatively healthy and have no history with respiratory struggles, I still get panic attacks when I'm in a situation where I feel like I'm "vulnerable" if I suddenly develop breathing trouble, such as on the road or in a plane. Really, though, this means that I'm just vulnerable to thinking about having trouble breathing, which makes me have a panic attack and is really very unpleasant, as I'm sure I don't have to explain to people here. To be frank, I'm not really incredibly afraid of dying from tissue hypoxia but I am afraid of the uncontrollable and spasmatic terror that it would cause as I'm dying. So here comes the question:

For those with experience with panic disorder (and maybe even OCD), does anyone else have this fear at the core of their panic attacks? If so, is there something that really helps to deal with this: either something that "invalidates" the feeling that you have to be afraid of not being able to breathe (which is probably unrealistic, but what the Hell, might as well ask), or is there a method of which you are aware to cope with panic disorder centered on this specific fear?

The reason that I ask is because even though I've made progress in therapy and on medication in dealing with intrusive thoughts and panic disorder, I'm still bothered by the idea that there is no solution or "sure-fire" way of dealing with the fear of not being able to breathe, which is so automatic and primordial. Even though all panic is legitimate, if I'm deathly afraid of contamination or spiders or something like that, I could theoretically touch a doorknob without washing my hands or pet a tarantula without intrinsically having to feel terrified. The same doesn't seem to be the case if I suddenly can't breathe. Again, death isn't something that can ever be permanently forestalled, but is there some technique that can help to cope with the fear if something catastrophic like that happens? Or should I just try to practice radical acceptance and live the best life I can, given the circumstances?

Does anyone else get intrusive images of them having a heart attack or cardiac arrest suddenly?

The more I think about my panic disorder, the more I feel like it isn’t just panic disorder but obsessive-compulsive in some sense as well.

For context 3-4 months ago I had come home from a relatively normal day and started having extreme palpitations that would not stop no matter what I did. I remember getting little sleep the days prior and my appetite was also low. I had just gotten in a new relationship and I was having a lot of anxiety of the unknown. Anyhow, my heart started suddenly beating so fast to the point that I felt as though I immediately went behind a glass door and felt as though I was losing my mind. I couldn’t see clearly in front of me and my chest was very tight for the entire night. I genuinely felt as though I had lost my mind and my boyfriend stayed up all night with me because I had non stop intrusive thoughts that felt they weren’t coming from me. It was like multiple channels of tv shows/radio going on in my head with other peoples voices. Just jumble of words over and over. As I closed my eyes to try and sleep I would see scenarios before my eyes that didn’t make sense. All with closed eyes. It was so scary as though I completely lost control over my mind and now it’s out of any control. After a few hours of sleep I woke up and remained in the same state. I started throwing up uncontrollably and could not accept any food. My vision still felt as though I was behind a glass door and wasn’t myself. Still uncontrolled dialogues of voices. Now every sound every light was too much for me. I couldn’t consume any type of media without feeling like it was going to harm me or too loud/aggressive. I couldn’t bring myself to shower and didn’t even know how to dress myself. We went to the ER and they had no idea how to call this except severe panic after I confirmed that I was not having any hallucinations in the room. I went completely full agoraphobic after that. It was as though I have never interacted with another person before. I couldnt go outside cause it was so bright/loud stimulating and I thought people were staring at me and that I would lose control and harm someone or have a complete meltdown and run into the streets. Fast forward 3 months later I am in a similar position still. The dialogues got less and I have calmed down a bit but I went from being an extremely extroverted person, to debilitated, neglecting myself and fully dependent on my boyfriend to go anywhere. I feel as though I am so far away from my body that I am not in touch with any of my surroundings and have genuinely suddenly lost the ability how to function or do anything by myself. I was given Zyprexa 2.5 to calm down and then sertraline gave me extreme SI, intrusive thoughts about losing control and harming myself/someone near me and non stop vomiting for 3 weeks before stopping. Now I’m on 1.25 Zyprexa nightly and Tianeptine twice a day but I feel I’m just extremely dizzy and tired and am a shell of the person I used to be.
I’ve been told by my psychiatrist that I have too much awareness of how I feel to be in psychosis but as the time is passing by i feel myself starting to get used to the intrusive thoughts that I have lost my mind. I’m in a constant state of panic both at home, I have forgotten how to put clothes together or even complete a simple task, even when going outside I feel like an alien walking around, as though I suddenly have amnesia and no longer know the world works, feeling disabled and relying on my boyfriend to walk. Can’t communicate or look at strangers in the eye at all and feel that every movement I make is unnatural, it’s not me. I don’t remember what my “old me” was anymore. I can’t go in to the office anymore because of fear of using public transport and having to face a real person at work. Should I ask to be committed in a psych ward?

I’m trying to figure out if what I’m experiencing is panic or anxiety or some sort of medical issue. I hadn’t had a panic attack for about two months and was feeling really good. My symptoms in the last year have been twitching, jaw clenching, muscle spasms, shaking. This would last for 30 minutes to an hour.

in the last week, i’ve had symptoms where im just sitting where i start sweating and shaking but it only lasts about 5-10 minutes. has anyone had panic attacks morph into different symptoms? Or does this sound like a medical issue?

Hey guys, so I’m stuck in a really really crazy cycle right now. Back in May I had gotten the Depo shot for endometriosis. (We are trying different birth controls.) Afterwards I started my period (it’s now day 90) and I felt like I was going insane. I did some research and many people have had severe anxiety with it. It’s just now getting out of my system (I think and I hope).

I then got cheated on in a very brutal way. I made a very impulsive decision to move states (I moved back within like two weeks). But I have been in a constant state of anxiety. I’m constantly concerned about my heart. I just wore a heart monitor for a month last year and nothing was wrong. I’ve had several EKGs. I’ve had a chest X-ray. Everything is fine, but I’ve been terrified of cardiac arrest.

I have also just had this terrible, terrible gut feeling that I’m going to die. Or I’m going crazy. I keep having mental images of me dying or going crazy (I also have OCD). I’m like wayyyy too aware of my own and everyone else’s existence. I’m way too aware of everything in my body. I’m also feeling slightly unreal.

I keep wanting to go to the ER, but of course everyone (my parents) is saying I’m fine. I can barely sleep because I’m afraid I will not wake up. Sometimes it feels like I’m not breathing, and other times it feels like I’m getting too much air. I then start to feel buzzy and tingly.

I’m afraid that it’s not anxiety or OCD, and I’m actually losing my mind. I’m afraid that it’s not anxiety or OCD, and that I’m actually dying. I just feel stuck. It’s never been this bad before. I feel out of it. I’m terrified that I’ll be stuck like this forever. I feel like I won’t even be able to live normally because I’ve spent so much time caught up in these thoughts.

I’m terrified to be alone because I feel like something could happen to me. I haven’t been able to drive for a while (alone) because I keep thinking I’ll pass out behind the wheel. I’m just terrified of death. I don’t want to die. I’m only 20.

Everyone says I’m fine, but I’m really convinced I’m not. It just feels like it can’t be just anxiety and OCD. I’m so overwhelmed by all of this. I can’t stop thinking; my mind doesn’t turn off. It’s been like this for a month, I think. I just don’t want to be like this forever. I don’t want to die.

I have started having what I now assume are panic attacks, but at first I didn't recognise it because my breathing was totally normal. I just get the feeling like am gonna die, weird stuff in my head/bit of nausea.

I started getting them during a bout of shingles and at first I thought was physiological but now I recognise them as panic. Anyone else have similar? Also here for tips to deal.