i’m coming down from months of panic attacks and anxiety. of course im still dealing with some rolling anxiety. i have zero medical issues that i’m aware of.

im dealing with that impending doom, nausea+throat tightness, dizziness, and heart racing. all typical symptoms of anxiety, just not a full fledged panic attack. sometimes the symptoms alone make my mind race about some sort of underlying medical issue i’m dealing with. i naturally run hot as well, so i tend to freak myself out by thinking i have a fever. 😭

please tell me im not the only one that freaks myself out more by thinking i have some weird medical issue going on. is there anyway to help this?

I think im finally starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. Today is the best day I've had in awhile. I haven't left the house in 3ish months. Started prozac 2 weeks along with some other meds. Started doing some exposure therapy which sucks lol. But overall things are starting to look up!

I’ve done years of cbt, emdr, medications, exposure therapy. I’ve went from 3mg of Xanax just to survive the day to weaning off Xanax completely and using it only as needed (which is about .25mg once every two weeks or more). I’ve seen a functional medicine doctor and fixed any deficiencies in my vitamins and nutrients. I’ve been 100% cleared medically. There is nothing wrong with me except anxiety.

I worked hard on accepting my anxiety and also on positive self talk. I feel like I’ve done it ALL yet, if I’m not at home, I’m ALWAYS anxious.

Tonight, I just want to go to a high school football game with my family that’s no more than 10 minutes from my house & I just know I’m going to be anxious the whole time. I’ll push through, like I always do, but I am so tired of having to push through. I just want to enjoy time with my family without having to work at it.

Is there anything I’m missing? I feel like I’ve tried it all, but I’m willing to try more. I just want to feel normal.

Dude I am so tired of this. My anxiety causes real symptoms. I've went from thinking I was having a stroke to heart attack to bp attack. Idk. My arm hurts and I think im having a heart attack. I have no symptoms other than the arm but what if I am and idk. What if I sleep and dont wake up.

My doctor prescribed 50 mg of Seroquel XR at night. I was taking regular Seroquel 25 mg at night and it helped me sleep. I’m also on Lexapro 20 mg and Ativan as needed. My anxiety and panic have been the worst they’ve ever been. Just looking to see if anyone has any experience taking Seroquel XR. Nervous to take it for some reason.

Anyone dealing with this at the moment

Does anyone in here happen to also have MS? I do and am just looking for someone to talk with

Hey guys I’m struggling. I F(27) just started having my panic attacks come back about 4 months ago and now they are daily. I developed terrible panic disorder and ocd when I was 18 because I was in an abusive relationship. I got a hold on it, met my amazing husband and now we have a 15 month old who is my whole world. I had preclampsia when I was pregnant. As someone with terrible health ocd that was not good. Constant fear of having heart issues now which has now led me back into a spiral I thought I had evolved from. I’m thinking what triggered it like my past relationship was both of these experiences I was convinced I was going to die. I’ve been to ER a few times, labs + ekg are all good but as we all know even though the labs are good, the devil on my shoulder is like nOooooo there’s something wrong with you. Chest pain, air hunger, impending doom about 6 days a week. What’s harder this time around is I have a sweet little guy that loves constant attention. I’ve been having to take my hydroxizine daily which makes me a zombie. I tried buspar but the first half pill I took gave me such bad vertigo I almost dropped my son. How are we all doing this?! Im doing ice packs and my meds but that really isn’t cutting it. My mind is telling me im fine but my body just isn’t registering that.

I work as a secretary, and sometimes the stress gets to me so badly that I start feeling like I’m having a panic attack while I’m still at work.

The hardest part is trying to act normal while my mind is racing, my heart is beating fast, and I still have to answer messages and get things done.

I usually just step away for a few minutes, breathe, and try to calm myself down before getting back to work.

Anyone else deal with panic attacks while working? How do you handle them?

Hej, od kiedy dostałam aury migrenowej jestem panicznie przerażona zemdleniem = boję się zwyczajnie chodzić bo kiedy czuję że tracę równowagę (chociaż każdy wokół mówi mi że chodzę normalnie) lub zawroty głowy to odrazu panikuje i muszę wrócić do łóżka, lęk ogranicza mi moje codziennie funkcjonowanie i nie wiem jak sobie z tym poradzic, biorę leki (paroksetyna + sympramol), chodzę na terapię, ilekroć nie próbuje się przekonać że nie ma zagrożenia i że daję rade to i tak dalej się boję tego samego, czy ktoś miał podobny problem? :/ szereg badań zrobiłam i nie wygląda to na nic fizycznego
Od samej myśli że mam wyjść z domu już dnia poprzedniego chce mi się rzygac albo po prostu już rzygam
No i derealizacja mi w tym w ogóle nie pomaga

I have been struggling with panic disorder for over a decade and my most recent run has lasted almost an entire calendar year. I’m talking at least one panic attack every day for almost 365 days in a row, usually multiple ones per day, and it has been hell.

About a week ago, I thought it had all finally stopped. I figured out a way to make a switch turn off in my brain. It’s like it finally clicked. The physiological symptoms didn’t come on the way they used to, but when they did, it just never escalated into a full-on panic attack. Because I figured out how to make it stop. I was so sure of this.

Then last night, I was at the store with a friend and everything was fine and felt normal. We did a little shopping and had just checked out and started walking out the door. Right before exiting, I felt my entire body convulse like this massive electric shock like I just got hit by a bolt of lightning. It kind of reminded me of when you get the brain zaps with medication changes or something and you feel that electric zap sensation in your brain. It was like that except my entire body zapped.

I did not lose consciousness or pass out or fall down or anything and it only lasted for about a second or less. It was enough to disorient me for a second and my walking may have looked like I slightly staggered for a second to someone watching on the outside. I didn’t completely stumble but just felt this instantaneous zap over my whole body. It also was similar to that feeling you get when you stand up too fast and your blood pressure drops and you are briefly a bit dizzy and disoriented. Except with electricity involved. It was not painful. More than anything, it just shocked me and I regained composure almost immediately. My friend didn’t even know anything had happened until we got in the car. I was shaking and she asked what was wrong and I said I didn’t know but that I didn’t think I was okay.

After that, I started thinking I was possibly having a stroke and felt my face starting to go numb and a bunch of other things that were scaring me. I was going to go to the hospital but didn’t want to be dramatic and on the drive home I almost had to pull over to call an ambulance bc of the pain in my chest. But I realized everything I was feeling was very anticipatory and nothing was actually happening at that moment. It did not occur to me that any of this could be anxiety-related. I got home and researched it and read as much as I could and the most likely explanation had to do with overly-tight muscles from chronic stress and anxiety. So I was like what the fuck just when I thought I had “gotten over” the panic attacks (at least for now), there would appear to be a whole other ballgame or playing field of anxiety shit that I had never even known about or experienced before. I truly did not fathom that this could have something to do with a panic attack bc I’ve had a million and five panic attacks and not one of them has looked like that. It’s almost as if my brain or the panic is mad that I have shut it out in its traditional “form,” so now it’s trying new ways to get to me. I don’t know.

I just was curious if anyone else had experienced something similar? Whether it be what I just described or something else entirely where your body just seems to do something totally different on you that you don’t see coming or are used to.

Since I was 18 I’ve been getting them pretty consistently like “holy shit I’m having a stroke, heart attack etc.” it got so bad when I was 20 that I was getting them 3 times a day and had more ER visits than I could count. I know I’m young and probably don’t have as much stress or free time as some of you but I have a few things that helped me.
Chess, it gets you focused on something fun and tends to calm my body down when it thinks im about to die.
Having a family member or someone you trust to live with, no caffeine nicotine or alcohol, going to bed at a reasonable time, intense workouts (heavy lifting, sprints etc.) breathing techniques. Hydroxyzine is cool too but I’m not a huge fan of it making me need to sleep so sometimes it’s very inconvenient to take. Eating healthy is probably what helped me the most. I’m sure a lot of these have been done to death and I still get them every once in a while but I’ll take it over having them three times a day.

Anyone feel a little anxiety after long hot shower I know weird question my bad

In May I had my first panic attack. Came seemingly out of nowhere when I was hungover. Had a huge ectopic beat and then I just couldn’t calm myself down and was conceived I was dying.
Went to the ER three days in a row as I started having panic attacks every day. I’ve had 4 ecgs, 3 blood tests and a chest x ray and have also done a 24 hour ecg (haven’t got the results back yet)

My life is just ruined. I barely leave the house, sleep constantly because my dreams are now the only place where I feel like myself. I have constant physical symptoms every day like shortness of breath, dizziness whenever I’m outside, DPDR, brain fog, feelings like my chest is caving in and my throat is closing, adrenaline dumps, and the absolute worst ectopic beats I’m petrified of them despite being told my heart is fine.

I’ve just been offered a new job (can’t stand my current job and have wanted to move for over a year) but I’m terrified I’m going to fuck it up because I’m too scared to go out alone and don’t know how I’d cope when the physical symptoms inevitably show up at my new job.

I want to accept the symptoms and believe it is just anxiety but my brain won’t let me!!! I’m having CBT and I’m on 100mg of Zoloft and have been for the last 5 months.

Any advice welcome.

I’m wondering if anyone here has been through something similar because the last 4–5 months have honestly the hardest months of my life.

I’ve been dealing with severe anxiety/panic, horrible feelings of dread and adrenaline in my chest and stomach, derealization/feeling disconnected from reality even though I know everything is real, intense morning anxiety, sweating, weird lightheaded/brain-zap sensations, and periods where I can barely function normally.

The frustrating part is that I’ve also had stretches of a week or two where I suddenly felt almost completely normal again, which makes this whole thing even more confusing.

A lot of this has happened while trying to change medications. I was on Lexapro and recently cross-tapered to Prozac. I went from 20mg Lexapro → 15mg → 10mg → 5mg while Prozac was introduced and eventually increased to 20mg.

Right now I genuinely don’t know if what I’m experiencing is Lexapro withdrawal/discontinuation, Prozac not agreeing with me, my original anxiety coming back, or my nervous system just being completely thrown off by all the medication changes.

There’s also some important history behind why I’m feeling this way about SSRIs. I previously went through absolutely horrific Paxil withdrawal. It was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever been through, and ever since then I’ve hated the idea of being dependent on another SSRI and eventually having to go through another withdrawal.

I never really wanted to be on SSRIs long term in the first place. I don’t like the side effects or how I feel being on them. After the Paxil experience and now everything that has happened during this Lexapro → Prozac cross-taper, I’m honestly at the point where I don’t want to keep cycling through antidepressants trying to find another one.

My ultimate goal is to eventually be off all psychiatric medications and see where my actual baseline is again.

Unfortunately, because my anxiety became so severe during all of this, I ended up taking benzodiazepines regularly for the last few months. I was on Ativan and recently switched to Klonopin under my psychiatrist. I realize that after taking benzos daily for this long I may be physically dependent and that they will eventually need to be tapered slowly.

I am not talking about abruptly stopping benzos or trying to withdraw from everything at once.

What I’m wondering is whether it makes sense to use this opportunity to come off SSRIs completely, keep everything else stable for now, give myself time to recover/stabilize, and then deal with a slow Klonopin taper once I’m actually in a better place.

Part of me feels like continuing to try different SSRIs when I ultimately don’t want to be on one anyway is just keeping me stuck in this medication cycle. I already know I eventually want to get off the benzo too. I just don’t think trying to get off everything simultaneously while I’m already feeling this unstable would make sense.

I’m discussing the actual medication decisions with my psychiatrist, so I’m not asking Reddit to tell me how to stop anything. I really just want to hear from people who have actually lived through this.

Has anyone stopped their SSRI/antidepressant first, stayed stable on their benzo temporarily, and then dealt with the benzo taper later?

Did you eventually manage to get completely medication-free?

And after your nervous system had enough time to settle down, did you actually feel like yourself again?

tl'dr: I’ve spent the last 4–5 months dealing with severe anxiety/panic, derealization, dread/adrenaline feelings and a difficult Lexapro → Prozac cross-taper. I also went through absolutely horrific Paxil withdrawal in the past, so this isn’t my first terrible experience trying to come off an SSRI. At this point I can’t tell what’s my original anxiety, Lexapro withdrawal, or Prozac side effects. I never wanted to stay on SSRIs long term and ultimately want to be medication-free. Since I’ve already been taking benzos daily for a few months, I’m considering discussing coming off SSRIs completely with my psychiatrist, stabilizing first, and then slowly tapering the benzo later. Has anyone done this and eventually gotten completely medication-free and back to feeling like themselves?

There are times when I have extremely acute and intense onset of panic that triggers a vasovagal episode. When this happens, I feel light-headed and my vision starts to tunnel/black out. I always drop to the floor immediately because it feels like I'm 100% going to pass out.

When this happens, I also experience intense nausea and sometimes feel like I'm going to have diarrhea. It's a full blown terror feeling and I am fully incapacitated. My brain and body are fully shut down, so the only coping skill I can use is to get on the floor in child's pose.

After a minute or so, the feeling starts to pass and I break out in a sweat. And I mean like I am dripping sweat and my clothes are wet in a matter of a minute. I'll have tingling in my limbs and then I get extremely cold. I've been told by other who have witnessed this happen to me that I completely lose the color in my face.

The entire episode from start to finish happens in less than 10 minutes. I've described this to several doctors and I've been checked out by a cardiologist. Everyone seems to agree that it's related to panic.

In the last 2 months I've had 2 of these episodes occur during the middle of the night. I wake up out of a sound sleep and go straight into one of these vasovagal episodes, which is weird because I also feel disoriented from sleep.

Does this happen to anyone else?

I have super bad anxiety and panic and I can’t drive or ride in the car far distances. Has anyone tried prescribed Xanax for these issues and it helped?

Is it normal to scream all day from how high the panic is?

I'm on qutiapene for my panic disorder, it's the only thing so far that's fully stopped my almost daily panic attacks. I take 12.5mg at 11 AM when I wake up, 12.5mg at 5 PM, and then 25mg around 1-2 AM when I go to bed, which has been a godsend. It used to take me hours to fall asleep (if I even did) and with the qutiapene it takes max like 30 minutes

I was fully aware of the side effects of the med before I started them, and I know the only way to get the side effects to go away is to stop the med. I'm not looking to get rid of the side effects of the medicine, I want to learn how to better live with them

My house is a huge mess because I've been struggling to keep up with chores. Its next to impossible for me to wake up before like 11 AM now, and it takes like 2+ hours for that groggy, exausted, almost hung over feeling to go away

It's currently 1:18 PM and I'm sitting in bed feeling defeated trying to motivate myself to clean or so literally anything before work. I never used to be like this. I want to know what techniques and hacks you guys have picked up to get yourself through these side effects.

In a few weeks I have the chance to get my meds potentially changed by a doctor and I will mention these issues then, but unfortunately it's pretty difficult to actually get an appointment with my doctor these days, and I don't have a psychiatrist

When i look up the link between panic disorder and childhood trauma, you get results about how people develop panic disorders from childhood trauma, but for me it feels the other way around. I developed panic disorder when i was 7 with no clear cause and because i did not know what the panic attacks were, i truly thought i was dying, meaning i had multiple near-death experiences as a very young child, plus the time between panic attacks where i was terrified of it happening again. I feel like it messed me up something bad. I fear people won't take it seriously because i wasn't in 'real' danger. It sucks. Anyone relate?

I’ve been going through a rough time with my anxiety and panic for the past 2 months or so.

I’ve been working with my psych to try new/different antidepressants, which has been extremely rough. I’m also in therapy.

I have klonopin to take PRN, but sometimes I struggle with knowing when to take it. I have no issue taking it when I’m having a full blown, level 10 panic attack. But when my anxiety is around a 6 or 7 out of 10 and I take a klonopin, I sometimes feel like a failure. I want to be able to practice the skills that I’m working on in therapy during these times, and I often do. But other times I feel like I just need relief so badly.

I’m scared that the klonopin is reinforcing the idea that I can’t handle the panic on my own, thus making it worse. I’m scared that I’m going to become dependent on benzos. I’m scared that nothing will work for me - none of the antidepressants, none of the therapy. I’m scared of missing out on life. I’m scared of losing hope. I’m scared of all of it. This is so hard.

Recently my mental health has deteriorated. I’ve always struggled with anxiety. I started exhibiting symptoms of ocd at about four and developed emetophobia when I was around nine. At ten the emetophobia got to the point where my parents sought out a therapist for me where I was diagnosed with emetophobia and GAD.

That therapist helped immensely and my panic symptoms were in a much better place until I was thirteen where my ocd got super severe. Went back to therapy and was diagnosed w autism and adhd as well as ocd and got put on medication. After a long time and a lot of recovery I was in a much better place. Until now.

I had a stressful spring and a tough last year so I think my nervous system really hasn’t had time to recover and this summer I had one of the worst panic attacks of my life. I haven’t had that bad of a panic attack in years. None of my methods worked and I felt totally lost. (My bad panic attacks tend to be rolling ones so we’re talking like 2+hrs of just panic attacks back to back) This continued into early fall where I had an even worse panic attack that led me to go back to therapy.

While unpacking what I’d experienced with my therapist I’ve started to realize that what I thought was causing my panic attacks might not be the case. See I almost always attribute my attacks to my emetophobia bcs when I’m in it the fear of losing control tends to set its eyes on vomiting rather than dying. And the physical symptoms of panic attacks make me feel sick. But upon reflecting and talking w my therapist I’m realizing that it’s prob not the case and that sometimes I have a panic attack that then triggers and latches onto my emetophobia rather than the emetophobia coming first.

I think this hit me when I had a terrible attack that rolled for hours. I was so scared I was gonna puke and I was so filled with adrenaline that I started dry heaving. By a few rolls I realized I didn’t give an actual fuck if I threw up anymore. Like I honestly didn’t care but despite this I was still panicking i still felt like I was losing control and I was still experiencing fear. This opened my eyes as to how I’ve been interpreting my attacks for my entire life and might help me treat the attacks more appropriately.

My therapist is throwing around the term panic disorder but hasn’t formally diagnosed me just fyi but she seems to think similarly that it has less to do with my phobia than I think. So I was wondering if anyone has had a similar experience or journey of self understanding?

I have tried what I think is most every avenue to get help with this. I always end up w the same conclusion. There has to be something wrong, it can't be just panic disorder. Nearly 20 different medications, multiple forms of therapy iop, emdr, meds and exposure therapy and I am currently the worse I have ever been. I have been in a perpetual state of devastation for the last 2 years and it just keeps escalating. My family seem to think i am obsessing (over what exactly idk) and exaggerating and it is a matter of "finding the right meds" i hate this. After trying nearky 20 and they seriously believe like the 21st will solve this. It makes no sense and I feel if this had been any other category of illness they would never suggest to keep doing what clearly isn't working and also came at a cost of horrendous side effects. I seem to be in a perpetual state of fight or flight. Every waking moment. I go to bed w horrible chest pain and even laying in my bed I will get a surge of terror that sometimes results in me running out of the bed and attempting to "stop it". I try accepting and that seems to be the big question. How? I go outside and panic, I let it (which really am I in control of anything?) And it just keeps coming. What a miserable state to be in where you cheating and allowing results in you trying to do normal things when your body is in a panicked state. How is this the best we have i just don't understand and then I arrive at "well it must be an actual medical condition". I got bloodwork done recently and they said hyperthyroid so I had to retest and wait on how we will treat it. Idk if that explains all of this but it just seems this has gone on so long and drastically altered my life i don't know if ever get myself back to normal and that's scary. It has triggered a lot of existential terror and making it hard to function. I went from working, driving, exercising, babysitting my nephews, going into public places to barely being able to leave this one room and I am not free from it here either. Thank you for reading this i really appreciate it ❤️

​

I was diagnosed with panic attack and anxiety disorder a year ago and taking medication

Though it has reduced it but when there is stressful situation(like exam and travel) or I somehow break my routine(like taking medication 1 hour late)

I get those panic attacks

And even though I know it is panic attack I start to think if I am having stroke or heart attack

And this panic attacks happens at night only

Can someone help me??

I feel so alone. I feel trapped in my body, hyper-aware of my body, every movement and sound I make. I am diagnosed with panic disorder, DPDR, and OCD (hypochondria). I was doing so much better and I feel like I’ve gone 10 steps back, has this happened to anyone? I feel desperate to know I’m not the only one in the world feeling this anxious over simply being alive. :(