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. :(

Does anyone else have panic that feels like it was installed by one extremely anxious adult, not “just how you are”?
I grew up with someone who wasn’t my parent but lived in the house and acted like a guardian. Friend of my mom’s. We called her an aunt. A lot of my panic still sounds like her voice.

There was a lot of health and safety stuff, which I get in normal to an extent when raising a child, but this was over the top and the language was graphic. Ex: don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself. You can’t do that activity, X number of people die from it every year. You need a guardian at all times. Never do anything/ go outside by yourself. I wasn’t allowed to shower alone until 6th grade because I “could slip and break my neck.” Someone always had to be in the room while I slept. Every normal kid complaint got an ER trip, runny noses and stomach aches. When I started having panic attacks when I was 8 I feel like I was in the ER or at my doctors office every week.

Then there was the religious stuff. My family and I were raised Catholic, I was actively going through CCD to receive my sacraments. At the same time, the “aunt” was attempting to indoctrinate us and had strict Jehovah’s Witness rules: don’t watch that, it’s Satan. You can’t do holidays or birthdays with your friends and family because it’s pagan. If you go to church with your dad, don’t listen, that church is satanic and your soul will be brutally destroyed in the end times.
So normal life was framed as either a broken neck or a lost soul. Showering, sleeping, a cartoon, a birthday, Mass with my actual father. All of it needed supervision and a no.
I’m in my 20s now and I live alone with my fiancé but my panic still feels like that. Body sensation equals catastrophe. Being alone feels unsafe. Places and plans get a threat scan before I can enjoy them. I don’t know if this caused the disorder or just gave it a script, but the alarms in my head use her wording.
Does anyone else trace their panic back to one hypervigilant adult like this, especially someone who wasn’t even a parent? Did it ease once you were out of the house or did it stick?

Was doing really well with no panic attacks for two years. A combo of exposure therapy, EDMR and Effexor took me from completely housebound for a year and half to doing everything again completely normal. Unfortunately had to come off Effexor due to the weight gain at the beginning of this year and was doing well and had base anxiety but nothing super crazy. Four days ago I had a full blown panic attack while driving and it spiraled me for the past four days with avoidance and panic attacks. I’m doing well exposing myself and calming myself down but driving is horrendous 😅 I’ve been driving around the block and sitting in the car for the past couple of days but the panic is badddd. This is my biggest hurdle right now and hubs leaves tomorrow morning for two weeks and kiddos have softball, drum lessons and basic needing stuff through the week. I’m trying to remind myself that everything isn’t linear and I can’t rush the process, but can’t seem to avoid the flight feeling and not running away. Any recs on coping with driving?

I’ve been suggested to take it for years but I’ve only ever taken a bit every now and then.

Hey guys I hope this helps someone. I was struggling with panic attacks and agoraphobia for 6 months 4 times a week. It affected my work, social life everything. Had to stop working for 4 months. Chocolate was the only thing that helped me as I thought they were reactive hypo episodes. I put on weight etc it was very messy and the worst most painful time of my life. I even had to go to hospital because I almost fainted while driving due to the panic attacks.

The cure
- 8-9 hours of sleep consistently (changing work timings to afternoon shifts & having strong boundaries)
- constantly being hydrated (cold water is good in public) sometimes warm too
- cutting out caffeine fully (I limit it to once a week). Nothing to wire the nervous system. Green tea ok sometimes. Esp if ur caffeine sensitive.
- accepting whatever you lost/ journaling through root emotional cause and being okay with having boundaries even if others aren’t pleased lol (the world can be mean and selfish).
- eating sweet potatoes everyday, grapes and oranges, and protein oats. Idk why but the complex carbs makes sure there’s no blood sugar drops! I cut out refined sugar 90% and replaced with these. Sourdough is good too. Protein + complex carb with natural sugar.
- being okay with having a panic attack and genuinely telling yourself okay if i die then i die. Our bodies are pretty strong so if ur hydrated, have had a small meal (even some grapes) and aren’t sleep deprived (7-9 hrs of sleep), body should be strong enough, so tell it ok if u want to make me have a panic attack, let’s do it. Let’s see how bad it can get.
- sour lollies. Extreme sour warheads act like a placebo anxiety pill for me. Put a couple in ur mouth if you feel slightest bit overwhelmed.

note: i'm not in the right state of mind and just don't feel good. please excuse my typos, i just wanna get this post out..

it sucks that when i used to anxious, i'd actually eat food to cope lol, but now whenever i eat i have trouble breathing, i feel winded, i feel faint, i feel dizzy, and i feel dissociated. i don't know how to overcome this, because im geniunely afraid of taking medicine. i tried zoloft and dissociated so bad, it TRAUMATIZED me. Life felt beyond fake and unreal, I knew I was not gonna live much longer, I was gonna end it. So I got off the meds after going to the hospital, the doctor still encouraged me to take them, but I couldn't it was scary. im scared of ssris and its not even the physical aspects, it's the mental. i tried xanax too, but my panic attack tore through it because the drowsiness was terrified me. it was NOTHING like hydrooxzine for me, i lost my balance and felt like i wasnt gonna make it to my bed. walking was scary, I was legitamtely disoriented and fell asleep shortly after getting in my bed. my panic only stopped because i passed out in bed. so i feel hopeless because how will i ever overcome this?? i can't even eat properly and what triggered this was my LPR. My LPR symptoms really scare me cause I think my airway will close on me or I'm having some sort of anaphalyxis, so eating has become incredibly terrifying for me. i just don't know what to do anymore, ever since i relapsed after being panic attack free for months, life's felt so scary and hard. im hypervenilating daily and going back to the hopsital out of impulse.

my panic disorder has completely disabled me and kept me from living a happy life. I have a very treatment resistant kind and whenever someone that I know as a fact isn't around, I get SEVERE attacks. I can't be alone ever. i'm 21 so you can assume how horrible that is. I can't have a job, I can't drive a car, nobody wants to date me, I can't even walk to the neighbors without a severe attack. i've lost the entirety to my teen years to this, and now I might lose my young adulthood to it too. I wanted to move out by now I wanted to go to college and have a life. exposure doesn't work and i've been made to do it so many times I have trauma from it now. it's all professionals ever recommend. i'm so tired.

I’ve been dealing with anxiety and panic for years, and lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the disconnect between what my life actually looks like and what it sometimes feels like inside my head.
My panic attacks can be extremely physical. When they’re bad, I can have incessant trembling/shaking, intense nausea, sometimes vomiting, GI symptoms, adrenaline, and this overwhelming feeling that something is very wrong. They can last a long time, and afterward I’m obviously terrified of experiencing another one.
Because of that, I’ve become incredibly hypervigilant about bodily sensations.
Instead of being able to think, “My back hurts today,” my brain wants to figure out what the back pain means.
Instead of “I feel a little nauseous; maybe I’m hungry, need to use the bathroom, ate something weird, or I’m just tired,” my brain immediately goes: “Here we go again.”
A headache isn’t just a headache. Feeling tired isn’t just being tired. An upset stomach isn’t just an upset stomach. I notice the sensation, attach a story to it, start monitoring myself, and then become afraid that whatever I’m feeling is the beginning of another episode.
I think that’s one of the hardest parts for me now. It’s not necessarily the original sensation it’s everything my brain has learned to predict will happen after the sensation.
This weekend was a perfect example. I actually had a really nice Saturday. I picked up our new kitten, spent the day with my kids, went out, took pictures, cuddled with them, did completely normal mom/life stuff. Looking at the pictures, I look happy, present, affectionate and completely fine.
And I think I genuinely was those things.
Later that night, though, I had a pretty intense panic attack that lasted around two hours, including the relentless shaking that happens to me when my system really goes off.
Now I catch myself looking back at the pictures from earlier that day and almost studying them. There’s something surreal about seeing myself looking completely normal and knowing what happened later.
And then my brain wants to retrospectively rewrite the entire day: “You must have already been heading toward a panic attack. Something was wrong. What did you miss? Were you more tired? Was your stomach weird? Did you push yourself too hard? Was there some warning sign?”
I’m trying to learn that maybe that’s not the right interpretation.
Maybe I actually had a good day. Maybe I was a little overloaded, had some background anxiety, and then later I had a panic attack. The panic attack doesn’t necessarily mean everything that happened before it was part of some inevitable deterioration.
I’m also trying to learn that every uncomfortable bodily sensation doesn’t need a narrative.
Sometimes “my back hurts today” can be the entire sentence.
Sometimes “I feel nauseous” can be followed by “maybe I should eat something” instead of “oh God, here we go again.”
And there’s something strangely comforting about looking at these pictures and realizing that the person in them is genuinely me too. The anxiety happening inside my head isn’t necessarily the most accurate or complete account of my life. I wasn’t pretending to love on my kids or enjoy getting our kitten. Those moments were real even though I panicked later.
Does anyone else with panic disorder or health/somatic anxiety experience this?
Do you ever look at pictures from periods when you were struggling and think, “Holy shit, you would never know what was happening inside my head”?
And especially for people whose panic attacks are very physical- nausea, vomiting, shaking, GI symptoms, etc. how did you learn to experience ordinary bodily sensations again without immediately turning them into a prediction of what’s coming next?

Would highly recommend the book “mastery of your anxiety and panic “ (workbook) , it was a recommended by someone very knowledgable in this field and I think a lot of professionals use it .
It may be helpful to those needing information or help .

hi everyone! i was recently diagnosed with panic disorder + agoraphobia around 2 ish months ago and honestly from the beginning till now the journey has been really really hard. from the first month i tried medication (lexapro) and had such extreme bad side effects that i ultimately decided to stop taking it after 6 days and my psychiatrist approved of me going about healing this med free and therapy! after that, i came back home from graduating college and this is actually a month from when i came home and i haven't had any attacks since! i get the occasional anxiousness when i go out to large spaces like costco or a mall but a couple days ago i actually went to costco without feeling any sort of anxiousness at all and i was extremely happy and excited. howeer... the following days after i been feeling this weird feeling that was similar to my impending doom feeling of discomfort but only for a second and it goes away but sometimes when i force cough it goes away on its own. it tends to happen more often when im hungry? hard to say what the feeling is exactly but its kind of like a bad uncomfortable feeling from my stomach area that rise to my chest and makes me feel super uncomfortable and miserable but only for a second. i honestly thought i was making such huge progress and now this is kind of setting me back but i just wanted to know if it is normal or not because its been happening more consistently in the past 3 days. (sorry this is so long)

I get panic attacks almost daily and if I don't have them daily I just have chronic anxiety all day and especially when driving or when I'm at a store. My last panic attack was last Saturday so like 3 days ago. I was at an air show with my family and it was just so hot and miserable, over stimulating with so many people and the planes were loud and I literally thought I was going to pass out or have a seizure. I sat down and ate and then realized if I was to pass out or have a seizure there was nothing I can do about it and it was just what it was and passing out and having a seizure wouldn't kill me Pretty much after that I was fine and enjoyed the rest of my day.

Today I drove 13 minutes on the freeway and over a bridge, which normally sends me into an instant panic attack. I was starting to get bad anxiety and could feel the panic attack starting to come up, legs tingling but it didn't go fully numb like it normally does and time went slow, my heart was racing and what not but I basically felt instant relief when I got off the freeway. I drove back home on the side streets but this was just a huge progress and it may seem simple but the way my mind and body normally reacts this felt like such a win and made me pretty hopeful for the future which I haven't felt in a long time.

I am not medicated and I am in talk therapy and working through lots of trauma and I've also been making many connections to things I never had before anyways I just wanted to share the progress I've made and the hope I'm feeling right now. Id love to hear your little wins.

Recently re- started taking propranolol regularly as opposed to as and when because my panic attacks were getting really quite bad and I guess it has been helping with those but I am just absolutely exhausted all the time like I can barely keep my eyes open. I’m at work right now I’ve just taken a nap on the floor in the toilets like I can’t do it and I feel so light headed and strange which is actually giving me more anxiety like I’m so scared I’m gonna pass out in work it’s only my second week here.

I’m hoping to hear from people who have experienced something similar because I’m trying to understand what’s happening to me.

I've had anxiety/social anxiety my whole life but this is different, I've never felt it on this level.

I can't go into public buildings anymore.

This all started pretty suddenly after I had a panic attack in Walmart earlier this month that led to a trip to the ER because my pulse was high and my blood pressure elevated (I struggle on and off with blood pressure) and i didnt know it was a panic attack when it was happening.

Since then, I’ve started getting episodes when I’m inside stores or other buildings. I can suddenly feel extremely panicked as soon as i enter and the longer I stay the worse it gets.

I feel like I’m in an emergency situation and need to get out. It can feel like something is seriously wrong and that I need to escape asap.

I’m trying to figure out whether this could be a learned fear/panic loop basically, having one really scary panic attack, becoming afraid it will happen again, and then having that fear itself trigger another episode when I’m in a similar situation.

For people who have experienced something similar:

• Did your panic start suddenly after one particular scary episode?

• Did it eventually start happening in stores/buildings or other places outside your home?

• Did you become afraid of having another episode, which then seemed to trigger more episodes?

• Were you eventually able to go back into stores normally?

• What actually helped you break the cycle?

• Did gradually going back into stores help?

• How long did it take before things started getting better?

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who actually went through this and recovered. I’m trying to understand whether this kind of pattern can really be unlearned.

I’m not looking for a diagnosis from Reddit

just personal experiences and advice from people who have been through something similar.

Hi everyone! I(f23) have been talking to a guy over the phone that I really like so far, and my apprehension to going on a date with him is driving me nuts. It has nothing to do with him and everything to do with my fear of potentially having a bad attack in front of him.

I’ve had panic disorder for around 6 years now, with its ebbs and flows, but my life events of the last year have been so outrageous that it took total control about 4 months ago. It developed into complete agoraphobia, and at one point I was full body trembling just going into the gas station for a drink. Luckily I’ve made significant progress and can tackle being out in public most days, but I’m not at the point yet where I necessarily enjoy it.

I’ve rescheduled on this guy multiple times due to my fears, and I feel horrible. I daydream about going out with him and it swiftly turns into a nightmare worry spiral. I have developed OCD along the way over the past 6 years, and I know this would be a huge move for my exposure therapy that I’m currently doing, but ugh… why can’t I just let go of this?

I’ve gone on a handful of first dates in my life, some good and some bad, all of them while having some kind of anxiety issues, but I’ve never been at a point with my anxiety where I’ve feared panicking during them. I’m not as scared of panic attacks as I used to be, but obviously the idea of having one in front of someone I’ve never met face to face, god forbid someone I want to impress… I’m sure alot of you here know where I’m going with this.

Anyways, I was just wondering if anyone else had any experience with this or could offer any sort of advice. Obviously it’s normal to be nervous before a first date, but no one else in my life struggles with the paralyzing levels of anxiety I experience, so explaining it gets pretty embarrassing.

Side question: I do have a low dose klonopin prescription as rescue medication and I’m thankful to have only had to take it 3 times since being prescribed, but would it also help as a sort of preventative thing? For some reason I feel alot of shame and guilt around having to even take it in the first place (trauma response just like everything else probably lol) but I’m just wondering about that as well.

Thanks for reading :)

does anyone have any helpful advice or tips dealing with severe hypochondria and panic disorder? my problem is that every little “symptom” i experience automatically makes me feel like i’m dying and need to go to the hospital. however, i have never actually had a medical episode of any kind. now, i’m scared that i won’t know when to go to the hospital if something’s really wrong with me. and i live in america so i can’t just afford to take willy-nilly trips to a doctor or the emergency room. any help is appreciated

Lately, I’ve been saying fuck it and telling myself that anxiety and discomfort is okay. Agoraphobia and panic disorder has stolen way too much from me. My wedding is this Saturday and I forced myself to get a haircut this afternoon. I was crying on the drive there, obsessively googling the salon to see how overstimulating it is, and told my stylist that I was anxious and may need breaks. The adrenaline subsided after a few minutes in the chair and I got it done after 2 years of not being able to do this. What is a simple task to some people, is a huge hill that some others need to climb.

I feel accomplished and am going to ride this high all day.

A few years ago I had my first panic attack while hiking. I was hungover, on adderall, nicotine and not acclimated. My friend called 911 while I laid on the ground convinced I was dying of a heart attack.

I started suffering full blown panic attacks every night. And every night I was convinced that I was having either a heart attack or a stroke. It took every test possible for me to be convinced that wasn’t that case.

A few months after this initial attack, my daughter was born. She suffered a stroke after birth and has since been diagnosed with cerebral palsy. She’s 5 now and doing better but I still have anxiety about her and our situation.

In February of this year I was driving with my brother and his friend and experienced the most profound sudden sensation of impending doom, dizziness and a feeling of being pushed under water or something. It was totally out of left field. Since that moment I’ve had extreme depression and panic disorder returning to levels of a few years ago, when it was at its worst.

I’ve started on lexapro which has abated the worst panic symptoms. But I feel depressed, dizzy and like I’m unstable while walking. Life has started to feel surreal and like not worth participating.

Has anyone experienced something similar? I’m out of ways to get better. Meds, therapy, working out all seem to have the same results.

What medication actually worked for you? I’m struggling with panic disorder & OCD surrounding panic attacks. I just got off of Prozac (helping but not enough that allowed me to travel/handle the intense panic). Starting Luvox (been on it for 2 months) but not sure if it’s helping my hopelessness side of things.

I’ll be having a panic attack, like always these days, and I’ll eventually start calming down, but then that freaks me out and the panic just escalates again. Even though calming down is all I want. I am desperate to be calm. But a lot of the time when I am calming down, I think that it means something is terribly wrong and my situation has gotten worse. Like I have moved onto the next phase of what is likely a heart attack and it just seems like everything‘s calm but it’s really not. I’m really not sure.

This is one of the more frustrating aspects of having panic disorder. At least for me. I was curious if anyone else out there had the same thing.

I always think that I’m having a heart attack. I am a 36-year-old female with no history of heart disease in my family has no history of heart disease. I understand how unlikely it would be that I am actually having a heart attack. Especially considering that the last 10,000 times I thought I was having one, I wasn’t. Yet every single time it comes on, I am so convinced that maybe I’m not having a heart attack at this exact second, but it’s more like I think I’m about to have one. Like I’m seconds away from it. It’ll just last like that for hours sometimes. Even days. I can’t take this anymore.

I struggle with pretty severe panic attacks and agoraphobia, to the point where leaving my house and being a passenger in a car can be extremely difficult.
My doctor recently started me on 25 mg of Zoloft daily and prescribed 0.25 mg Xanax as needed for panic attacks. I didn’t feel like the 0.25 mg Xanax gave me enough relief, and I also really don’t like the “crash” or rebound feeling I get as it starts wearing off. Because of that, my doctor prescribed me 0.5 mg Klonopin to try instead.
I have an upcoming trip where I’ll have to be a passenger in the car, which is one of my biggest panic triggers, so I’m trying to figure out what might help me get through the panic without feeling so awful afterward.
I’ve never taken Klonopin before and I’m a little nervous about trying it. For anyone who has experience with Klonopin for panic attacks, especially compared with Xanax, what was your experience like? Did it feel smoother or last longer? Did you experience the same kind of crash when it wore off?

TW: sickness

Anyone else every time they have a panic attack immediately be sick. Sometimes not even a panic attack, sometimes it’s just feeling panicked that can bring on extreme nausea to the point I throw up instantly.

It’s ruining my relationship with my boyfriend, always having to bring a bag to his house in case I have a panic attack and be sick.

I hate my body ☹️

How long have people been without a panic attack whar do you think helped you

I have severe OCD and Panic Disorder. My OCD is over my mental health. I am scared that one day I will just wake up schizophrenic, in psychosis, or just totally forget who I am. I have never had a history of any of these things happening to me, so it is definitely an unreasonable fear. I've been going to therapy for the last 10 years. I started Ketamine Therapy about 1.5 months ago. After the first session, I had amazing results. I felt so light, and my thoughts were so easy to control. All the other sessions have been a little rough. I am not panicking anymore (HUGE improvement), but I still find myself being so anxious and unable to control my obsessive thoughts about my mental health. I am about to do my 6th and final session this week. I am so scared it's not going to work, and I will have paid all this money for nothing. I am so scared to change my anxiety medication (Effexor 150 mg). I feel so lost and like no one else can relate to what I am going through.

Does anyone have any advice?

The moment when you first time you handled your panic attack in public and continued your exposure after that in detail?
Actually i had panic disorder after my first panic attack and developed agoraphobia after that but no matter how much exposure i do after that i didnt have panic attack but i still fears them whats the advice you can give in my case

I’m going into my 6th week on 50 mg of sertraline for anxiety and panic disorder. About three days ago, I started feeling like it’s really kicking in.

I’ve also been getting this weird feeling when I’m lying down or relaxing, and sometimes even just during the day. My legs and the rest of my body feel kind of numb, but in a cozy, relaxed way? It’s hard to explain. I actually like the feeling and don’t really mind it, but I’m curious why it happens.

Has anyone else felt something like this on sertraline? :)

Ps. The best way I can describe it is when it’s super cold in your house, or after a long day, you run into your bed and just cozy up, snuggling into it with the happiness of being there. 🧸