Panic Attacks

[Empired]

HELLO anyone else get panic attacks? They're hard to explain to those have never experienced one but if you don't know if you've had one or not, you haven't basically.

I used to experience them all the time when I struggled with mental health and they died down when I started to recover but just today I've had like five in a row and they're awful and just make my family angry at me cos they want me to snap out of it which you just CAN'T without support.

So to other ppl: do you get panic attacks? If you do, is there anything you try to calm down? (And does it actually work?)

[buttons]

i've had them a few times but tbh i've completely forgot about them (more so pushed them to the back of my mind) so can't really remember what happened. but yeah they're awful and i'm not able to think of anything to calm down, everything that is happening is out of my control. it just happens, reaches a peak, then slowly come down and then i'm knackered and sleep if possible and not talk to anyone for a while. i probably get panic attacks on smaller scale more often and i just try to breathe then and get out of the situation if poss.

[dbgtz]

Never really properly panicked about anything, be it in a "normal" sense or panic attacks so I wouldn't even know what it feels like honestly lmao.

[Elegance]

i used to get ridiculously bad panic attacks a few years ago and they'd be so regular. not as frequent anymore but they definitely still happen every so often

focused breathing and cold water really do help me

panic attacks whilst at home are easier to cope with because i go to the bathroom and even though it probably sounds ridiculous, i stare at myself in the bathroom mirror whilst concentrating on my breathing

even though it's not always possible esp if you're in a social situation, going for a walk/changing your environment can help like sometimes i'll go for a walk outside or even just walk in circles through the rooms in my house

playing with my cat helps too but obv not everyone has a cat

[Prosiary]

i have them every so often not very regularly though, they are horrendous, what i do to calm my self down is just figure out breathing properly and just 100% focusing on breathing properly and it seems to eventually calm down, sometimes doesnt really work though and then i just put some relaxing music or just relaxing sounds like rain etc

[wixard]

only ever had two, both triggered by a certain person about two years ago

felt like i was going to vomit/faint/couldn't stand/couldn't catch my breath and the whole world was in slow motion

luckily i'm not prone to them, was just an isolated incident

[Samantha]

Only had one that I know about over 2 years ago now, and it was actually triggered because of a guy telling me what this girl said about me and the situation at the time at work! I was at home when it happened, I struggled to breathe and couldn't talk, I messaged my bf at the time (who I was on a break with and he is now an ex) that I think I was having one and he ended up ringing me, but all I could do was cry and scream. My sister was upstairs, I couldn't call her for help and I screamed to try and get her attention, after a few attempts she said what, but all I could do was cry and scream still; my boyfriend came as fast as he could to my house, but at the time my parents were away in Wales and his parents were in Devon, he had a bad ankle, but managed to walk the 2 miles to my house and he stayed with me for a bit. My sister called my parents when she found out what was up, and they said they'd get a taxi back from Wales (they were on a coach trip, and Wales is over 2 hours away), but I told them no. I managed to drink and I was fine walking when I'd settled down though.

The guy who triggered it (the one who said what a girl had said about me at work) is now my boyfriend, weird how things happen lmao.

[x-s-x]

I haven't experienced a panic attack & hopefully I never do. It seems so horrible and I feel sorry for people who suffer from them daily

[Chris]

No never, but I imagine they're not very pleasant. I can't imagine being that panicked over something, but I guess it could happen.

[lawrawrrr]

I get these regularly. Once a day would be a bad week, once a week would be a tremendously good week. I have differing severities during the week, sometimes I just stop functioning and space out, sometimes I'm uncontrollably shaking, sometimes it's a fast heart rate but I can carry on with life.

Calming down for me depends on the trigger - I try to listen to a calming/mindful playlist on Spotify (you can search the default ones, there's tons of playlists on YouTube or create your own one while you're not massively panicking) or read something, even if it's some BS about what the guys from TOWIE are doing to immerse yourself in a different world than the one you're in and struggling with. Sometimes going outside for a walk works as well, sometimes it does nothing, it really depends what sort of thing has triggered it.

I wish I could actually help more but it's so like, personal I guess, and sometimes there's nothing you can do to make them go away. I've had bad weeks where for about 5 days I've had pretty continual panic attacks (recently actually) and literally couldn't do anything until I went to the doctors and spoke to them and got some help that way. That might be something to consider if you feel like this is going on for more than a couple of isolated incidents

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No never, but I imagine they're not very pleasant. I can't imagine being that panicked over something, but I guess it could happen.

Haha, you can't imagine being that panicked over something - try being that panicked over nothing!! I get panic attacks all the time when I can't think of a trigger for it, it's so frustrating to the logical part of my brain!!