Ilikepandas
09-21-2014, 10:29 AM
Thursday I was driving on a highway that I have drove on many times before since I live in a small town and have to get to the larger city that's 30 min away. I remember feeling a little weird but I can't recall why. I'm usually a little nervous when I have to drive at high speeds but only a little. Anyway, my neck suddenly became numb and it seemed like this numbness surged to my face. I felt paralyzed and I told my dad (whom was a passenger since I have my learner's permit) that I felt panicked because there was also this panicked feeling. Numbness was the main thing I felt. I can't recall, but I think before I drove that day, on Wednesday, I was concerned about my breathing. I could divert my attention away from it of course and my dad told me that it could just be the humidity of the air since he said he was having trouble too and someone from his work said he was as well. It just felt like I had to make more of an effort to inhale and exhale. I had to pull over on the side of the road and have him drive. I immediately calmed down but I still felt a little odd, like worried about what happened. When I got home, I googled it and the results were all kinds of diseases but mainly what popped up was panic attack and anxiety. I've never had this happen before. I was able to go to sleep that night. When I woke up the next day, I became more focused on my breathing. I could still push the thought of my breathing away. I was kinda worrying that I would get another panic attack while driving. I enjoy driving a lot and was supposed to pick up my siblings from school. I ended up driving to the mailbox (which is like 2 minutes away since it's a small town) and felt nervous. When we got back, I sat on the couch to try to distract myself from my breathing again because it was feeling off and watch TV but this made my face go numb and it felt like I couldn't breathe for a moment. My dad was sitting across from me and I told him the panic was back. He calmed me down and told me that I wasn't going to die. He said he had them too especially since he had asthma. This is when everything came crashing down. I was fixated on my breathing. It made me very anxious because I still thought I was going to die. All I can feel is the air passing through my nostrils. My body felt numb and still does. It feels like my internal system is numb. I couldn't distract myself from it. I find comfort in googling it and that's all I could do. I went outside for walks, talked to my dad, and I thought I was better enough to ride as passenger to go pick up my siblings. I wasn't. I was panicking. My body felt numb, I got that unusual detached from reality feeling. It got worse at night. I'm the type of person that likes to snack all day but for some reason I wasn't hungry. Usually I feel like I can feel my stomach growling or things of that sort but it's numb..I managed to force myself to eat tortillas with melted cheese after I got back from a nightly walk with my siblings. At night when everyone fell asleep, I was left alone freaking out. I couldn't stop pacing back and forth, my face felt numb, I got that detached from reality/spacy feeling, my focus was on my breathing, I couldn't think of anything else but my breathing, and I started trembling. Also throughout the day I felt cold even though my parents kept telling me that it was super hot. This all happened Friday. Saturday, well yesterday, I went to the doctor because I only managed to fall asleep for three hours and was still feeling really weird. I told him about what happened while driving, the numbness, and he said that it was panic attack. He was reluctant to give me medicine and told me that it was all in my head and that the numbness was because I was hyperventilating. He said that what triggered it was emotionally related like a major change in my life or being stressed out but I believe I've been pretty content before this. I know now that it's for sure related to the panic attack in the car and not something life-threatening but I still can't stop focusing on my breathing. It feels like only air passing through my nostrils. My system feels numb but my facial numbness isn't as intense anymore because when I start to worry, I acknowledge that I'm hyperventilating and breathe deeply. I can't do breathing exercises though for more than a minute because I panic since my breathing feels like it's not even there. This is a really long post so I'm going to get to the main point. Right now my breathing feels very weird like numb and sometimes I can't tell if I'm breathing or not but I know I am because I can see it in my chest. I feel like I can't think about anything else but what I'm feeling. I try but end up with a panicky feeling. I lost my appetite yesterday, I'm restless, and I feel like air. Yoga and meditation make me panic because it makes me feel detached from reality/spaced out. When I try to force myself to go to sleep, this spaced out feeling occurs too and it is very frightening. I don't know what to do. My parents said I could go to the hospital and get medicine this time but I'm worried about the side effects they may cause and feel like they'll make my problem worse. It's like I managed to calm myself down but I feel like air. My whole body feels numb including my breathing. I'm worried that not eating (so far a day) will make it worse but I tried forcing myself to eat and I just can't because of this numbness. I feel like I'm going crazy. Especially since this happened out of nowhere. The thought of eating makes me feel panicky, I think because my body's numb and maybe I'm worried that I'll choke or vomit or something. Please help me! Is there anything else I can try? When I try to avert my attention to something else, the symptoms intensify. The only thing that makes me relax is going through anxiety forums and Youtube videos explaining panic attack and anxiety experiences. I don't even know with certainty if this is anxiety or a very long lasting panic attack or maybe just constant reoccurring panic attacks. Another symptom is I feel like I'm getting short-term memory loss. I'm getting easily frightened about small things like my siblings talking or my mom vacuuming. While typing this, my attention seems to focus on typing and remembering what happened thus making me feel like I'm suffocating. I know my breathing's automatic but I feel like I can't do anything unless I'm regulating my breathing at the same time. .___.