Snufkin
07-01-2009, 06:35 PM
This is going to be a long post, and I really hope and appreciate it if some of you will be able to take the time from your day and give it a read. I'm sure, alot of this will seem familiar. but alot of this is also new to me. I would really value any input you might have.
About 7 years ago I had my first panic attack. At the time I wasn’t even aware panic attacks existed, and so I thought something was wrong with me mentally (ive gone crazy). Naturally every time I stepped outside I was feeling this overwhelming feeling of fear and I just wanted to sit at home… I started avoiding situations and developed a panic disorder. Ive went to numerous doctors they all did tests on me and everything came back normal and finally one of them said its probably just a panic attack… after online research I started coming to terms with what it was and accepting that nothing will happen. My symptoms started to dissipate until I reached an equilibrium. I still had an elevated heartrate and my blood pressure seemed to go up in certain situations. I still was hyperventilating in certain situations (I didn’t realize I was hyperventilating then till about couple of months ago!) and I would get tense. I would always be aware of my heartbeat… that was definitely the most consistent symptom. Fine, I learned to live with it and I was even able to enjoy life to a certain extent. 5 years went by, and several months ago something happened. Something I cant even explain… my heart as it was pounding like it usually does when im aware of it… just went silent. Not in the normal way it went silent in a freaky all of a sudden like it wasn’t even there way. I freaked out… my pulse was racing but I couldn’t feel it. The next morning I was feeling rather weird and didn’t realize why I was like this. After a week of not doing anything I could feel my heart again and all was fine… except the next time I tried to get the heart rate going up it happened again… and again and again… and now I feel like I cant breathe… and now my heart is skipping beats…not once like it used to. but several one after the other, the heart just feels so much weaker… and then my sleeping became very disrupted. At first I thought I had real health problems. So again to the doctors I went. And again the results came back absolutely fantastic. I thought to myself, this is just a variation of anxiety right? But I knew how to get myself under control, I already had this shit before why is it so hard to calm myself down now? So I went to the psychiatrist. And we began CBT. But symptoms don’t seem to go away. They all just get worse. Im starting to be afraid to go outside… I feel agitated all the time. Even as I'm writing this I feel very very agitated. I still cant sleep well… when I go outside I feel a sense of unreality… EVEN THOUGH IM MAKING SURE IM BREATHING RIGHT! And I still feel like I cant breath. Lastly, this week I had 3-4 panic attacks… this is the most frequent amount of panic attacks I ever had. Today I felt like I was completely going crazy. This feeling was aggravated because after the panic attack I didn’t feel any relief just worse and worse feeling of crazyness. The scariest part that makes me feel I'm completely losing it is that these recent panic attacks seem to come out of the blue. At least before there was some negative stressful thoughts that brought them on. Today I was just chilling at home when this feeling overwhelmed me.
Can anyone relate to ANY of this? Please help. did anyone experience something similar?
im feeling hopeless. i dont want to become suicidal!
About 7 years ago I had my first panic attack. At the time I wasn’t even aware panic attacks existed, and so I thought something was wrong with me mentally (ive gone crazy). Naturally every time I stepped outside I was feeling this overwhelming feeling of fear and I just wanted to sit at home… I started avoiding situations and developed a panic disorder. Ive went to numerous doctors they all did tests on me and everything came back normal and finally one of them said its probably just a panic attack… after online research I started coming to terms with what it was and accepting that nothing will happen. My symptoms started to dissipate until I reached an equilibrium. I still had an elevated heartrate and my blood pressure seemed to go up in certain situations. I still was hyperventilating in certain situations (I didn’t realize I was hyperventilating then till about couple of months ago!) and I would get tense. I would always be aware of my heartbeat… that was definitely the most consistent symptom. Fine, I learned to live with it and I was even able to enjoy life to a certain extent. 5 years went by, and several months ago something happened. Something I cant even explain… my heart as it was pounding like it usually does when im aware of it… just went silent. Not in the normal way it went silent in a freaky all of a sudden like it wasn’t even there way. I freaked out… my pulse was racing but I couldn’t feel it. The next morning I was feeling rather weird and didn’t realize why I was like this. After a week of not doing anything I could feel my heart again and all was fine… except the next time I tried to get the heart rate going up it happened again… and again and again… and now I feel like I cant breathe… and now my heart is skipping beats…not once like it used to. but several one after the other, the heart just feels so much weaker… and then my sleeping became very disrupted. At first I thought I had real health problems. So again to the doctors I went. And again the results came back absolutely fantastic. I thought to myself, this is just a variation of anxiety right? But I knew how to get myself under control, I already had this shit before why is it so hard to calm myself down now? So I went to the psychiatrist. And we began CBT. But symptoms don’t seem to go away. They all just get worse. Im starting to be afraid to go outside… I feel agitated all the time. Even as I'm writing this I feel very very agitated. I still cant sleep well… when I go outside I feel a sense of unreality… EVEN THOUGH IM MAKING SURE IM BREATHING RIGHT! And I still feel like I cant breath. Lastly, this week I had 3-4 panic attacks… this is the most frequent amount of panic attacks I ever had. Today I felt like I was completely going crazy. This feeling was aggravated because after the panic attack I didn’t feel any relief just worse and worse feeling of crazyness. The scariest part that makes me feel I'm completely losing it is that these recent panic attacks seem to come out of the blue. At least before there was some negative stressful thoughts that brought them on. Today I was just chilling at home when this feeling overwhelmed me.
Can anyone relate to ANY of this? Please help. did anyone experience something similar?
im feeling hopeless. i dont want to become suicidal!