how/when did it start for you?

[kevin]

for me I got my first attack when I smoked weed.

About 2 years ago I used to be a pothead, and then one time I got high and thought I was dying (cuz of the panic attack, which I didn't know was a panic attack).

I had gotten so high before that it crossed my mind that I might die, but then I just told myself noone has ever died from weed and it would be impossible for me to get so high that I die.

But then one day I got stoned and I had my first panic attack. The next couple panic attacks only happened when I smoked too much weed....then when even smoking a little weed....then progressed into when I was sober....and just kept getting worse from there.

It's 2 years later, I quit smoking pot and cigarettes and cut back a hell of a lot on alcohol, and I'm getting pretty god damn sick of this shit.

So how/when did yours start?

[Jeordie]

Maybe the weed promoted the onset of panic, but not necessarely it is what created it. Maybe that's why you keep having attacks - and of course, after a shocking experience like a panic attack, you feed on your anxiety because you didn't know what happened and you were scared you were going to die, so here you are stuck in the cycle.

To me it began five years ago. It was a calm sunday afternoon, I sat at the computer after lunch, I was designing something - and fuck, a stroke. My left leg felt numb and I felt I was going to die!!!! The feeling was similar to the one I had when I fainted once before. Of course it wasn't a stroke.

I prayed my parents, who were at home, to bring me to a hospytal. They didn't, I don't know why. Maybe they didn't feel I had something seriously wrong - but I still think they did the wrong thing. Because I went to a doctor few days after, he made me do check-ups, and he didn't find anything wrong. And that's when I began being hypocondriac - because of course I had something, a tumor, leuchemia, a circulation problem, because otherwise I wouldn't have felt that ill!!!

Awful months passed being up and down. And then, an article on Men's Health (yes, hehe) shed light in the darkness: they talk about people who feel dizzy still have no physical illness. They give a name to what I have: panic attacks, and anxiety.

I'm pissed I couldn't know that before, because at that time I was so afraid to get more attacks I developed some generalized anxiety that was persecuting me at day and night not making me able to function. And I was in a pretty important step in my life - moving out of home and all. But knowing what I had (I was immediately 100% sure when I read about it) gave me some hope.

My objective is to live like I never had that first panic attack. Ok, I've grown up because of it, all the suffering makes sense, I'm grateful, but now, I don't wanna live as an "anxious individual who had panic attacks". I just wanna be me, free of senseless fear.

[MikeMarcoe]

Mine started on August 29, 1985 at 1:40 pm. It was the 3rd day of 11th grade, and I was called on to read something out loud in class. Bam! Out of nowhere, I had my first anxiety attack. People commented on it. People noticed it. It was out there in the open.

From there, it generalized to a broader social phobia, and 20 years later, I've made some great progress on it, but I still have some work to do.

[jitters]

Mmmm... difficult one, I've had this without realising my whole life. But my first panic attack which I recognised as one was 2 and a half years ago. At that time one of my jobs was driving a lorry. Just outside london about 3 and a half hour drive from home. I started to feel ill. Like I wanted to vomit, it turned out later to be food poisoning. Anyway I kept taking great big breaths trying to hold back the vomiting, as I drove home. Finally about 5 miles form home. My muscles seized up my hands and feet started to cramp. Not good when turning a corner towards a roundabout in in 10 tonne lorry. I didn't realise at the time I was hyperventilating. My heart was beating out of my chest I was terrified I thought I was going to die. I rung the office in tears, telling them where I was and that I couldn't breathe. I remember saying to myself not now, I'm not ready to die yet. It was just over a week to the birth of my son. Anyway in the end they got me to hospital and within 20 mins I was fine other than the nuasea. And I was told I had Had a Panic Attack. My symptoms had started six years earlyier. And the thought patterns had been there my whole life but this was the beginning of my downward spiral.

Duncan