It seems that we all have different "types" of panic attacks. What scares me the most is not the attack itself but the anticipation of it and the "where will I be?", "will I be talking to someone?", "walking somewhere" questions?" This kind of worries seem to be much worse than the actual attack. If I am at home, and 90% of the time that's where they take place, I can cope quite easily. And although they are not pleasant my fear level remains quite low as I know they'll go away. But it's what comes after that becomes the real problem. Going out after an attack is difficult, as I fear a second one, and I start asking myself: "what do I do if it happens while I'm out? Will I be able to stop somewhere? Would I be able to sit down? And how long will it last?". The worse ones last up to 30/40 minutes. The symptoms of my attacks are also limited to a couple of unpleasant sensations. After the initial dizziness when everything around me goes foggy and fades away in a shade of grey, my heart starts beating really fast, so fast that I try to breathe as little as possible in order to slow it down from around 250 beats per minute to a normal rate. One of the techniques I use to make it go back to normal is holding my breath. This doesn't always work straight away and sometimes I have to do it 4 or 5 times before it stops. Holding my breath makes the unpleasant sensations worse at first, my ears ache and my chest hurts but if I didn't do that the attack would probably last much longer. Thinking rationally, I don't even know why I am so scared when my heart starts beating fast, at the end of the day I don't experience any 'fear of dying like some people do. Although I've had my attacks for a very long time, it's only very recently, about 2 years, that I've found out what they are. Unfortunately since then everything has become much more difficult for me. Before I knew what they were I was able to cope much better. And if it's true that there were things I would avoid doing like running, standing up too quickly or take part in sporting activities except with people I knew, I wouldn't obsess myself over it very much. I had been told by my doctor that I had tachycardia and that although it probably was stress related there was nothing wrong with my heart. None of the doctors that saw me in the following years has ever mentioned panic attacks but at the same time they had no cure for me and all my tests and electrocardiograms were always fine. It was a friend of mine who, after listening to me talking about my 'palpitations' said that her sister had something very similar and that they were panic attacks. At first I didn't believe her and I replied that I wasn't panicky during my attacks. But then I started reading books, and websites, and the more I read the more I realized that in fact I had most of those symptoms myself. I even watched a video of someone who filmed herself while she was having an attack on utube. When I saw that, all my doubts subsided as I recognized myself completely in that video. There are lots of things I still don't understand about this condition but judging from my experience it seems to me that being aware of it makes me more fearful. I don't know if any of you can relate to this, but I hope I haven't bored you to death.
take care
Hope this helps.
