So, what does a panic attack mean to you?

[Funkyfaerie]

I was told by my doctor about two years ago that I don't have classic panic attack symptoms??

What happens to me is this :

I get horrible aches pain in my neck and back, due to the holding myself tense.

My legs feel heavy and shaky, like jelly.

I feel unbalanced, sick, like I'm going to fall over, pass out or throw up.

I believe at the same time I start to hyperventilate too, because for some strange reason my body is trying to hold on to everything, hence the tense muscles.

Apparently I'm not classic what ever that is?

I know I am constantly thinking about my symptoms and dreading having a bout of it, so it's never going to go away while I am giving it credence!

How do you feel cope?

[Laniben]

Hi Jen, I wonder if the doctor has had them? It’s all very well people saying these things but how do you actually classify a panic attack, I think they can be different with each person. Just my opinion though, someone once said I wasn’t having a panic attack just because I was trying to deal with it by trying to stay as calm as I could even though I felt dreadful inside at the time. No one knows unless they’ve experienced it. In whatever form it takes. Maybe I’m wrong? xx

[Funkyfaerie in reply to Laniben]

You'd never understand unless you've felt that way. That's why I think we don't get much help from the doctors.

Pills aren't the answer. .

[Laniben in reply to Funkyfaerie]

I know. I’ve only been on antidepressants for 1 month because I was in a state, only a small dose but I’m not sure it's the answer either to be honest

x

[1uglychild]

I think that’s funny, that panic attacks have “Classic symptoms”... I sort of get what the doctor is implying... but agree that no panic attack is the same. Just look at the posts here and you can see everyone has some similar anxiety symptoms and some different.

I’d say a classic panic attack would be the situation where generally your body feels messed up in one of a variety of scary ways, your mind is racing and can’t get off your body, and most likely you’re on the verge of hyperventilating. That all probably ends with a visit to the ER.. that would be my guess as to whatever a “classic panic attack” is... which would make what you describe having as “classic”.

However what I would say broadly a panic attack is anything where your mind is in a state of sheer panic and can’t move forward, just stuck on terror mode, like a car with its wheels stuck spinning in the mud. There don’t even have to be a lot of physical symptoms. I’ve woken up with panic attacks that only had a racing heart and the mental terror. I’ve seen my son have them (usually due to driving), where he’s beyond freaked about something and it’s like his mind stops and he just yells he can’t do this over and over ( like trying to parallel park).

That’s what I’d call non classic panic attacks.

I often wish doctors would explain more what they mean when they say things like that, because as people with anxiety we over examine everything, especially what they say.

For me the very first step in defeating them was when I first felt that sensation ( coming out of nowhere), that set my mind in panic spin, was to tell myself it was anxiety, and to give the sensation a few minutes to go away before re-evaluating it. Don’t feed it, by giving it any importance because once you start panicking over whatever weird thing you’re feeling, a whole cascade of other physical symptoms are going to come along with it due to the fight or flight response... it’s all easier said than done of course.

[Krn210 in reply to 1uglychild]

Great description!

[1uglychild in reply to Krn210]

Thanks! Although I wish had zero experience with them and I could say, “huh what’s a panic attack?”! !

[Krn210 in reply to 1uglychild]

Lol! Me too!

[Elfje]

That is a panic attack

Anxiety

I have this also but more intense

Every day

Overthinking also

That is anxiety for anxiety

So and I chould go back too my doc tell him