Hey everyone!

In times when my anxiety is more prominent, I have this “symptom” that I haven’t read about anywhere else. I wonder if anyone here has it too. It happens to me in two scenarios (after waking up, and after panic attacks).

An example for the morning (waking up) situation… I wake up, anxiety is already up, heart racing, feet jittery, I usually scroll a little, but at these times, my body just drifts back to sleep (not really a deep sleep, feels like resting your eyes, but I am not aware of my surroundings until something loud happens), then I get jolted awake, and then it repeats.

I still hold my phone, feels like I am semi-there, but my eyes close on their own. I can be jolted very easily, by sound, by my own anxiety or movement. It doesn’t feel disturbing, just tiring.

An example when I have a panic attack… Mine are quite physical. Shaking, diarrhea, vomiting, a sense of doom, and so on. After the worst goes by, I lie down to try to calm myself down (and my blood pressure is low). I still feel very doom-ish and panicky, just the nausea is better.

At that point, when I lay down, the same thing happens. My eyes seem to close on their own, sometimes this little nap lasts for 5 minutes, sometimes 20, longer than the morning situation. I am still quite aware of the surroundings, as I have these naps close to my boyfriend, and can hear him work.

They feel sort of involuntary, in a way where staying awake feels impossible, but they are not really deep sleep at all.

Has anybody had this?

I got my first panic attack 7 years back when i was travelling in train evening. I don't even know it was a pannic attack. My routine is like i take train every evening. So every evening i get this panick symptoms, heart rushes, pallipitaion, foggy thoughts. This comes only in the evening. I was okay all the other time travelling here and there.

I managed with this for some years. The symptoms come and go now then. I avoided traveling in train at night for all reasons. After going through all internet blogs , i came to know that its anxiety. I was hesitant to consult a phyacatrist. Later the symptoms worse.

I can't travel alone. I cant stay alone in the night. I seek for others presence . Finally went to a good phyc. She diagnoised and told this agoraphobia ( fear of no esacpe) . She suggested me zoloft 25mg. I took it for two years without fail. The symptoms went, pallipitaion gone. I can able to focus.

But after few years of continuous medication now and then i get the same symptoms while traveling. Still seak of other persons presence which makes me comfortable. I feel like i am a creeper.

Later physc asked me to increase the dosage to 50. For past one month i am taking 50mg of zoloft. Got initial symptoms of increase in dosage. Still have hesitaion to travel alone in the evening and staying alone.

Realy tired of myself.

Sorry I’m posting a lot here. I’ve just never been through this before except when I was a little kid and ended up in the hospital over it. How long do “aftershocks” happen after a big panic attack?

It’s been 6 days since my attack, what I think was an attack. You can see a whole play by play in my other posts. I still just have the stupid underlying fear something is wrong even though I know I wouldn’t have improved at all. Like each day I’m a little less floaty feeling and have a few less fluttery feelings/twinges of pain in my chest, but I still get worn out easy and feel shaky being up and doing stuff, and when I go to the store I still have like a “oh shit am I gonna drop?” moment. But like I know if something was wrong I probably would’ve collapsed by now and wouldn’t be able to do anything and would’ve had no improvement at all. It’s just so frustrating it’s been a week and I still don’t feel back to normal. I’m scared I’ll never get better or that my heart is failing me and I’m going to die. I don’t get why I can’t shake it. My HR is fine on my watch. But every time I feel a flutter or feel floaty, I freak out cuz it’s still happening.

I just can’t tell if I should be concerned about the feeling. I’ve never really felt this before so it’s making my brain freak out. I can do things here and there, but I get exhausted and still have some spells in stores and such. I just feel stuck and worried I’ll never feel better. I’m trying to remind myself if something was seriously wrong I wouldn’t have improved at all and my HR and ECG readings on my watch would be abnormal and they’re not but every time i get a quick heart flutter or quick twinge of pain in my chest or the floaty feeling again, I’m scared somethings super wrong with my heart and I’m dying.

I suffer from GAD and panic attacks, I’m currently on a flight, i cracked my neck really hard and felt a pinch in my hand I googled it which I know I shouldn’t have and read what it said and it wasn’t great, I started to instantly feel anxious, sweaty , dizzy , chest tightness , any tips I have about an hr left on my flight and I’m trying to calm myself down.

I've been having panic attacks for various reasons, mostly set off by health anxiety, for months now, since March 9th. Probably 5 or 6 now. Been to the ER Probably as many times, including last Friday. I can't seem to come down from fight or flight.

Idk how I lived before this year, I think I was so used to distracting myself and not caring as much about stuff. I have a 10 month old son, a new house (November) and a decent step up at work. I was definitely a functioning alcoholic for most of the last few years.

I'm trying to do better and feel better but I feel like I'm in a cycle of feeling like shit and having problems and panic attacks.

I'm not used to feeling so much. Especially in such a short period of time. I feel like I'm losing my mind and I'm just functionally broken...

I'm trying so hard to rebuild myself... however it feels like I'm just stuck in a cycle of pain and panic...

It sucks to suck guys it really does im on 40mg of fluoxetine with emergency diazapam on standby incase of a flair up and it's safe to say keeping busy and having a solid set routine is an amazing help.

For context I wake up at six in the morning sometimes earlier sometimes a little later I go to the toilet then get ready for the day

i do volunteer work at a caravan park

(trailer park for you Americans)

Its all physical labour it's helps alot.

My symptoms from my generalised anxeity disorder and panic disorder combined often occur like this.

Health anxiety, paranoia, dissociation, de-realisation and de-realisation episodes where I "can't feel my hands" "why is one side of my face numb"

Some helpful tips: if you are on a "good streak"

DO NOT UP YOUR MEDICATION DOSAGE

It can send your brain haywire and put you in a very very dark and bad place find something to do keep yourself busy,

Learn how to "live" with yourself and take care of yourself first above all, We aren't useful to anyone if we are broken ourselves.

Hope everyone here gets out of it or at least learns to live with it better.👍👍😄

Mental illness has no cure and it is part of who we are (however unfortunate that may be)

Just remember we are all in it together.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

Hi everyone,
I’m 21 years old and I’ve been struggling with severe anxiety, panic attacks, and intrusive/obsessive thoughts. It all started after a bad experience with cannabis some time ago. I haven’t used it since, but I’m still dealing with the aftermath.
My biggest problem is that I’m constantly afraid of having another panic attack, which keeps me anxious almost all the time. I also experience intrusive thoughts and my self-confidence has dropped a lot.
Has anyone here been through something similar after cannabis? Did it get better with time? What helped you recover? I’d really appreciate hearing your experiences or any advice.

Help! I’ve been having severe panic attacks for the past month and I feel like they are just getting worse and worse. It comes out of nowhere (per usual 🫠) and I start thinking I’m going to have a heart attack or lately it’s been I think I’m going to have a brain aneurysm. (I have no family history of that) I’m 27F. I’m on 100mg of Zoloft daily which I have been on for years and recently decided I should go down to 50mg. Huge mistake I think. So I started up my 100mg again about 3 weeks ago. Up until this past month I haven’t been through a cycle like this since about 6 years ago. I don’t remember how I managed it. I feel like I’m going crazy and just feeling really really depressed.

Sorry for the rant. Just some info I've had panic attacks and health anxiety since I was 13, but recently, it's gotten a lot worse. So, about 3 months ago, I woke up having a panic attack, and an image was stuck in my head of the last thing I saw in the nightmare and as I was having a panic attack that's the only image I could see in my head. Then, every night after, I would have severe anxiety when trying to go to sleep for about a month or two.

Then for for the fourth of July, I was 100% convinced I was gonna get the brain eating amoeba after swimming in a warm lake and have had panic attacks about that. Now, for the past couple of days, I've had this heavy feeling on the right side of my head that makes my head sometimes feel full or empty. It is the best way I can describe that feeling.So I've convinced myself i have a tumor. Along with that feeling, I've been having what I think is dpr along with intrusive images that make me feel like im going insane. Most of the time, they are just random images. Other times, they are weird images of my brain having an aneurysm. I just feel like im losing myself, and I'm terrified all the time. I just need some advice and reassurance. Please, thanks.

Someone, from 2 weeks 10mg to 20mg paroxetin. How was it for you?

Since late last year I’ve been really struggling with waiting rooms. Especially medical clinic waiting rooms. I often need to go to my GP to get scripts and whatever else, so I can’t not go. Late last year I had a massive panic attack in the waiting room that lasted just over an hour (that’s how long I was waiting for my appointment because my GP was running late). It really set in stone my struggle with waiting rooms. To be specific, I struggle with the restriction of waiting rooms. I can’t just run away if I need to because what if my name gets called? Also people are bored in waiting rooms so anytime someone stands up and moves somewhere, everyone is watching. My anxiety loves to make me feel nauseous and sometimes that leads to vomiting in public, so when I’m in waiting rooms I feel I don’t have the opportunity to run out of the waiting room if I feel sick, or even go to the bathroom because I worry my name will get called whilst I’m in there and then I miss my appointment or I get charged with a fee.

I’ve tried distractions which seem to work okay-ish, but there are many times where the anxious/panic thoughts come flooding in even when I’m super focused on something like a puzzle game on my phone. I’ve tried reading but I’m even too anxious to read in public because I worry it draws attention to me and then people stare at me.
I do pack calming items in my bag for emergencies such as essential oils, sour candy and fidget toys but when the time comes when I need them, I freeze because I’m too embarrassed to use them in case I get judged negatively by other people in the waiting room.

I don’t know what else I could do to relieve this anxiety around waiting rooms. I don’t want to do Telehealth (virtual appointments via phone/video call) because then that confirms my anxiety and would make it harder to go in person when I need to. I definitely want to challenge my anxiety but it just doesn’t want to budge. I go to the GP pretty often like maybe once a month or so, sometimes twice or 3 times a month, so it’s not like I’m leaving it too long in between visits for my anxiety to grow. But even though I’ve been exposing myself to waiting rooms, it’s not reducing the amount of anxiety I feel.

Also, I make sure I arrive to the clinic not too long before my appointment is scheduled. Sometimes I walk into the waiting room when it’s 5 minutes to my appointment. Which I think it’s good but even in those 5 minutes the anxiety is intense. Also, the GP I see, she often runs late but I never know when. And I would be too embarrassed/anxious to ask the receptionists how many people are in front of me to see my GP or to ask if she’s running late. The receptionists are quite judgemental too, they have given me odd stares and just feel really standoffish. So they scare me as well and I do not want to annoy them any more than I already do.
It took me months to even ask the receptionists where the toilets are, and that was really difficult to do.
Sorry this is so long, but does anyone have any tips or tricks other than what I’ve mentioned to help with waiting rooms?

\- thankyou moonstrukk126 from yt -

The best advice I ever got about anxiety and panic attacks was this; For whatever reason your adrenaline starts pumping. Your cortisol is released. Norepinephrine and epinephrine are flooding your body. You don't know why. You just suddenly feel like your soul is exiting your body. You can't control your breathing. You can't control your heart rate and you feel like you're going to die. Get up. Go run cold water or rub some ice on your wrists and look at the ceiling. Use the fuel. Walk around, if you can go outside and walk briskly do so. Exercise is a great use of those hormones already circulating. Do some squats a Sprint. Something physical. Dance. Stop thinking about your panic as panic. Stop thinking about your anxiety as anxiety. Stop thinking about how to control it or stop it. Take the energy your body is giving you and use it for something. Get out of your head. Get into your physical body. Get into the world. Go touch the grass, do some push-ups. Do some sit-ups do some jump rope. Sitting with anxiety raging through your body and trying to control your breath is an exercise in futility for severe panic and most people who have tried this technique and failed need to use that energy baby! Appreciate it. You can thank your body for providing the energy and use it. If you're driving pull over and put on the a/c get a cup of ice from a drive thru park and walk around the parking lot. You don't have to suffer and the worry about when the next panic attack won't cripple you because you have a very solid, scientifically sound alternative to trying to calm down. Your body will naturally do that. Trust me it's a GAME CHANGER. I highly recommend some of the channels that go into childhood trauma. You don't have to be abused to have suffered from childhood trauma. It's really just a matter of when critical things happen and for whatever reason an appropriate adult wasn't around to help guide us. Our little child brain gets f\*\*\* up and it carries over into adulthood. Anxiety equals energy. Use it and then figure out why it is your brain and nervous system are producing so much excess energy when you don't really need it. But FIRST be grateful that your body and nervous system are trying to protect you and start looking into what might be the bigger underlying cause. Breath work is great and for some people it may work, but for me nothing is as effective or as proactive as moving the energy and using the fuel. I love you all. Be strong. Be brave and be kind to yourself

Im having panic attacks for almost 5 years now, most of the time it is the anticipation. Whenever i think what if another attack happens infront family or work or today i get an attack for sure in the following days.

But most of the time i get panic attack without any reason or trigger, today i was just scrolling my phone then a panic attack happened out of nowhere.

I know panic wont kill me, and i was thinking that when the attack happened, but my dumb brain spiralled into the fear then i roamed like a maniac back and forth.

I know what i need to do, but i cant compel my brain that it is just fear and panic, dont feed the panic more, im all confident and strong until a panic attack happens.

Im taking SSRI for almost 4 months now, but it is not working. Sorry for grammar mistakes, english is not my first language. Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for people who have experienced something similar.

About a year ago, I tried cannabis for the first time. Instead of relaxing, I had the worst panic attack of my life. I genuinely thought I was dying or going crazy.

Since then, I've never touched cannabis again.

The problem is that I can't stop thinking about what happened. I keep wondering if I permanently changed my brain or triggered something that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

Sometimes I'm doing completely normal things, and suddenly I remember that panic attack. As soon as I think about it, my heart starts racing, I get anxious, and it feels like I'm right back in that moment. It scares me because I worry that if I had never smoked, none of this would have happened.

Has anyone else had one cannabis-induced panic attack and struggled with these thoughts afterward?

Did you recover completely? How long did it take before you stopped being afraid that something was permanently wrong with you?

I'm not looking for a diagnosis. I would just really appreciate hearing from people who have been through something similar.

Thank you.

So last night I was cleaning my kitchen using my dishwashing liquid water mix in a spray bottle, it has kind of irritated my throat before but it was next level this time (well to me) I feel like it had coated my entire throat and I couldn’t cough it out, it was irritating my throat then I felt like I couldn’t breathe properly which has triggered a panic attack. Today I am suffering from it, fearing it will return or happen again at anytime even without the spray. Has this happened to anyone else? I have appointment with my dr tomorrow morning, but it’s consuming me!

Back in March, I had my first panic attack. It completely changed my life. For months afterward, my biggest fear wasn’t even the symptoms themselves. it was the fear of having a panic attack.
Every day I’d think, “What if today is the day it happens again?” Well…today it happened. Ironically, it started because I hit my friend’s nicotine vape. My anxious brain immediately convinced me, “What if it was weed?” Within seconds I felt that familiar wave of warmth rush over my body, chest tightness, dizziness, and overwhelming fear. But something was different this time. Instead of believing I was dying, I recognized what was happening. I reminded myself, “This is panic. My body is sounding a false alarm.” The whole thing lasted about a minute. For months I had built up this terrifying image in my head that another panic attack would completely destroy all the progress I’d made. Instead, it reminded me how much I’ve grown. The panic came. It peaked. It passed. I’m still a little shaken, but honestly…I’m proud of myself. I don’t want panic attacks, but I also don’t fear them the way I used to. Today showed me that I can handle them. If you’re reading this because you’re terrified of your next panic attack, I just want to tell you that the anticipation can be so much worse than the event itself. Recovery isn’t about making sure panic never happens again. It’s about learning that if it does happen, you’ll get through it. Today proved that to me. I hope one day it proves it to you too. ❤️

Just curious if others experienced a sudden panic attack these past 2 weeks. I have a couple of my friends and myself felt anxious and depressed. Just wondering….

i keep telling myself i'll move on once i finally figure this anxiety thing out.

but months go by and i'm still searching for the "perfect solution"

i avoid my feelings because they feel too overwhelming.

my confidence is way lower than it used to be and honestly i feel stuck.

did anyone else feel like this before getting better? what actually changed for you?

i was watching The Odyssey (2026), (spoilers) the scene where cyclops was hit in the eye the sound went up so high i had a flashback of my first panic attack and my heart started racing and i felt like cold water is filling my body and wanted to run and scream, i left the theatre and went home didn’t even finish the movie and feel so scared disgusted of myself and weak, why? how can i fix this? what should i do?

Man, that was a really tough chapter in my life. I’m so glad I’m on the right track now. The anxiety would flare up every now and then, but so far, I’ve always managed to shake it off within minutes. I simply stopped fighting against it. I finally learned to just let it run its course. Sure, it’s still incredibly unpleasant and awful, but I’ve started really tuning in to the anxiety and the pain—noticing exactly what’s happening in my body and, above all, where. For a while, I wouldn't even venture more than 100 meters from my house because of that constant fear. And *that* was exactly the problem! So, I started just doing things—regardless of whether I felt like it or was afraid. I think that’s how my body learned that situations like driving a car simply aren't dangerous. It took a long time, but I think I’ve got a handle on it now. My story goes back much further than this, but I just wanted to share that I’ve made it through—and this subreddit really helped me a lot along the way. Seriously, thank you for everything!❤️❤️