>>27963247
You sound a lot like me. Maybe your life is just one long, mild panic attack?

I just say I have them to get benzos. They're the only thing that works for my GAD but they won't hand them over for just GAD

They're legit. People think being really stressed out and anxious is the same thing as having a panic attack, but it's not.

I don't actually have bad anxiety (just lazy and depressed) but was having super bad panic attacks in December. For me, it feels like a complete out of body experience. It's like I go on a 30 minute drug trip, start having multiple spiraling thoughts at once, and I get shaky and break out and a cold sweat. Nothing would trigger it, it would just happen.

I've had one once. I think it was induced by fear for my health, as I was very sick at the time and didn't know what to do. I just woke up in the middle of the night freezing cold, shaking all over (despite it being fairly warm and being under a thick blanket). I was also not able to breathe right, so I was breathing extremely fast and deep. It was a really strange experience. I don't even know how long it lasted, but eventually I settled down enough that I fell asleep again.

I assume this is what a real panic attack is, but I have never had another one. I think most people say "panic attack" to refer to some mild/moderate anxiety.

>>27963504
Yeah, sounds like an actual panic attack right there. I've very rarely ever had them, but it actually happened to me a few nights ago.

The swirling part is dead on, it really feels like a vortex, the negative stuff just piling on and on and on. I'm not normally a suicidal person, but I've been seriously close to resolved to it during attacks, and it's only the fact that it's impossible to do much of ANYTHING during one that keeps it from happening. Who knows, maybe it evolved that way on purpose.

>>27963247
They're real but they don't happen often, at least not for me, at least not real ones.
Psychologists will tell you every little anxiety flare is a panic attack but I think they do that because they're leftist fags and want to validate your feels with important sounding terminology.
I've had pretty bad anxiety my entire life but I've only ever had 1 legit panic attack and there was no mistaking it because it felt like I was literally dying. I don't even know what triggered it, there wasn't a clear cause because it wasn't rational. I was sitting in class and feeling stressed like normal but then it just kept impossibly building until I thought something seriously was wrong, like physically. I walked out the class and went to the bathroom into a stall and collapsed in the corner and thought I was dying. I thought something was wrong with my heart or something. I'm trying to emphasize that it's unmistakable because it as a "physical" "realness" to it that makes it feel like some big time serious shit is going down.
However I didn't die, it peaked and then it went away and I felt confused and kind of high.

Panic attacks are real. I've never had one but I've witnessed them. It's your bullshit social anxiety excuse that's a tumblr meme.

>>27963886
Yeah, I hate them so much. I looked in a pamphlet about them in my therapist's office, and "feeling of impending death/danger" is literally a symptom. I've never been suicidal sober, but whenever they've happened, I've thought to myself "if this keeps happening for the rest of my life, I don't want to live".

Not a meme. Actual panic attacks are horrible it's just that most people associate " im having a panic attack" with some anxious, exaggerating fagot when in reality people having panic attacks aren't in control at all.

For me it starts out like this: my heart starts racing really fast and I feel a deep sense of dread that I can't shake. Usually there is some kind of trigger that causes this like "did I take too much of this prescription medication? Am I going to die now" but also even really tense movies are enough to trigger it for me. Sometimes I'm not sure what the trigger is and I can just have them randomly. But I want to stress that there is a huge difference between experiencing an intense amount of anxiety and having a panic attack. Anxiety might make your heart beat fast too but its probably not going to make you start shaking and shivering uncontrollably, give you bury vision, or making you want to call an ambulance. With a panic attack it's more like you''re just preying that you're going to be ok and sometimes I physically tell myself that when I'm having one...

Then afterwards, if you actually managed to get through that experience without resorting to benzos (and by the way so far I've only been able to do this once because its so terrifying) -- you feel incredibly shaky and on edge, like you can't calm down at all. Panic attacks can also effect how your body regulates temperature so you might also feel really hot or cold. It's surprising how many physical symptoms there are for this ...

What's messed up is it doesn't matter how many times you've had a panic attack before. You still somehow think that this time is the one you're going to die on...

>>27963247
I think its mostly a meme. My sister and cousin who is also a girl, are both normie stacies and they get these panic attacks. Im also pretty sure they use tumblr.

Meanwhile i have severe anxiety like you op and i can barely leave the house yet ive never had one.

I didn't believe that depression was really a thing until I got it. Up until that point I thought "so what, you're just super sad or something? so fucking what? grow up you big fucking baby" because at surface that's really how it looks and seems.

we can see images of gore and yet we cannot truly appreciate just how painful something is else unless we have a frame of reference. same thing when it comes to mental and emotion pain. you don't know what it's like to lose a parent until you do. I have never had a panic attack but I have no reason to believe they don't exist based on the information available. what kind of cunt only relies on anecdotal evidence?

>>27963247
My first panic attack was horrible:
>take a computer course at university
>sitting there waiting for the teacher to arrive
>suddenly start feeling unwell like I'm going to puke
>teacher arrives and starts the course
>feeling more and more sick with every second
>I stand up and say in front of class "excuse me, I have to go I'm feeling sick"
>Whole class starts laughing at me, wtf
>Teacher says "better out than in"
>Leave hearing more laughter behind me
>As soon as I'm out of the building I feel better

The whole thing took me by surprise. Took me another 5 years before I was able to go back into a crowded room again.

They're not a meme, if you've had a panic attack you'd know. Your heart starts beating fast, your chest tightens and it becomes hard to breath, everything has an underlying sense of dread and you feel completely awful.

Yeah it's not fun, its very different from general anxiety though because it comes out of nowhere even if you're not feeling stressed or anxious about anything.

The difference between severe anxiety and an actual panic attack is stark
>so dizzy you can't get up (like what happens as a kid after spinning in circles like a retard for 5 minutes)
>possibly curled up in fetal position
>shaking like you've got hypothermia
>tight throat, nausea, waiting to throw up the entire time
>feels like you're having a heart attack and dying, seriously you can't miss this one
>impending doom, if you were able to get up you'd probably shoot yourself to avoid whatever the fuck it is

>>27965308
This

I am surprised so many people here suffer from legit panic attacks, desu. It's something that I honestly did to myself (because I overdosed on MDMA.) After that, I started having multiple panic attacks per day but I'm surprised that there's people here who haven't damaged their brains and still suffer from it. Some of you must have utterly crippling problems...

>>27965410
>multiple per day
Jesus christ man I've only had 3
I can't even begin to imagine that kind of torture pham