A scary experience

[Anonymous]

On Mother’s day, I decided to go out for a morning walk with Ariella while DH was putting Ilan down for his midmorning nap. I had a pretty good breakfast and was in a pretty good mood. We bought greeting cards for my mil and my mom and decided to go into a shoe store. We were having a pretty good time. All of a sudden, out of nowhere I was feeling shaky, short of breath, light headed. I FREAKED OUT! Ariella was with me and I think what made it worse is the fear of passing out on the street while Ariella was just standing there. I ran into Dunkin Donuts and asked them to stay with Ariella in case I pass out. After roughly half hour, they decide to call 911. The EMT came and there were very nice (suprisingly). I don’t know how they are in other states, but in NYC they’re not known for people’s skills. In any case, the EMT worker took my blood pressure, pulse, etc and told me that everything’s normal and that I might’ve had a PANIC ATTACK! What? But why?? Then she asks me “do you think you’re depressed?” Umm…I didn’t get offended by her questions but I started thinking…Panic attack, depression…I don’t think I’m depressed. Yes, I am stressed out but who isn’t? I have two small kids, a full time job and DH lost his job a couple of weeks ago but I wasn’t stressing over that at all!! She told me that maybe somewhere deep inside I”m feeling things that I’m not letting to surface. That woman should really be a psychotherapist or something 🙂 Any thoughts?? Anyone have any knowlegde on panic attacks?

[Anonymous]

i started having panic attacks when i was 11 years old. i got to where i was afraid to go anywhere—but managed to pull myself out of it before i went in to jr. high. nobody knew about this stuff back then. i had problems again about 20 years ago and ended up almost going agoraphobic—but i could see what was happening to me and knew i didn’t want to go there. after i had my baby, i was put on meds and i have taken meds off and on ever since.

just from my own experience, my suggestion is to get some help before it turns into a real problem—you don’t want to go where i have been!!!!!

one thing i found that helped me, as i was getting better, was to think about the symptoms for what they were. when i would feel short of breath, i would tell myself, “that’s just anxiety.” and it actually helped to keep me from going into a full blown panic.

i have almost always kept xanax (now clonazepam) in my cabinet for when i get too anxious.

[Anonymous]

I have slight panic attacks when I fly (I am so afraid of crashing) and I take Xanax for it… it is a wonderful med that isn’t addictive at all and it works very quickly (about 30 min or so) and for me had no side effects! I do agree that you should get help ASAP to help and learn how to deal with these things before it gets out of control.

[hellbennt]

I also use xanax to fly!!!!

not sure what to tell you about your experience, marianna…

if it were me, I’d go to a therapist, just to get everything ‘out’ and be able to vent in a ‘safe’ space. it might be good for even just a session or two; not necessarily long-term…I bet it was scary!!! I’m ‘a fainter’ and I hate that feeling of dizziness/shakiness/WEIRD…

any chance you get migraines? sometimes I can get weird symptoms and not even get the headache part of it- just the wierd light headed-something’s-not-right-woozy-off-balance feeling…

[Anonymous]

Here i am, the queen of panic and anxiety—and i can fly without any anxiety–in fact, i love that feeling of acceleration when the plane is first taking off. i also loved the ride at the amusement park that raises you really high—-and then just drops you really fast. I thought it was the coolest thing!! but, the first time i had to have an MRI on my neck and head and they put me in that long skinny tube head first……i had to really work at it to keep from feeling panicky—-and i had taken xanax before i went.

when i got my braces on and they had those metal things holding my mouth open—that made me feel a little panicky at first, too.

another really weird one, when i was pregnant with one of my kids and my fingers were a little swollen, i couldn’t get my wedding ring off. it just made me feel clostrophobic and i soaped my finger and twisted and twisted until i got that ring off. i bruised my finger—-but i got it off.

anxiety is such a weird thing. it can strike at the most unlikely times—and it can stay away when it seems a really appropriate time to panic. when i had ian, i was already having a full-out nervous breakdown, but they couldn’t give me anything because i was pregnant—-and then i went 2 weeks overdue. because of a dust storm on the freeway (farm ground) there had been a major pile-up on the freeway and the ER was full of people. (this used to happen quite often until they planted something along that stretch of highway to keep the dust down. local people know not to stop on the freeway, you either keep driving blindly, or if you choose to drive off the road, you drive out into the field as far as you can get) non-locals would stop driving, and the vehicles would just start piling into each other causing numerous major accidents.)

my baby was already under stress, but they were watching things and my doc was spending most of his time in the ER and just coming and checking on me occasionally. when i went in to deliver, they realized the baby was in major trouble—-i remember they said they were going to have to do a stat c-section—and i knew “stat” meant NOW. there was no one to do any anesthesia, so they just did some locals and did a c-section on me anyway. i held it together just fine through that—but the next day, my throat was a little swollen from the tube they had put down it—-when they finally found someone to put me out to finish up all the work after the baby was delivered (14 minutes later, while i lay there and lost blood) the sensation in my throat made me feel like it was closing up on me—and then i panicked and felt like i couldn’t breath. my sister ran and got a nurse who checked my throat–and it was fine, and i pulled out of the panic. here i had just been through something that should have made me panic, and i held it together. then, i panic over something that isn’t even happening.

sometimes there just isn’t any rhyme or reason to it.

[Anonymous]

Thank you, everyone, for responding. I’ve been doing a lot of analyzing these past days. The funny thing is, I realized that panic attacks are not new to me. I’ve completely forgotten that I’ve had them when I was a little girl and asked to be sent home from school b/c I’d feel sick to my stomach and I’d have this rush of fear. I was sent home a few times b/c I got really sick. Then I had them in college but didn’t know what they were. Sometimes I feel like passing out on a train when it’s crowded. I never thought of myself as clastrophobic but I guess I am to some extent. I also had a HUGE panic attack on our wedding. We were taking pictures, it was a gorgeous day and everything was going GREAT. Out of nowhere (just like on Mother’s day), I started feeling sick and felt like that for hours. I never gave it too much thought. I feel terrible…I feel like I’m failing my family somehow, that I’m a “handicap”

[Author]

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