Panic Attack

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• February 8, 2015

It has come to my attention that some of my loyal blog readers have never experienced and are quite perplexed about these panic attacks I often speak of.  Because I estimate a low number of loyal followers, “some” is probably like a quarter of my readership.

Putting a panic attack into words is something I’ve thought about a lot, for a long time.  I think the song, “Breaking Down” by Florence and the Machine perfectly describes what it feels like to suffer from anxiety and panic attacks.  If that doesn’t do it for you, I guess I’ll give it a shot.

I consider a panic attack to have four levels: Mild, Freaking Out, Rage, & Am I Dying?

Mild: shortness of breath, heart beat racing, feeling of darkness closing around you, slight dizziness.

Freaking Out: Above symptoms adding tightness in chest, feeling of impending doom, hands shaking, nauseous, hyperventilating. Sound Displacement.**

Rage: My other name for this is “the shark” because you have the Mild symoptoms plus inablity to think rationally, violent outbursts, and involuntary cramping of muscles. (Most rare of the levels for me, but if you have ever seen someone lose their shit and punch through a wall, this is probably it.)

Am I Dying?: Like Freaking Out  but on steroids. Heart palpitations. Chest pains. Fetal position, as darkness encloses so you feel trapped. Literally, you feel like you’re dying. Phsyically painful and mentally brutal.

**Sound displacement is term I might’ve made up.  This is something that seems to be kind of unique to my experience.  What happens is, whatever is happeing in my brain starts disrupting my reality.  If something is happening in front of me, it sounds like it’s coming from somewhere else. Behind me, or next to me.  It’s like an auditory confused hallucination.  It’s really disorienting.

And now for some pop culture references.

I can sometimes feel a panic attack coming on.  Sometimes days in advance.  There are warning signs.  Dreams, a twitch, not enjoying something that usually brings me joy.  A panic attack can be triggered or simply come about for no apparent reason whatsoever.  When it’s creeping on, it feels a bit like this scene in the Titanic.  Water, slowly rising.

Then, when it hits, it feels like this.  OH, FUCK!

From one of my favorite shows, Getting On, one of the character’s believes he might be having a heart attack, but is actually having a panic attack.  Talk to anyone who works in an E.R.  This happens quite a bit.

In a panic attack, this weird and awful thing happens where you have flashbacks to other panic attacks (sort of).  The best way I can describe it is, when a panic attack is really strong, it gets it’s energy from your fear of prior panic attacks (and possibly future panic attacks?).  So you sort of feel like you’re taking on new issues with all your past ones, resolved or not.  Like the deep recesses of your mind have, for some evil reason, decided to use your own weaknesses against you.  You know those scenes in Harry Potter when he falls to the ground and has flashes of Voldemort and he seems like he’s in pain?  That’s what it feels like.

Have you ever been so high, that you bugged out, and never thought you’d comes back down again?  Well, that also happens in a panic attack.  You feel like you’re not going to return from this wretched state.  Even though it’s happened before.  And you’re going to be fine.  And you tell yourself this, but you’re still not sure.

I’ve read that panic attacks could be a result of your fight or flight instincts coming into play when neither reaction are really necessary, and as a result, you just sort of fold into yourself.  It could be that the complete lack of the need for our fight or flight instincts is the very cause of a panic attack. Oddly enough, I’m really calm and clear headed during actual situations of crisis.  But I might be at a party, or on line at a bank, and I’ll check my pulse to feel that my heart is racing, then run to the bathroom to ride out a Mild panic attack.

Most people who have panic attacks, myself included, have control issues.  I can only speak for myself, but I know I’m not alone with this.  A panic attack feels like you’re suddenly not in control of yourself.  If you’ve ever hydroplaned with your car, it kind of feels like that.  Only you control you, you’re the driver of your body and soul, and suddenly you’re not.  You’re not you.  It’s terrifying.  Knowing that you lose control, you become obsessed with control.  This affects everything, from your job to your love life.  Everything is affected by it.

There are two things that are for certain for me.

1. I will have panic attacks my entire life.

2. It will be fine.

I have a harder time accepting the latter.