Panic attack symptoms

Panic attacks entered my life in the summer of 1985 and remained with me for over twenty years. Whist I, unlike some other unfortunate people that I’ve either personally known or others that I have read about, didn’t have panic episodes everyday, the ones that I did experience were bad enough to leave me with, first a travel phobia, and later agoraphobia.

Thinking back to my panic days there were a few things that I observed as the panic encounter grew closer. And these were:

1) Dry mouth.
2) Tensing of my stomach muscles.
3) A feeling of nausea.
4) Sweating, particularly my hands and feet.
5) Pale complexion.
6) Pounding heart.
7) Shallow breathing.

As I said above, these happened just prior to the attack occurring and in later years I was able to spot these warning signs and distract myself in order to avoid the actual panic attack from peaking. However, this was far from ideal due to the extreme anxiety that I would be feeling at the time, which was almost as bad as the panic attack itself.

When the panic attack did run its course, it was a similar sensation to someone pounding on my chest with a large mallet, several times. These “blows” would flow right through my body and down to my feet. Whilst this was happening, emotionally, I would feel extremely scared.

Once the attack had run its course, in my case just a few minutes, as I recall, I would feel totally drained, both physically and mentally. This exhaustion would ease after an hour or so as my body settled down once more and returned to normal. But I just wouldn’t feel “right” for the rest of the day.

I do know that I was fortunate in that these attacks lasted only for a few minutes, others, that I’ve heard of, have them that last for thirty minutes or so, several times in one day.

My panic attacks were the most frightening thing I have ever experienced and trying to describe how one makes the sufferer feel using only mere words falls well short of the mark. All that I will say is that, they and the fear of experiencing the next one robbed me of a major portion of my life. And it wasn’t until I eliminated them from my life completely, using a tried and tested panic attack treatment called The Linden Method, that I could plainly see just how much of my life they had taken.