Existential panic attacks, just looking for some help/tips to calm down
About 3 months ago I was in a friends car, I didn't really want to be in the car because I had a crazy amount of work that I should have been doing, but then I realized I was trapped in the car until we got back, and then somehow that escalated super quickly to the realization that I was trapped in my own body. I started hyperventilating, had to tell him I was sick, it was awful.
Anyways, the next day I calmed down but I couldn't stop thinking about the concept of "I" and self. Thoughts like "where am I actually? am I in my brain? am I my arm? my teeth? my eyes? When I look at someone's face, am I really looking at "them"?
These are thoughts I might have welcomed with some sense of wonder in the past, but now they just became so terrifying.
I struggled with intermittent panic attacks over the next couple months, but nothing too bad, and I was able to work most of the time as well.
But this past week everything escalated again, and just today I went out to eat with my girlfriend, and for some reason when we sat down at the restaurant nothing at all felt real, I felt like I was outside my body and I couldn't get back in. And then, I felt like I was inside my body but I realized everyone was a human feeling human emotions/attractions etc., and I just felt completely different. I had an awful panic attack in front of her, I tried to explain what was wrong and she just kept saying "I don't understand and I don't like this"
So I got home and took a bath, I'm still tense, feel like I've completely messed myself up and not sure where to go from here. I think at the root of it, it's just hitting me that it's just so bizarre that we exist at all, I wish I was religious and could have some answers/peace.