r/panicdisorder

There are times when I have extremely acute and intense onset of panic that triggers a vasovagal episode. When this happens, I feel light-headed and my vision starts to tunnel/black out. I always drop to the floor immediately because it feels like I'm 100% going to pass out.

When this happens, I also experience intense nausea and sometimes feel like I'm going to have diarrhea. It's a full blown terror feeling and I am fully incapacitated. My brain and body are fully shut down, so the only coping skill I can use is to get on the floor in child's pose.

After a minute or so, the feeling starts to pass and I break out in a sweat. And I mean like I am dripping sweat and my clothes are wet in a matter of a minute. I'll have tingling in my limbs and then I get extremely cold. I've been told by other who have witnessed this happen to me that I completely lose the color in my face.

The entire episode from start to finish happens in less than 10 minutes. I've described this to several doctors and I've been checked out by a cardiologist. Everyone seems to agree that it's related to panic.

In the last 2 months I've had 2 of these episodes occur during the middle of the night. I wake up out of a sound sleep and go straight into one of these vasovagal episodes, which is weird because I also feel disoriented from sleep.

Does this happen to anyone else?

I’ve been going through a rough time with my anxiety and panic for the past 2 months or so.

I’ve been working with my psych to try new/different antidepressants, which has been extremely rough. I’m also in therapy.

I have klonopin to take PRN, but sometimes I struggle with knowing when to take it. I have no issue taking it when I’m having a full blown, level 10 panic attack. But when my anxiety is around a 6 or 7 out of 10 and I take a klonopin, I sometimes feel like a failure. I want to be able to practice the skills that I’m working on in therapy during these times, and I often do. But other times I feel like I just need relief so badly.

I’m scared that the klonopin is reinforcing the idea that I can’t handle the panic on my own, thus making it worse. I’m scared that I’m going to become dependent on benzos. I’m scared that nothing will work for me - none of the antidepressants, none of the therapy. I’m scared of missing out on life. I’m scared of losing hope. I’m scared of all of it. This is so hard.

I have super bad anxiety and panic and I can’t drive or ride in the car far distances. Has anyone tried prescribed Xanax for these issues and it helped?

When i look up the link between panic disorder and childhood trauma, you get results about how people develop panic disorders from childhood trauma, but for me it feels the other way around. I developed panic disorder when i was 7 with no clear cause and because i did not know what the panic attacks were, i truly thought i was dying, meaning i had multiple near-death experiences as a very young child, plus the time between panic attacks where i was terrified of it happening again. I feel like it messed me up something bad. I fear people won't take it seriously because i wasn't in 'real' danger. It sucks. Anyone relate?

I'm on qutiapene for my panic disorder, it's the only thing so far that's fully stopped my almost daily panic attacks. I take 12.5mg at 11 AM when I wake up, 12.5mg at 5 PM, and then 25mg around 1-2 AM when I go to bed, which has been a godsend. It used to take me hours to fall asleep (if I even did) and with the qutiapene it takes max like 30 minutes

I was fully aware of the side effects of the med before I started them, and I know the only way to get the side effects to go away is to stop the med. I'm not looking to get rid of the side effects of the medicine, I want to learn how to better live with them

My house is a huge mess because I've been struggling to keep up with chores. Its next to impossible for me to wake up before like 11 AM now, and it takes like 2+ hours for that groggy, exausted, almost hung over feeling to go away

It's currently 1:18 PM and I'm sitting in bed feeling defeated trying to motivate myself to clean or so literally anything before work. I never used to be like this. I want to know what techniques and hacks you guys have picked up to get yourself through these side effects.

In a few weeks I have the chance to get my meds potentially changed by a doctor and I will mention these issues then, but unfortunately it's pretty difficult to actually get an appointment with my doctor these days, and I don't have a psychiatrist