Freakouts that leave you rattled for hours

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The other day my boyfriend was fixing some household item with a soldering iron. He's always trying to teach me to be a bit more practical with my hands, and so he turned to me and said, "I've left the easy bit for you, come and have a go and finish this off."

He knows I'm scared of power tools, but thought that as a soldering iron isn't noisy, I would find that OK. Well, it wasn't. I just knew I DID NOT want to pick up that implement, or go anywhere near it.

Boyfriend got exasperated, and started saying things like, "Your Dad really messed you up by telling you to stay away from the shed when you were a kid, didn't he?" To be honest I wasn't even thinking about that. I just found my panic rising, and I was already holding the front door latch ready to bolt in case he picked up that gadget and tried to thrust it into my hand.

Well, he backed down and finished the job himself while I watched, but it took a very long time for me to calm down.

Shortly afterwards we went to the supermarket and I was still feeling flustered and upset. I was OK while boyfriend was with me, but at some point he needed to use the gents (he has diabetes) and I carried on doing the shopping. Suddenly, it just felt like dozens of shoppers were crowding me, getting in the way, and distracting me from the task at hand. Even when I just stood in a corner browsing one small section, it just felt like crowds of people were brushing past and knocking into the cart. I felt mauled.

We put the groceries away and did a bit of cooking, and I felt snappy and irritable until all the chores were out of the way and I could finally go and lie down for a bit.

I feel so ashamed for behaving like this.

We've all been there xD. For me, it's generally the "My thoughts are coherent; but then why the hell am I acting like this?!" thing. We know our thoughts are coherent; but we just end up spiraling our physical appearance into further chaos when we try and link the two, at least until we calm down.

As long as your BF knows the situation and is willing to understand; everything is fine ^_^ When I get out of high school, I'm probably going to have to carry along some sort of card with me when I get one, just so I don't have to communicate with my words.

I know it's easier said than done, but try not to be ashamed.
Accept how you are and try to think of ways to deal with it.
I've found it's over quicker and less stressful if I just go ahead and lay down first. Trying to power through by ignoring/denying the feeling just makes it worse. I've been told mine is just anxiety so it may be different for you.
Still, try being nicer to yourself. My guess is, If your boyfriend was going through all that, you wouldn't make him keep doing things. Why do that to yourself? Try to be matter of fact about it and go lay down for a few. Do an extra chore later If you are worried it's putting an unequal burden on your bf.

I hate it when that happens, it's suffocating!

As for the power tools, try inspecting the soldering iron when it's not plugged in and there is no job to do. Play around with it until you're comfortable with how it feels and knowing what part will get hot. Once you feel like it (and it might not be the first time) plug it in and let it get hot. Once you're comfortable with that then try soldering something. Some people like to jump right in without knowing what they are doing and others like to do something after they understand it. If this works for you tell your boyfriend that you need to understand how things work before you use them.

I feel rattled for a long time after crying a long time or talking about things that are difficult for me to talk about, or if I've been "under attack" (or if my body has preceived it that way due to my anxiety) for a long time and it stops suddenly. I just kind of wander around in a daze. I'm able to accomplish what I need to do (to some extent) but just the bare minimum.