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"Panic attack", but not quite

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FullmetalTriforce
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07 Sep 2016, 7:28 pm

This morning, I had a minor misunderstanding with my mom. She swerved the car into a random parking lot and started screaming at me, then ran off for a while. When she returned, she was still livid, but she drove me to my destination anyway. I became increasingly upset as the drive went on and cried.

Once I got out of the car, I couldn't hold it in any more and ran to the bathroom. I couldn't breathe without gasping rapidly. If I tried to suppress it, my chest spasmed and I hiccuped.
It did help to hold my breath and slowly release it, but barely. I wasn't back to normal for almost 30 minutes.

However, I did not feel panicked, nor did I become dizzy, tingly, afraid of death, or anything like that. I only felt upset, due to the aforementioned event, and ashamed that I couldn't stop making gross noises.

Was it a panic attack? I read up and it doesn't sound like what I experienced at all, but what else could it be? I've had a few of these "panic-less panic attacks", mostly in childhood. So I haven't had one in a LONG time.

(The minor misunderstanding was about bagels. Yeah, she needs help.)



GarTog
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08 Sep 2016, 4:47 am

FullmetalTriforce wrote:
This morning, I had a minor misunderstanding with my mom. She swerved the car into a random parking lot and started screaming at me, then ran off for a while. When she returned, she was still livid, but she drove me to my destination anyway. I became increasingly upset as the drive went on and cried.

Once I got out of the car, I couldn't hold it in any more and ran to the bathroom. I couldn't breathe without gasping rapidly. If I tried to suppress it, my chest spasmed and I hiccuped.
It did help to hold my breath and slowly release it, but barely. I wasn't back to normal for almost 30 minutes.

However, I did not feel panicked, nor did I become dizzy, tingly, afraid of death, or anything like that. I only felt upset, due to the aforementioned event, and ashamed that I couldn't stop making gross noises.

Was it a panic attack? I read up and it doesn't sound like what I experienced at all, but what else could it be? I've had a few of these "panic-less panic attacks", mostly in childhood. So I haven't had one in a LONG time.

(The minor misunderstanding was about bagels. Yeah, she needs help.)


Sounds like it to me.
Stress situation (argument) then added stress (swerving car) plus stress (screaming) plus stress (running off thing) tips a person in panic. Breathing becomes shallow/rapid raising oxygen levels - blood become alkaline and physical response is panic. Slow breathing through the nose with the out-breath longer than the in-breath helps and is not noticeable (unlike the breathing into paper bags trick that raised CO2 levels for the same effect)



Adamantium
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08 Sep 2016, 8:40 am

Panic is a strange thing.

As with so many other named phenomena, the word describes a range of states with several parameters rather than a single state. Typically listed among the symptoms are

    *Difficulty breathing
    *Pounding heart or chest pain
    *Intense feeling of dread
    *Shortness of breath
    *Sensation of choking or smothering
    *Dizziness or feeling faint
    *Trembling or shaking
    *Sweating
    *Nausea or stomachache
    *Tingling or numbness in the fingers and toes
    *Chills or hot flashes
    *A fear that you are losing control or are about to die
http://www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/guid ... c-disorder

Each symptom could also be part of something else, but it's the way some of them tend to occur together in a pattern that makes it recognizable as panic.

I had it for years without knowing it. I would typically have lesser attacks featuring difficulty breathing (masked by asthma, so not easily attributed to panic,) nausea, tingling in the extremities and wrists, and sometimes sweating and trembling. Only rarely did the intense dread or sensations of imminent doom come with the rest.

I find that it responds really well to light doses of the benzo my doctor gave me for it. I only take the medicine a few times a year, but it saves me from a hellish experience.

It sounds like you were having a very mild panic. so you got the breathing stuff without descending into the more extreme symptoms. I think that happens often. I find that simple mindfulness/meditation exercises are very good at keeping those symptoms at bay.


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