Unexpected panic attacks

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I had panic disorder many years ago anf while I do get nervous and easily stressed out (and can throw huge tantrums when I feel this way), I don't nomrally get panic attacks (when in the past, they were very common). However, last week, I had a huge panic attack and couldn't get to sleep. Iwas half convinced that people were going to break into the house and cut me and my family up. I stayed up most of the night trying to watch out for people while also desperately trying to convince myself that I or my loved ones were not going to die. It sort of came the f**k out of nowhere.

My family have hypothesised that it was triggered by a movie I was watching, but it couldn't really be that. I've seen way worse in a movie (I'm talkin' "Ichi the Killer" violent, not "Saw" violent) and it didn't bother me. At most, I winced, but that's it. I would go on with my day/evening and be just fine. However, what I have noticed is that I'm under a lot more stress.

I'm wondering if you guys have faced a similar relapse. Of course, I'm now okay (although it did take me about a day or two to get over that panic) but I am aware that this might happen again.

Has anyone here suffered from panic disorder? Has anyone here had this, went trhough a period with no panic attacks and then suddenly had full blown panic attacks again? I'd like to hear about that. It would be interesting.

On the subject of scary movies, you can't really compare them.
For example, to me, a psychodrama is more frightening than a monster movie because I know that the monster is a joke. It may be more bloody and the rough parts more startling, but by the time the credits start rolling I'm over it. The psychodrama gnaws at you at a deeper level and for a longer time because it could actually happen.
Odd little things that don't seem important on the surface can hit you in ways that don't bother other people at all.

I hate the idea of drugs in general, and I especially hate the idea of taking them every day. It's a scam for the industry and it can cause serious, permanent brain damage. For the most part, they have no idea what they're doing.

However, I do have a Rx for anxiety, for those times when it all gets to be too much. I go through some phases when I need it more often, some when I need it less often. I'd guess I take it on an average of once a week.

Curious because the most severe anxiety attack I ever had (where I actually blacked out) was in response to resuming a sertraline medication because I wanted to do postgraduate study and I wasn't going to be able to focus well enough without it. Turns out the stress of side effect reaction was far worse than the stress of study. Medication does work for me although I am taking myself off it now due to wanting to experience life unfiltered.
Scary movie for me depends on the sensory loading. The two worst examples I know of was Jurassic Park and Boogie Nights (the gunshot scene at the end of the film). Not because of the fear factor- because of the noise in the cinema where I couldn't turn down the noise when I needed to. Scary movies I love (although the first time I watch them I watch it on x1.77 or in packets so I know what to expect). But the more familiar I am with a film the less of a shock loud is, for some reason. I used to think I had a dog phobia but it isn't actually the dog so much as the bark; I was frightened of all dogs, big or small due to the sensory shock.
So maybe it was the film but it was the sensory aspect rather than the content per se?

Hey, guys- thanks for your responses.

I saw the film in it's entirety the other day (at night) and was absolutely fine. Also, there was nothing that I can think of that was upsetting my senses. The content was kind of unexpected but not really that disturbing (at least for me). The film wasn't deep per say. It was certainly a good film (It's called "Felidae" in case you're interested) but I've seen a lot more emotionally deep films (animated or otherwise). It's a noir whodunnit film so there's murder. I was also watching some of Plague Dogs and Watership Down (a film that is, for me, more nostalgic and yet more disturbing because of that) and was fine.

I remembered something someone said about panic attacks. They said that they're almost like a false alarm. I have a theory that my sort of freakout has something to do with nostalgia. These films were released when I was either quite young or not born yet and with the exception of "Felidae", I watched them when I was young. I wonder if that nostalgic mindset kind of made me vulnerable to remembering stuff that freaked me out as a child (kind of like anti-nostalgia)? Afterall, when I used to suffer badly from panic disorder, anything could trigger my panic attacks, but they were usually related to my fears about death and illness (which, of course, everybody fears). For example, if I smelled something strong (which was bad for my senses as it was) made me think I was going to suffocate and die; if I was a little hungry and felt kind of sick because of it, I thought I was going to faint or something and possibly never wake up; being in a hospital was an obvious reminder of death; watching a movie where the villain dies a miserable (though disneyfied) death freaked me out; etc. I wonder if this film was just "the straw that broke the camel's back"?

Does anybody relate to that? I hope I don't sound too vague or strange here.

I posted this in another thread in this forum section:

I have other examples than those extreme ones I talked about, as well. Maybe I can write about them tomorrow. They do kind of come from nowhere for me, as well, but I've noticed that I feel like I'm about to maybe get them when I'm under a lot of psychological stress - even if I'm still doing pretty okay, despite the stress - and when this is the case, negative things may easily trigger it. So I have to avoid reading about anything negative or watching some horrible movie with rape in it, for instance, which I always avoid doing, anyway; even if watching something as depressive, upsetting and hate-fuelling like that doesn't necessarily lead to even making me feel like I maybe might be about to get an attack, it still just overloads my already overloaded mind. When the attack has already been initiated, my only strategy is to think positive thoughts. In my case, the only real positive thought that can affect me, then, is imagining me in a sexual situation with my future-found true love, or imagining taking care of her and comforting her and such. Last year I was interested in a particular girl for a while, though, and thinking about her, who was a person I already knew, was not working very well as my attack then instead turned my positive thoughts against me and I started imagining that she probably had been or would get raped. The thought of that is the very worst when I get that way... which isn't that often, anymore, though, although I frequently still feel it lurking in the background, and I always counter it with as much positive thinking as possible.

Scary movies, like some quite scary Japanese and Korean ones with ghosts and demons and such do not affect me negatively at all, even though I know that at least ghosts exist. In fact, they probably make me feel better. It's the movies about horrifyingly bad, regular things like rape that affect me the very worst. A little funny how I'm seriously into BDSM where aspects like that, like in the form of play rape, just are really positive things to me.... well, actually it isn't strange at all but it's even still just a little bit strange. :B

EDIT: I forgot to say that I seem to be more vulnerable if the initiation of it starts while I'm asleep. I guess I then get nightmares that then spiral the negative thoughts out of control, and me being asleep leaves me unable to rationally deal with the situation.

Your nostalgia theory sounds reasonable and worth digging deeper...
I know that old music from my childhood and early adolescence cuts deeper than anything I've heard as an adult. The dumbest songs, even things that I actively disliked, can get me all choked up. Who knows what unconscious associations I'm making...

At the risk of stating the obvious, this thread reminds me of the old joke, "Doctor, doctor, it hurts when I do this..." Why bother watching stuff that causes problems?

Some comments in this thread got me thinking about self-inflicted problems in general.
I'm wondering if this can be useful as an analogy:
In my sleep, I sometimes curl my toes or whatever and wake suddenly with an excruciating cramp in my foot. The instinctive response is to curl up in agony, which doesn't work. The counter-intuitive solution is to get up, put my full weight on the foot and force it back into shape. If I do it immediately, it's over in a matter of seconds and I can go right back to sleep. The longer I wait in denial, the worse it gets. If I wait too long to start walking, the residual pain lasts a long time. Even after the cramp itself is gone, I still need to walk around for a while to prevent it from coming right back.

The point is, I think the solution would be to physically get up and do whatever is necessary to make it go away. Something that involves as many parts of you as possible (body & mind).

Hiya,

I was diagnosed with panic disorder and was having debilitating panic attacks daily over and over again from 2008 until the beginning of last year when I had some kind of breakdown/ illness spent 6 months in bed and haven't had a panic attack ever since thankgod.

It was awful feeling that I was gonna pass out all the time and the dizziness was the worst. I began eliminating things from my diet , convinced it must be something I was eating because they often happened when I had certain foods, I stopped going to places I thought may be the triggers, wouldn't take any painkillers aspirin etc,, and in the end I was waking up every single night in my sleep with panic attacks and kept having trips to A and E thinking I was dying. It is the most awful feeling when you don't know what causes it and even worse when people have never experienced it so can't understand.

They say in some people it can come back, but in others it stays away forever. I do hope that's the case for me! The truth is though, obsessing over what has caused it, is likely to stress you out even more.