AS and panic attacks

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I'm learning to breathe properly and have read there that people can have a genetic predisposition to panic attacks.
I'm just wondering, does anyone see a link between aspergers and panic attacks? I imagine that if you have either,
you are a sensitive person? Would this be what they used to call "highly strung" ?

PS One reason I am asking is that yesterday I had a long breathing/meditation session and was in pretty good shape, for me.
Then I went out, and had this surprisingly neurotypical morning - I was conversing and socialising all over the place.
Admittedly it was all with people I had met before, but still. I didn't collapse when I got home, either.

Paying attention to breathing definitely helps. Especially when you feel one of those "losing attention, something bad's gonna happen" moments, breathing out slowly can help keep focus.

I'm definitely a "Highly Sensitive Person" and have been learning to deal with it all my life. The martial arts practice barely keeps me grounded on a level of "normals", and without it I tend to lose my bearings.

I've had panic attacks all my life. I think I had my first one at age 3. I know for sure that I was getting them regularly by age 5. I didn't find a solution for them until about a year ago, when I increased my Anafranil. To this day, Anafranil is the only thing that has ever helped my OCD, and it also has eliminated my panic attacks. I used to have to take lots of Klonopin to even be able to set foot in a dentist's office, and just last week, I went to the dentist panic attack-free, just because of the Anafranil. I do not have panic disorder. All of my panic attacks were/are a result of AS and/or OCD fears. And yes, I'm a very sensitive and high-strung person.

I've recently become vulnerable to panic attacks, probably counts as panic disorder at this point, and I feel as if a lot of it relates to having Asperger's in that I developed bad habits regarding my emotional health.
The reason I blame this on having Asperger's is because I learned from a very very young age to bottle up reactions to things and repress them, or suppress them completely. We react badly to certain stimulants, e.g. sensory input, and these occur in daily life and we have to tolerate them, so at a very young age we observe these environmental things that are bad for us and we learn to avoid them or, if that's impossible (which it often is), to avoid our own reactions to them. If you're like me and a master of this skill (which I hate myself now for having developed!!) you'll have even learned to bottle up meltdowns and just go straight to total shutdown every time.
This all resulted in me exploding in an almost week-long phase of constant panic attacks, vomiting and insomnia, as my feelings and reactions simply would not let me ignore them or hold them in any longer. The moment I realized that that was the problem, I allowed myself to feel those things and suddenly the panic attacks went away. I cried as I needed to, let everything be as it truly was, and finally I was able to feel happy again. I'd even been bottling up happiness! How crazy?!
So I think panic attacks have a strong link with Asperger's/autism because of the emotional issues we face all the time and how hard it can be for us to cope with all of it, causing us to develop dangerous strategies such as repression or suppression.

I see a link between social anxiety and asperger's. I think it's very easy to be more prone to social anxiety, when you have problems with social interaction in general because of Asperger's. It can really become out of hand. I would go as far to say Asperger's caused my social anxiety. I think for people with AS it's harder to understand specifically what emotion you are having, and communication which are all keys to helping sort out anxiety problems.

I have to say though after everything I've been through it's actually looking up. The less you avoid the easier it becomes...just very slowly. It doe slook up though!

Niamh, don't hate yourself for being human.... Bottling up your emotions is a very common reaction. It's good that you're now aware of it and seeking to improve that...I wouldn't go as far to hate yourself for it.