“Panic Attacks”: 30 Things People Can Never Truly Understand Until They’ve Experienced Them

Depression is not a bad day. It's a life sentence

what is grief if not love persevering

A full blown panic attack is the feeling you are going to die. Can't breathe, sweating, shaking, blurred vision, vomit. It's not anxiety. It's panic, no matter where you are

I've only ever had one really bad panic attack and it came striaght outta nowhere. Fully thought I was going to die. Sacred me something fierce, mainly because I didn't know what was truly happening to me. Now that I know I think that is what has prevented it from happening again. I had a panic attack and, not knowing that this is what was happening, proceeded to make it worse by panicking about what in the world could possibly be doing this to me. It was over 15 years ago now but I'll never forget it.

Had a lovely attack at work. Got caught outside chain-smoking 47 cigarettes. Well, that won't do. Got hauled into the office, HR was called, whole nine yards. "Why were you out when you weren't on break?" "Something terrible was going to happen, and I had to get away." "What was going to happen?" "I...don't know. But it was bad." "That makes no sense." "Yeah, I know." Trying to explain a panic attack to a person who's never had one is like trying to explain the color orange to a person who's been blind their entire life. At best, you might give them a rough understanding, but you'll never be able to really let them know how it feels.

I cried in the corner like a baby.

thats grief.

Yeah this is a reason I don't want a pet. I don't know why someone would get another one I don't know why they'd do that to themselves knowing the creature will pass.

Its easy to say, but since I have it. The worst thing you can do with cronic pain is let it stop you moving, because our whole body mechanism is designed around movement to make us healthy. Unless we move we dont get fresh blood to all our cells, we dont expell our waisteproducts efficiently. We stiffen and our musckle shortens, wich inpacts the bloddflow and the waiste products. Thats not to mention all the positive hormones you also dont get transported around your body. Our brain is so ready to give us the right medicine, but we are so used to thinking that movement and excercise is pain, that we forget that its nice to sit and rock, to swing our bodies gently, to roll from one side to the other. And the more we do the small, soft movements, the more we gain the positive effects, and even supportive muskles to ease the pain of the main. Pain isnt always the body telling you something is wrong. Most often its just to tell you that you are doing it wrong, or not doing it enough <3

There are a thousand reasons why someone can't or won't leave an abusive relationship. Maybe they have no money or nowhere to go. They might not know where to turn or who they can trust. Society in general dictates that being alone or single is a bad thing so they may have conditioned themselves into thinking that a bad partner is better than no partner at all. Maybe they've just accepted the abuse as normal and no longer think there's anything better or that they deserve better. It is surprising what you can get accustomed to and it is surprising how quickly you can get used to it. I've experienced all of these things. I could write a book on the subject.

It's not always about 'love'. Ask a kidnap victim why they didn't 'just leave', and you will find out about all the ways that one human being can gain and hold leverage over another.

I was 19 and homeless. Had no money, no where else to go, and he made me feel like no one else cared about me. Also threatened to end himself if I left him. 3 months of him being hot and cold with his emotions, massively abusive, was SA'd by him and a friend of his on more than one occasion, tried to force me to do heroine (luckily that didn't happen). Finally was able to get away when he almost beat me to death and some friends found me and got me away from him. He ended up taking off and disappearing. It will be 20 years this year and I am still so scared I will randomly see him somewhere.

True. The flashing in my eyes, the pain,nauseating feeling

This. I've lost count of the amount of times I've been accused of faking it when I've been in so much agony that I can't move.

Worse, many think that some classes aren’t discriminated against because “nobody’s trying to hurt you or kıll you or take away your rights”. Discrimination comes in a wide variety of forms, and they all hurt in some way.

I'm severely mentally ill and although 90% of people are really great about it, I still run into the 10%. I have dissociative motor disorder, mine looks like tourette's that is exacerbated by anxiety, lots of shouting and movement but also stuttering or slow speech and difficultly thinking unless I go at a slow pace and usually reading off a script. I can guarantee half of the phone calls I've made they have hung up on me. A small number people are not happy that I don't work(I did most of my life), until I offer to work with them(even for free) then they mean a job for my type of people?? A lot of the retired generation are plain ignorant. But women with kids are the worst, they will actively shield their children from the guy with milk, bread and eggs in a basket and use derogator terms to describe me e.g. "stay by there until the mental man/funny wavy man has gone"; I don't think most of the time there is any malice, they don't even realise what they are doing.

Numbness is mostly what I remember from when I had it. I am so thankful that I managed to reach out to my mum when I was suffering and she made sure I got treated. I still have social/generalised anxiety but I find it easier to live with than how it was back then.

And knowing you're going to have them almost every month or so for 35-40 years!

Ahh yes. Nothing better than repeatedly blacking out from cramps and blood loss. Thank God my doctor allowed me to yeet my malfunctioning baby box last summer.

I got them, but still didn't fully understand how bad it was for many people, because mine were never that bad. I can relate more now, after the pain from an ovarian cyst and torsion.

And it takes as long as it takes. Nobody really knows how they are going to handle a situation until they are faced with it themselves and nobody has the right to judge you.

Not only this, but also what shatters me might mean nothing to you. What feels like a tragedy to you could be insignificant to me if I were to experience it. Don't judge others' experiences by your own standards.

No need to be silent. shout it out <3 so you can get the help from those who see you shouting. The rest of them probably have enough with their own stuff or dont have the mental capasity to help anyway. But dont silence your self to please others. It only makes it worse, and many people want to help you, even if it is only a kind or validating word from an internet stranger, it is a start. Its helpful. It allows you to "be", in a context where you are not judged and if they judge, its not to earthcrushing. And so you learn to find your words, to feel the right to express yourself and with time and confidence, you learn what you want and need.

Just quit doing whatever it is you're addicted to. It's just that easy! (excuse me, let me light a smoke). Now where was I?

5 years ago lost my stepdad, then my aunt (my moms sister) a few months later. Last year my husband lost his uncle and I lost my uncle within a few weeks of each other. We just lost a family friend last month who I have known since I was little, so like 30 years.

i had a broken tooth one of my molars and i was eating a hamburger bit down on it as i was chewing i felt like someone just straight up clocked me in the jaw.

Jupp. But we also can be quite basa§§, good listeners, have great perspective on life, live in the moment, because we know thatt is is all we really ever have, and are strong enough to wake up and sieze another day by its horns while shaking of the nightmares that comes at night. Im not making light of anything here, but we are made to go through and live after much worse, so unless you are being eaten by a bear or a lion, there is hope you will find your way to the other side, as long as you keep moving your body, work through your experiences and have faith in your self and the fact that you made it here. And that is awesome (in the correct use of the word). Even the "gutter" has life and hope, and most of us have more than that. Even when we have or had very little. Love you all <3

I feel for all the people in Australia and North America who are experiencing this from the bush/wild fires at the moment.

And hopefully, we never need to.

As a child, my mother had all the ppd's posible and she couldnt stand touching me. My father touceded me but only to saticfy his own sickness. When they divorsed he would keep me and my brother (for status) and left us for days and weeks at a time from I was three til I was nine. I would walk in peoples shoeprints to feel a connection to others. I would sneak peaks into peoples homes, and i would stand outside favorite houses, so I cold smell their dinnertime and hear their laughter. I even learned to hug pinetrees, and had a few nests around, jiust to be close to other living organisms, besides the bacterias growing on my filthy body Cats and dogs would avoid my desperation. Now I have many friends, in my favorite tv series and documetaries, the love artists share when they make their content, internet strangers who see me, only for a minute while they read my comments. I could have real friends, but im not good at it, having been raised by dogs and cats. And i feel my life is full

haha, my mom said "yuk" when they put my slimy, wet brother on her chest. After that it was pure love tho. Me is a different story :p

I gave birth by myself in residence. No. Not living.

I love the "Just leave" people... Where should I go my man? Should I just go live on the streets while getting slandered to kingdom come with 0 reprecussions for the offending party?

I'm so very sorry for your loss.

So sorry for your loss.

I know this all too well

My mum and stepdad took in a couple of friends of my late stepbrother in the last couple of years because they were homeless. Having to pack up their meagre belongings and move in with people they only peripherally knew was hard to comprehend. Now one is going to be homeless again, after finding a place to share for a while, and my stepdad won't help again.

As someone with OCD, It is quite annoying when someone "jokes" about having OCD because all of "whatever" is lined up perfectly, and if anything is misaligned, they have to fix it right away. My OCD ruled my life. It was something that affected me non-stop. In addition to the usual "counting" thing, and needing to eat a sandwich in 8 bites, I had a major "oddity" that a friend insisted was OCD, and she didn't even understand the complexity of what I was doing. Friend dragged me to see OCD specialist at Johns Hopkins Hospital. When I told him about my thing, he looked very thoughtful and said that he had never heard of anything like that before, but he quite confidently said that it had all the hallmarks of OCD. I started getting better that day, knowing that it had a name. There are still aspects of it that control my life, but I'm able to override some of it now. So yeah, making sure all the pictures line up straght ain't suffering. Folks with real OCD actually suffer from it.