Unexpected Reaction - PANIC!

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Last weekend I was out-of-town, staying at a house I'd never visited before.

During the stay, I accidentally locked myself in the guest bathroom (this is not actually true - I was unfamiliar with the locking mechanism and "thought" I had locked myself in the guest bathroom)

It was a small bathroom, only a sink and a toilet - I've been in bigger closets.

What I didn't expect was the level of panic that overwhelmed me.

I've always considered myself to be a good person to have around in emergencies, and this has been proven time and time again. When the situation gets tough, I tend to react pretty calmly - looking logically at what needs to be done immediately (only later, once all is said and done, will I have a little freak out moment).

But I thought the lock had broken for the bathroom door (there had been trouble with a couple of the other doors in the house, so this wasn't a farfetched idea).

I Freaked Out. Seriously freaked out. Panicked, hyperventilating, claustrophobia overwhelming any and every logical instinct I may have had.

I don't know what scared me the most: the situation itself or my reaction to the situation.

Has this ever happened to anyone? Not literally being locked in the bathroom or small space (although I'd love to hear about your experience if that did happen), but how your reaction to a stressful situation took you completely by surprise.

Meanwhile, I can't shake the feeling that I had while in the bathroom, thinking I was stuck, with fear gripping me and panic setting in. Not a happy thought, but I'm trying to make it into a learning experience, somehow.

Well, first of all, i think many people would freak out a little if they thought they were locked in (maybe not hyperventilate sort, but at least feel a hint of panic). The fact that you reacted the way you did, is in my head not shocking, considering the fact that most people have at least one particular thing that makes them uncomfortable - guess you found one of your's.

I don't have a problem with small rooms, or being locked in really. The times i experienced something similar to the situation you described, i did feel uncomfortable, but i solved it in a calm manner. The time i have panicked though was once i woke up to the entire house in total darkness (since i usually sleep with some lights on), the only thing i could see was some faint red light through the curtains. The fact that i was without electricity and lights put me into such a panic mode, i had to go outside and stay there for a while until the power came back. So i guess i sort of have a problem with small rooms when it's dark, or maybe i just don't like the way darkness makes one feel (since you then can't tell for sure what exactly surrounds you).

A girl I know once had a panic attack in the middle of a huge mall parking lot because she could not find her car. Her anxiety boiled when she begun to think her car had been stolen.

Panic attacks can be caused by extreme anxiety. This seems to be what happened to you. I wouldn't worry too much about your experience. It really seems to have been a case where something that took you by surprise and the following 'wtf' moments of thinking you were locked in got the better of you. Worry only if the panic attacks happen often...that's when you need to see a counselor/therapist or psychiatrist

I hope you guys get a laugh out of this, but the funniest panic attack I ever had was where I couldn't get out of the shower. This happened four years ago. It was morning, getting ready for work. I usually take showers in the morning, and this day I did indeed do this.

I'm in the shower. And well, after cleaning up, It's time to get out.... Only I can't. Now you're thinking, no one gets stuck in the shower. It's easy to get out of the shower.

I know right. Afterwards I had those thoughts to, but in the heat of the moment, my brain just decided to just stop it's critical thought processing.

Now, to get out of the shower, I normally would in the following order, turn off the water. Change the faucet from showerhead to the lower faucet to prevent water staying in the pipe to the showerhead. Open the curtain, grab a towel, cover myself, and step out while drying myself off. Very easy, very simple order of tasks that I've repeatedly done thousands upon thousands of times in my life.

Could I do that this day? I did it the day before, but apparently not today. My brain just couldn't process how to get out of the shower. I spent several minutes turning around in the shower searching for a how to get out and my thoughts just escalated from wondering how to get out, to an near overwhelming fear of being trapped, and having a need to escape the shower.

And of course you're thinking now, but you could just jump through the curtain, worse case is that I trip on it or get tangled up, end up in a mess on the ground with maybe the shower curtain rod hitting me doing some blunt trauma.... and you're right about that. It's possible that this was an option, but sadly my brain wasn't working right and I panicked. It took yelling at myself to focus several times before my brain decided, something along the lines that it would be a good idea to turn back on the part of itself that thinks things through, and got back on track and I was able to escape the shower.

I thought I was over it, but a few minutes later, I had either a continuation or a followup panic attack while trying to get dressed. I pulled a shirt out of the closet, set it on my bed, and it was gone. And my brain was like, where is your shirt at, where did it go. It's not here. Now I could have just pulled a second shirt out of the closet to wear, or I could have realized that it was right where I put it on the bed, but my brain was like NOPE, it's gone, and you've got to find it, and I panicked because, shirts just don't dissapear, and I freaked that I couldn't find it even though it was in plain sight right there on my bed, and I had to yell at myself again to focus and calm down, and there my shirt was, right where I had put it.

Sadly, I wish that my panic attacks were, in hindsight, as amusing as this, but they are not. My last major one I had was four weeks ago, and during it I damaged my laptop hard drive. It cost about 350$ and two weeks worth of effort overall to recover data that I had created between my last backup and the attack. My most expensive panic attack yet, but they are what they are. The amusing thing about that panic attack... the only amusing thing to me at least is that a week before it happened, I warned a friend that my laptop was going to kill me. Not really kill me, but I knew I would have a panic attack from the laptop because something with the touchpad user interface wasn't working right and had almost caused several panic attacks, but I had managed to keep myself under control.