My Top 10 Panic Attacks...Ranked!

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I know we all suffer here from anxiety and a daily onslaught, living in this society not designed for us. But, sometimes you have to appreciate the small things...like, "Hey, this is a new kind of headache," or, "I've never experienced pain from that kind of light before." So I thought I'd go through some of my favorite panic attacks and shutdowns. Not just the mundane, but the definitive, the crazy good, and most iconic attacks.

10) Age 13, seemingly random chest pains begin in junior high. Not very specific, but so early. This is where the real fans come in.

9) Daily anxiety from eye contact, rolling chair in office before it gets bad. Breathe, breathe... Are you growing older, or just growing weaker?

Headaches and fatigue from job interview. Have to maintain humor and spontaneous answers with three strangers. Stare into space for hours, later. Let's joke about "adulting"!

7) Second interview. Surprise! Suicide is not an option. Attend interview. Great fatigue. Joy at hire? Never thought I'd get through it. Never thought things would be like this. Is it too late in life to disassociate permanently? To content myself in the rubber room of infinity and just...eat my hair...and eat more hair...and eat more hair...

6) Second date at a metropolitan art museum an hour away. By the end of the day I was babbling like Robin Williams. A shutdown of manic transcendence and sublime incapability. Later engaged. Charm works in mysterious ways.

5) Go into crawlspace as teen, to avoid parental meltdown. Rest in corpse-like position. Disability, Egyptian style.

4) Symptoms of indigestion during staff meetings, which disappear when I leave the room and sit alone. Clear, direct, classic. I'm the Beckett of failure.

3) Feeling of vomit (sorry) while watching TV. Too much screen time. Too much pleasure. Back into the dungeon of the soul.

2) Running to bathroom at work, despite very regular diet. Long days, low stamina. Where is the stimulation coming from? This is all-access, wireless panic. 5G incapability.

1) Headache, diarrhea (sorry), fatigue from too much eye contact. This cuck will never learn.


I'm just a poor beta male living in an alpha world. But, I think I'm perfecting my art. Hopefully you have some fun attacks and shutdowns (or meltdowns) to share. Let's...be positive.

I'll list some that aren't related to PTSD or personal trauma.

These aren't in chronological order, or order of severity.

1 -
Doorbell rings (which in itself terrifies me) and I think I see someone I'm afraid of. I run from the door and bury myself under a pile of laundry clothes / towels just in case they come around to the back windows of my house. I stay there having heart palpitations for close to an hour, terrified to come out.


2 -
The time when someone else did pound on my door, and come around to the back windows of my house. I stood motionless in clear view but couldn't move (freeze response) even though they were waving at me and shouting through the window.


3 -
The time when I went through several rounds of job interviewing in a row (all on one night), only to be told at the final boardroom meeting that they weren't going to hire me because "we don't think any of the other employees would like you".


4-
The supersonic meltdown I had in front of a dental surgeon a few years ago, when he kept delaying my surgery and not prescribing me any painkillers (I went several months needing a root canal, with no pain relief). I ended up on the floor crying and rocking, having uttered several choice expletives in his general direction. Some items may have been thrown as well. I'm picturing the dental sunglasses.


5 -
The time when my pharmacist started shouting about my vagina in front of customers, and asking if I was a hormone-junkie. (Don't ask). She said "Don't turn your back on me, Missy!" when I tried to run from the shop in horror.


6 -
The time when I wasn't allowed to go to the bathroom at work (Oh wait, that was all day every day for 20+ years).


7-
The time when my neighbour tried to sue me because my cat walked in his garden. Which was the same time when an animal control person came to the door saying my other cat had attacked someone, and they wanted a mug shot so they could also sue me. (No it wasn't him, but it took a long time to prove).


8-
The time I was kept too long in a custody assessment meeting with my car in paid parking. I didn't have enough money in all my life savings combined to use a bank machine and get my car out. I had no idea what to do. I couldn't even afford a phone call on a pay phone. It was also pitch dark and I had no idea where I was (downtown).


9-
The time my ex locked me outside in Cape Cod with no phone, wallet, or purse. It was around 3 am and cops thought I was a hooker.


10-
The time a SWAT team broke down my door.

Oh and

11-
The time I went in underground parking to visit a friend who lived in a highrise. I couldn't figure out how to walk out of the parking because there was no stairwell or elevator anywhere. This was pre-mobile phones. I was literally stuck in a cement room with no way out. Somehow I found a door or something (can't remember?) which led me outside into a small muddy garden surrounded by a tall wrought-iron fence. I had to scale the fence to get on the other side and go to the front door of the building. My clothes were torn and I was covered in mud but I was too scared / embarrassed to tell my friend what happened, or to ask her how the hell I would find my car again on the way home.

I have panic disorder and things that'll bring them on (I get them for both a reason and none at all), so it's mostly a blur when it comes to the worse ones as it happens so often, albeit I distinctly remember some of the good ones. I just get the fight or flight response. When out in public and caused by being overwhelmed, I can keep them hidden, and I'll do breathing techniques and try to detach myself from where I am, both of which help until I can remove myself from the situation. I'm doing alright, likely due to tolerance.

I had a good one about a month ago that I rarely experience when in the middle of the woods/mountains. Kinda made me somewhat hesitant to go back out, as I could have easily gotten lost, and flight took me in the right direction mostly by luck there. I have some balance issues from ear stuff, so I can fall over on uneven ground, and I did. I cut my hand a little, a tiny thing, but enough for that warm blood to run down my arm. Enter memories of things and I hit 10/10 fight or flight, I lost sense of time and space and did some of those sad flashback things. I chose a direction and ran once I thought it was safe enough to. Luckily, I hit a road, which calmed me down enough (I then sprinted home because I didn't want to worry someone as I wasn't sure how much time elapsed).

1. I was 3 yo and was dropped off at a kindergarten/day care. The kids figured out I hated the road noise and would trap me at the fence next to the street. I remember fighting the girl the next day but she was five or six and had friends. The emotions are still strong today and remembrance of just driving past the place would trigger me.

2. Flight from surprise with ex girlfriend at 14 yo. Scared me as it triggered the memory of the fence shutdown.

3. & 4. Both are freeze attacks this last summer, first when the pedophile confessed and second when he threaten to shoot me or have me shot. The last I felt I had more control and think I was able to mask it.

I’ve a bunch of surprise meetings with people but too many to recall. I wouldn’t consider them panics just a shot of adrenaline.

What a collection of as*holes.



I went to interview for a teaching fellowship in a big city once. I had trouble figuring out the machine to get out of the (unmanned) parking lot. For some reason the bar wouldn't lift. I think maybe I figured out a way to drive around it, or it did lift at the last minute, but I was really starting to freak out. It wasn't a good part of the city.

Even when you solve the problem, it just takes hours to get over.



This would totally be me.

Some awful experiences all around, from all of you. Very relatable.

OMG that's so scary when it happens. I had the same thing once, going up a long steep ramp into airport parking. The arm thing wouldn't lift to go in, and there was no way I could back down the long twisty thing to get out. The sign on the arm thing made it seem like I was using one for people with employee passes instead of regular cars without a pass. I tried everything. It was hard to keep the car from rolling backward, and reaching out the window over and over. I was afraid people would come up behind me and start honking. I was there a very long time -- maybe about ten minutes?? Somehow the bleeping thing finally went up.

I think car parking issues are really scary - being trapped any place with those stupid doors, or not being able to pay.

The panic attack I had a few months ago was probably the worst panic attack I've ever had (that I can remember). It came out of nowhere, and I still don't know exactly why I had it. I felt like I was going to die and couldn't stop pacing for a couple hours like a cornered animal. lmao

I still get panic attacks ocassionally, though fortunately I haven't had one quite that bad. I hope that I never have one like that again.

That sounds incredibly disorienting.

1.
The time I left home for work, and realised I had backed over my big, empty trash bin at the curb. It was stuck under the back end of my car and I dragged it down the street. I had no idea how to get it out because it was all crunched under the wheel well.


2.
The time my car got stuck in the snow, half way into my driveway. For like, an hour. Blocking traffic.


3.
The time I got stuck trying to go into a carwash, because I didn't get the car on the track properly.


4.
The time I drove away from a gas station with the nozzle thing still in my car, and nearly exploded the place.



Wow I have a lot of car trauma. I'm a great driver - honestly. I just panic when I have these situations because I hate drawing attention to myself. These happened over 35 years of driving so it's really not as bad as it sounds.

I've been in a pretty good car accident; that'll be another thing that didn't really bother me. Maybe it did and I just haven't realized it yet: I'm always checking the rearview mirror when stopped since it happened, and someone else did from then on too. This one destroyed an old Prelude, which was a good car. I don't get any panic or fight or flight from driving though, so maybe it didn't do much, rather just made me more cautious.

A "simple" autism-mediated one that I remember: I had a decent panic attack around a decade ago when my mother met her friend and son at a busy coffee shop, and I tagged along because therapy or something. That was just too much sensory stimuli for me to handle (break down everything happening in a busy coffee shop that can hit your senses and...yeah), so after around 30 minutes of trying to interact (said friend knew me since a child, so she wasn't a stranger), I exited stage maximum daily dose of Benzo in one go and waited outside to calm down from that. I soon realized said family of small-molecule drugs weren't doing much of anything for me. I kinda don't show anything outside of the very rare ones, so I guess there's that and I'm not a bother to others. One on one, tiny groups and so on, and I can handle that sensory stimuli.

Almost got ran over by cars, as pedestrian or bicyclist

Car crash, bike crash

Homophobic comments

Assault

Getting made redundant (but it has happened so many times, got a chance to refine my reaction)

Testing anxiety, academic dismissal

Dogs

Evicted





There are plenty more but those sound like the largest ones

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T.W: discussion of Claustrophobia (fear of small spaces) and Pediophobia (fear of dolls).

When I was a kid, I went on a school trip. During a group exercise, we were tasked with crawling through a tunnel. For context, I am highly claustrophobic. So naturally we're off to a bad start here. I crawled into the tunnel and managed to get almost halfway. Unfortunately, the panic kicked in and I couldn't ignore the sense of dread anymore.

I stopped in my tracks, I could hear my heart beating and I tried to steady my breathing. The teacher was getting impatient and kept yelling at me to hurry up. I wanted to continue, I wanted to push through and get to the other side, but my body refused to comply. So I was frozen there, thinking about how stupid this situation was and cursing at myself for not moving forward. I decided that it wasn't happening. So I closed my eyes and wriggled my way out backwards. Then, when I reached the end I lowered myself down to the ground and I lay in the grass and wept. Even though I knew I was embarrassing myself, I was just glad to be out of that tunnel and in an open space again that I didn't even care. I even thanked the ground. Naturally I didn't go back in the tunnel, I decided to just walk around it, much to the annoyance of the teacher.

Another time I was in state of panic was when I visited a creepy old mansion with porcelain dolls. To add some more context, I have a phobia of dolls and find porcelain dolls especially unsettling. It was an eerie building, especially the light that seemed to be in the hollowed out head of a cherub statue.

The nursey was by far one of the creepiest rooms, porcelain dolls were absolutely everywhere and there was an old music box playing somewhere, the cool breeze (that crept in because the mansion wasn't properly insulated and the cold stone flooring seemed to suck any warmth the room may have had out of the atmosphere) certainly didn't help me feel at ease. I felt as though I'd walked onto the set of a horror movie and I was about to fight the final boss that was hiding somewhere in the shadows. Unfortunately, it was one way and I had no choice but to walk through the nursery. I had to be led out with my eyes closed. Understandably, I had reoccurring nightmares about that place for about a week.