How do panic attacks feel (from the first person)?

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But are you all functional enough during a panic attack to be able to walk home (and perform all the actions and interactions needed for it) while you're having a panic attack if you're, say, about 300 m away from your house?

If I am not at home during my panic attack I usually try to regain myself fast and become functional enough to do things that are required of me. My functionality during a panic attack depends on the trigger.

Like I m sinking.

I feel mostly like I'm floating, confused, and anxious for no reason. I can't breath right and I get really defensive. I think that they might trigger migraines sometimes.

Transhuman -

I can sometimes get myself home even by driving if I have to. But, I have to be VERY careful and use all my energy to pay attention and stay focused and try to stay safe to get home. It is exhausting. I have had panic attacks at work. I would just find myself starting to cry and feel overwhelmed and I would go into the restroom to try to "pull it together", but frequently, by that point, I was unable to. So, I would head for home as quickly as I could to try to get there before I was so paralyzed by the panic that I couldn't do anything at all. This is a large part of why I am not currently working. I have Bi-polar, AS, anxiety, and fibromyalgia. On top of that, my husband is AS, I have 2 sons - both with ADHD and one with AS/HFA. I am also caregiver for my elderly mother. So, I can't stop being wife, mother, or daughter and I can't really get away from all of those stressors. But, I can decide that working is one stress that I can (and need to) avoid. I was finally approved for disability about a year ago.

I'm pretty sure I could point myself and put one foot in front of the other long enough to walk 300 meters home. I'm not sure I know what you mean by "all the actions and interactions".

I have to edit this: I just remembered one that was different from any other, that I'm only reasonably sure was actually a panic attack. This was about 30 years ago, and I was out walking with my 7 year old daughter and two dogs on leashes. Thank heaven they were really calm, well-trained, protective dogs (shepherd mixes). We were walking a railroad track embankment through brush country, nobody around, about half a mile (880 meters, about) from home, when we had a very low trestle to cross, across a creek. This was in no way dangerous: I could have jumped off the side of it with no worse damage than a broken ankle if I'd happened to hit an underwater rock (maybe 5-10 feet high, and the creek was shallow, and the ties were too close together for either of us to catch a foot in. But I caught a glimpse of the moving water between the ties, and suddenly was so dizzy that I had to go down flat. My daughter and her dog were already on the other side. I told her to stay where she was, and tried to pull it together, because I knew intellectually that there was nothing _really_ wrong with me. Eventually I managed to get onto all fours, hands and knees, and _crawl_ the rest of the way across (I'd let go of my dog's leash and let him join the others). After I got across, I could sit on the ground, and ride it out, while talking to my daughter. Neither of us had a watch, so I don't know how long it was. I was _not_ going to go onto that trestle again, so we followed the track another half-mile to the gravel road, then took it a half-mile to the paved highway (I knew exactly where we were all the time: I grew up here), then a mile back home along the grass shoulder. Even where the paved highway crossed the same creek, I very carefully kept my eyes averted from the water. I sat down a while longer when we got to the highway, with a literal pain that I needed to get over. But that was the only time that I ever had one when I couldn't stand up. I'm not sure what was different about it, but the moving water, and at many other times in my life, I had _waded_ in that creek, it's that shallow. But I didn't walk during the panic attack itself, though maybe I could have. I don't know whether my daughter remembers that or not, but she took it well at the time. Of course while talking to her I put the calmest face on it that I could, telling her I'll be just fine in a minute, just needed to rest. And she knew for sure that she could walk home by herself, so far as that went.

I do not have them very often.

First I grow nauseated. Then I faint and wake up screaming like I've had a nightmare. Then I'm drained for the rest of the day, needing two naps and an early bedtime. This has only happened twice in my life.
People say that one can't pass out during a panic attack. They're pitifully incorrect.

IMPENDING DOOOOOOOOOOOM
(And nausea)

i feel funny emotionally(i know that explains nothing). then i start to shake, my breathing becomes short and then it just turns into a wheeze and no matter how hard i try i cant suck air into my lungs, my heart beats so fast it makes running a kilometre look easy and it doesnt slow it just speeds up like a heart attack in reverse and you can feel the blood pulse through your entire body, you start to sweat and its hot and cold and the world seems to receed so its like you're looking and hearing things from afar. panic.

No, I would have to be escorted home. I lose all control of myself when I am having a panic attack.



People also say panic attacks can't cause 'seizure-like drop attacks' but they too are pitifully incorrect as you say!

For me, the first 'symptom' is usually that I start to feel really hot. Then I get dizzy. My chest starts to tighten and I struggle to breath. I feel incredibly sick and have to hide away from people.

That is the milder panic attack, when it gets worse, I also scream and hit things. Sometimes I collapse and have a 'seizure' although it is not like an epileptic seizure because I am concious. Everyone in my family thought I was faking it until one of my cousins developed an equally as bad panic disorder and started having non-epileptic seizures!

I often have strange 'attacks' when I only see the image and hear sounds, but can't understand or recognize anything at all. Like, I wouldn't be able to walk even 5 meters to any target on my own during such an 'attack', although I could attempt to, due to the fact that my brain just shuts down. It's like I'm unable to think, recognize anything, make mental plans of where to go, etc. etc. It just feels like most of my mental functions have been shut down completely.

Does this seem like a panic attack, or something else? These 'attacks' sometimes go together with strong anxiety before them, but only 1/3 to 1/2 of the time. I often think I'm dying when having such attacks, but not always.