hi everyone, (31F), anxious for as long as I can remember, mostly around health and death, but it never stayed contained to just that. constant overthinking, awkward in social situations, my brain just found new things to latch onto.

had a really rough spike about a year back, panic attacks, fully convinced my heart was failing and I didn’t have much time left. did the whole rounds, several doctors, tests, “you’re completely fine,” relief for a couple days, then right back to being scared.

there was this one stretch, a few months long, where I was convinced a tsunami was going to hit the island I was on. I swear I could hear these strange sounds coming from the ocean that I was sure meant it was coming.

similar thing happened after an earthquake once too, I kept hearing the roof creak and was positive it would cave in on me while I slept. actually left my place for a few nights before realizing none of it was real, just my brain doing what it does. that’s basically been my whole life in a nutshell.

spent years on meditation, breathing work, exercise, none of it touched the real problem. 7 years of consistent meditation and it barely made a dent in the anxiety itself. breathing exercises helped a little in the moment during panic attacks, but that was it, nothing lasting.

EFT tapping is what actually clicked for me. the concept that fear gets physically stuck in your body and needs real release, not just management, made something make sense for the first time. youtube sessions were too generic to really help, so I dove into every EFT resource I could find and started writing my own scripts targeted at my specific fears, death, illness, and this fear feeling in my chest.

first time doing it properly, I cried more than I expected to. apparently that’s part of how it works, crying and yawning as the energy releases. happened a few more times over the following sessions, and each time the fear got quieter until it basically wasn’t there anymore. even the physical symptoms eventually stopped, the weird chest feeling just doesn’t show up like it used to. and this technique genuinely saved me during panic attacks too.

given my background in tech, I turned what I’d built for myself into an app once I realized how much it had changed things for me, guided EFT sessions split by anxiety type (general, health, panic, work, overthinking, etc), because nothing out there matched what I actually needed. it’s got around 30 sessions right now.

it’s called Alight: EFT Tapping, free for a week if you want to try it. would genuinely love to hear feedback if you do, especially what else you’d want to see covered (relationship anxiety, parental anxiety, and postpartum are next on my list).

to be clear: this isn’t a replacement for medical care if your doctor says you need one, and I’m not claiming it works for everyone, just sharing what helped me personally.

I hope you find this somehow and this is the beginning of your recovery. This is the only post I'm going to make on reddit.

I'm 48 female, married with kids. Sometime last year, I had really bad anxiety and panic attacks. So bad, I thought I was going to die or lose my mind, and it sent me into despair thinking I would never get better. My family suffered, my work suffered. After countless late night ER trips and cardio and thyroid labs showing I was healthy, I saw four psychiatrists who tried to put me on all sorts of medication (mainly antidepressants) and was briefly on Xanax which I eventually stopped after two months (it has been over a year now). Apart from checking on my heart and thyroid I also had myself checked for any vitamin deficiencies. In my case, a less than ideal level of iron and B vitamins. I believe that fixing those have also definitely helped. Literally sometimes for some people it could be just that and it boggles me that these simple things are never checked.

It has been my own experience, that medication was unnecessary, and that none of the psychiatrists that I saw were helpful (one was harmful), and the only real help and relief I got was from a psychologist who actually listened to me and gave me back my agency by respecting my choices. Because panic disorder makes you feel like you have absolutely no control this was so important. Having said this, if you are happy with your doctor then you do you. And please consult your doctor for any medication decisions you plan to make. This is simply my experience.

I am posting this on reddit because it was a random post here too that led me to the DARE Method by Barry McDonagh. I got the audible version which Barry reads himself and I strongly encourage you to get that one. If you have sleep issues too then I also highly recommend The Sleep Solution by Chris Winter (also best on Audible). I needed to listen to this book only once, and I was good, same with DARE. The core of the DARE method is for you to NORMALIZE the panic until it truly just fades into nothing. And as impossible and scary as that sounds right now, this is EXACTLY what happens if you just give it a chance. Please don't take my word for it and do your own research on DARE. All the tips, techniques and empowering information and knowledge must be learned from the book or the audible (and app) as I am not doing it any justice whatsoever in this reddit post.

Healing is not overnight, it took me 3 months to be truly on the way to recovery, but I believe it is currently the surest path to overcoming Panic Disorder and all the horrendous suffering that comes with it. It has been my experience and that of many others, that through this method one can completely recover from Anxiety and Panic. Not only will you have your old self and old life back, but you will be stronger, braver, and life will have so much new meaning. As traumatic and painful as the experience was for me, it is precisely the pure joy of the recovery and the new lease on life that has made it all worth it.

Best of luck to you and I want to say that full recovery is what you deserve and that it is within your reach. Forgive the anxiety and forgive yourself. Remember that you are so loved and that you are never alone. God bless you and keep you always.

Hello everyone,

For my 21st birthday(which was about 2 weeks ago) I decided to have a thc gummy because I always had good experiences with them. At this point it’s been awhile since I had one and so I first had small dose 2 days before and had a good time. Then i decided to take a bigger dose and I don’t remember the actual strength . At first i was having a good time, then something happened and i started to freak out. I started to feel this panic,pain in my chest and bad thoughts like i was going to die and manual breathing kicked in. I was eventually able to calm down and get back to normal state.

When I got back from the birthday trip about 2 days after,I started to have this weird feeling where I could constantly feel my heart beating and felt like I was having to breath manually and felt like i was having a hard time getting a full breath.

Went to urgent care and everything was normal and so was the ekg. Now Im still dealing with this feeling and feel like I’m going crazy and was wondering if I’ll ever feel back to normal or am I stuck like this? Or could this be anxiety?

Side note I did stop my 5mg lexapro(with docs okay) 4 days the before experience happened. And not feeling too anxious besides what I’m feeling.

Any help would be appreciated!

I wanted to share my experience with panic attacks because I know there are probably other people going through the same thing and wondering what is happening to them.
My first real panic attack happened a few months ago. I had barely eaten that day, then later took around 600 mg of pre-workout/caffeine and used an energy snus with around 150 mg nicotine, plus a normal 15 mg nicotine snus.
I felt completely fine for about 4 hours. Then suddenly my vision got blurry, my heart started racing and I felt like I couldn’t breathe properly. I genuinely thought something was seriously wrong with me. It lasted around 30 minutes, so I called an ambulance.
They checked me and said everything seemed okay and that it was most likely a panic attack, with the huge amount of caffeine and nicotine making it worse.
The next day my doctor checked me and I had an ECG, which was normal. My blood tests were also normal except for a magnesium deficiency.
A few days later at school, I used a 12 mg nicotine snus. About 30 minutes later, my heart started racing again and I had trouble breathing. Another ambulance came and again they thought it was a panic attack.
After that, I became scared of having another one. I started constantly checking my heartbeat, breathing, vision and basically every little thing my body was doing. If my heart beat faster, I immediately thought, “Is it starting again?”
I even became afraid of exercising because I thought that my naturally higher heart rate and heavier breathing could trigger another panic attack.
I noticed that the symptoms were usually worse when I was alone, bored, somewhere unfamiliar or thinking about panic attacks. When I was talking to friends or focusing on something, they often became much weaker.
I also had another panic-like episode at a friend’s house after someone pranked me by saying there was alcohol in my water. I believed it because I had never had alcohol before. I became nauseous, had some breathing difficulty and felt like I might throw up. After around 30 minutes, it passed.
Instead of avoiding everything, I slowly started going back to normal life. I went back to school, went to an aquapark in another country, traveled to Turkey and later started an internship in a completely new environment with new people.
I still had some “mini panic attacks”, especially when I was alone or somewhere unfamiliar, but I kept doing things anyway.
One of the biggest things I realized was that a fast heartbeat doesn’t automatically mean a panic attack. Your heart can beat faster because you’re nervous, excited, moving around or simply paying attention to it.
I probably had normal body sensations even before my first panic attack, but I never cared about them. After that first attack, I started interpreting every little sensation as danger.
I’m still not completely back to how I was before, and I sometimes get uncomfortable feelings or mini panic attacks. But compared to the beginning, it’s a huge difference.
If you’re going through something similar, don’t let the fear make you avoid school, work, exercise, traveling or spending time with friends. At the same time, don’t automatically assume every symptom is anxiety. If you have severe or unusual symptoms, get checked by a doctor.
I just wanted to share this because when my first panic attack happened, I genuinely thought something was seriously wrong with me. Understanding what was happening and continuing my normal life helped me much more than constantly trying to make sure I would never feel anxious again.
If you’re going through this right now, you’re definitely not the only one.

I’ve had what I suspect are panic attacks on and off for several years, but I have a very stereotypical view of panic attacks involving hyperventilating/elevated heart rate etc. none of which I actually get.

For me, I get nausea and vomiting and a feeling that I’m going mad. I also get a general sense that there’s something terrible wrong with my health and that I’m about to die/collapse/pass out etc.

But my heart rate remains normal, and so does my breathing.

Does this sound like anyone’s experiences of panic?

Ive dealt with anxiety and occasional panic attacks before, but they were manageable. Then in March, I had the worst panic attack I’ve ever had while driving. Since then, every attack feels harder to recover from, and now I’m afraid to drive alone.
It’s gotten to the point where even thinking about getting in a car makes me panic. I’ve also had panic attacks at home alone, so now I’m afraid to be alone in the house too. I’ve been sleeping during the day while my parents are at work because I’m scared of having another attack.
I’ve been on mirtazapine 30mg for 5 months and Effexor, 37.5mg for 2 months and 75mg for the past month. I haven’t felt worse on them, but I also haven’t felt much better.
After talking to my mom I messaged my doctor about how bad things have gotten an inquired about maybe adding a mood stabilizer or something else, my doctor responded with “I will refer you to psychiatry”. So that like topped it off for me. A friend suggested I get evaluated for bipolar because my grandmother was diagnosed later in life, but my mom is not bipolar. I’m naturally very bubbly, talkative, and outgoing, but I also have ADHD, so I’m not sure what’s what. My friend also suggested that I take omega-3 with DHA/EPA.
I’ve read that antidepressants can worsen bipolar symptoms, but I haven’t noticed that happening—I just haven’t improved.

We've been partner for 12 years, and they have had panic attacks ever since the day we met, but lately, it's become way more frequently. They are not the person who vocalise their needs while-or after I take place. So I usually just sit with them, being calm.

My question goes out to you suffering from panic attacks; what helps during and after an episode. What do you need from your significant other when you are going through it?

I just wanna be as supportive as I possibly can when she is feeling the worst.