Severe Panic Attack

Hi and welcome.

I am sorry that you are having trouble with panic attacks recently.  It is an awful and frightening experience.:(

I would say that it is pretty normal to have racing thoughts of a strange nature with anxiety and panic.

Things are generally pretty out of control in every way during an attack...body, mind and spirit!

Ironically, one of the best ways to prevent and stop an attack is with calm, rational thinking...not something that is easily done right?

What methods have you tried if any to help manage your anxiety? If you need some ideas, we have a great Resource Guide here on our main page (1st post) that has links to videos that teach breathing and relaxation exercises that are really great at relieving the symptoms of anxiety, as well as other great tools like downloadable CBT (therapy) worksheets and even on-line therapy. Take a look and see if anything looks useful to you.

Keep posting here with us as well. We are here to listen and support.:)

Scaredy Cat

Hey there. I have experienced what you're talking about many times over. It's a very frustrating and aggravating experience to lose ones train of thought and to have racing thoughts. For me it seems like the bad/anxious/ocd thoughts just push all other information out of the way. I think I've lost some! :) I agree with Scaredy Cat's assessment.

In my experience with A/P, I have found the times I have had panic attacks correlate to my anxious thoughts that were going on at the time - even if they were running in the "background" and were coming across more as background static as opposed to a thought at the forefront. A little more productive thinking, mindfulness and digging on my behalf, brought me to this Eureka moment years ago. I'm still struggling with A/P, but it is better (at least for me) to understand where it's coming from.

Of course it is counter productive to worry about something when all you're (I'm) doing is adding fuel to the fire. It's one thing to spend time thinking about something in a productive way, as opposed to pointless worrying and stressing that accomplishes nothing but in fact causes grief. I'm not sure if this is exactly what's going on with you, but I figured I'd share some of my own personal experience. Other things like meds and their side effects could also be throwing a lot into the mix.

Anyway, sorry to hear what you've been going through. It's no fun at all! Hang in there; you're not alone!

TroubleFree