What does your anxiety feel like?

Can you describe it? Mine starts with a dry mouth and stomach flutters.

I get an adrenaline rush feeling. Sometimes it starts in the pit of my stomach and rises with a heat wave then panic. I try and stop it before it gets to panic & am usually successful but it still leaves an unsettling feeling.

yup, the adrenalin rush, shakiness, heart races, mind races, dry mouth, feelings of dread ...none of it fun.

I think it's quite different for a lot of people but mine normally comes on so gradually but sometimes it starts with a sudden bang in my chest and then I'll start to worry about my heart and it can snowball from there.
Start to feel dizzy and faint and mouth goes dry, I get pains and my chest and stomach and feelings of pain and fuzziness in my jaw,neck and arm...all down the left side, this all goes towards my anxiety as it's all signs of a heart attack.
I know it's not anything but an anxiety attack because I've had them so many times before but it doesn't stop you from feeling that this time it's for real and your going to die. I then start to do a full body shake as the adrenaline hits its peak flow. My mind goes to a very dark place where no amount of convincing will allow me to think it's anything other than a heart attack.
I'm sure there are other things I'm missing but that's generally how it goes

Ahhh..the pending doom Cornell...isn't that the worst!!!! I used to get the chest pain alot when I was younger as well as the weakness in left leg and arm, assuring me that it WAS a major heart attack in the works! Now I don't have that as much (so far this episode anyway) but pretty much everything else you all describe. And, interestingly, I have no problem with going to sleep, but usually have vivid, vivid, dreams which, if bad enough, set the tone for the next anxiety filled day. I'd love to have just one night when I didn't have dreams; however, on the few occasions when I wake thinking I didn't dream, I oftentimes feel especially anxious, probably because the dream was there but I can't remember it. Anyway, right now I've been experiencing the shakiness and dry mouth all day....it never ceases to amaze me how many different symptoms we can have o a given day....individually and sometimes all at the same time. That pending doom is the very worse for me though. And you know there's no reason for it but that doesn't seem to matter. Sometimes I try to figure out how I would generalize how anxiety affects a person to someone who's never experienced it. Aside from all the physical symptoms we get, it just feels like there's a pale over my brain and I want so badly to clear it out of there. I'm never free of thinking about my anxiety, find it difficult to concentrate on other things and just feel like a machine that went 'TILT.' On the few occasions when anxiety passes and I feel "clear headed", it's such a wonderful relief...but it never lasts long enough.

I feel a wave of fear and an overwhelming feeling that something isn't right. I feel like I'm going to pass out, or at least that's the way I describe it having never experienced passing out. I have an extreme urge to flee and usually rush out to my front step and just stand there and look around while feeling the urge to go somewhere, anywhere, as fast as possible. My heart usually races but only at first. Sometimes if it's bad things will feel surreal and my legs get rubbery. If it was a really bad one I will shake for a while after it's over.

Andwes you talk about describing it to other people and that is something I've always struggled to find the words for. The best way I've have heard someone describe it was that living with anxiety felt the same as the feeling you get when your about to get into a car accident that you can see coming, but have no way of stopping. The only difference is that you feel it all the time, and sometimes for no reason. It's the only description I've hear that I can really relate to.

For me it is different at different times. Right now I have this weird uncomfortable feeling. My chest and stomach feel tight and sick and my heart is fluttering much quicker than normal. I feel sad and scared and don't know what to do with myself. I have plenty of things like school work I could do but I don't have the capacity to concentrate right now. I keep walking around the house like a nut and my poor husband just looks at me like with that sad look. I want to go to sleep to get away from this feeling of something being terribly wrong but I won't because then I'm afraid I'll start up with insomnia again and I couldn't handle that on top of all of this.

Other times my heart races like I'm going to die. I get really hot and my arms and legs feel like rubber. My stomach gets so sick I can't eat and have diahrhea. My chest gets tight and heavy and my head spins. I feel like I'm going to pass out. I breath so heavy I feel like it will never get back to normal. Sometimes I get this strange feeling up by my shoulder. Like someone said it's the sense of impending doom and no way to get away from it. Wondering if I am doomed to live out the rest of my life under this black cloud. I get so worried that I'll never get back to "normal" again. I just want to feel like my self again. I don't want to have to keep myself occupied just to feel regular. For me the fear of getting stuck like this is almost unbearably dreadful. It makes me feel like I'm walking this tightrope and that I'm so close to going crazy.