How long does your anxiety last?

There is a huge difference between chronic anxiety and a panic attack.

Chronic anxiety as the name suggests is an almost constant condition, probaby lasting for days at least, whereas a panic attack is an acute fear and shorter lived...it just felt like a lifetime.

My panic attacks were usually caused either by being in specific places or situations, or by an anxiety build up from knowing that I was going to be in those places.  The latter usually resulting in not going to that place.  Like JKRsGirl being in a queue to pay for something was a guaranteed panic until I found my solution.

Other times, and probably the worst was the one that took me completely by surprise, anywhere, anytime and totally unexpected.  Usually shorter(minutes) but much more intense.

A good vent will do you more good than keeping it to yourself.

Have a good nights sleep, think calm, feel calm and be calm.  Wake up relaxed and happy, and start the day with a smile.

The same thing happens if you use distraction methods.  You start concentrating on something else for a while but you just have to check back to see if your a/p has gone...and off we go again. 

Conquer, I am very much so in agreement with the others. Jethro makes a very good point in first posting. There is a major difference between chronic anxiety and a panic attack. Some people may have anxiety and never experience a full blown panic attack. Others may experience panic attacks (which usually are short lived, up to 10 minutes or so) for a short period in their life and then overcome this and never have a problem again. Then again some and in my opinion most, just like myself, suffer from the chronic anxiety as well as panic attacks. I had my first panic attack when I was 22 and went through approximately 1 year and a half of tests and insensitive doctors before I found one that was able to diagnose me. Now I do not say this to discourage you but more so you may understand. You must be completely truthful with doctors - I was embarrassed and thought I was nuts which caused me to hold back and just 'believe' what the doctors said to me. I am 29 now and I still battle this disorder. It is severely aggravated for me during times of change in my life (ie: moving, grievance, job hunting, driving in new areas, etc) however, I have gone through periods of what I like to refer to as 'comfortability' where I have gone months w/o a hint of anxiety or an attack. The anxiety I refer to as 'spelling' or in other words the 'feeling' of the 'buildup' to a full blown panic attack. I may suffer with this all day long and never have an attack. More often than not when I do have a PA it is completely out of the blue and seemingly for no reason whatsoever. But I always find that if I really think about it I can find the root cause of the problem. And most ALWAYS after I do have an attack and it ebbs away I am usually free of anxiety for a few hours afterwards. Sorry this post turned out to be so long, I was just trying to let you know that it is different (and yet the same) for all of us and if you really start to pay attention to what is going on you too will figure out what your 'triggers' are and how to control them. I wish you well - remember this one thing always: Anxiety/Panic Disorder can only strengthen you - it CANNOT hurt you. If you ever want to talk I am here most every evening in chat. Keep us all posted on how you are doing and keep up the fight! I'll be praying for you! panicinID

Hello, the same happen to me, whem i am relax and I recognized that i am relaxed, i start getting the anxxies feeling again, thinking that there is something wrong by being relax, but in the reality I am fine to others. For some reason I got really disconnected from the real-world and it is just matter of time to get back on my feet.