Did I have an Anxiety Attack?

Hi guys!

First time poster, been reading this forum for a couple days now; I think I had a panic attack last Thursday, but I am not 100% sure so I wanted to just get some input and possible advice on how to handle going forward!

I am 33, great home life, work is going good, really no personal stress I can think of, except daily struggles that I feel most people have.

How it happened: I was sitting at my desk working and all of the sudden; I had a really odd thought, I can't remember exactly what, as soon as that happened, I thought "why did I just think this, that is really weird" and then all of the sudden my mind just started to have all these negative thoughts rushing in; just overwhelming amount of thoughts; I can't specifically remember what they were exactly because it was just so many, I couldn't really control them which was terrifying, the saying "losing my mind" hits really close to home, that's how I felt, I got up and was making my way to the bathroom, where I got so many thoughts, I actually sat down on the ground for a couple seconds (I think, I don't remember how long), because I was afraid I was going to pass out.

Effects: After the episode, I went into the bathroom and just sat there, I felt weird, like, when you get the shivers and your skin stands up and you just feel like kind of out of body for a moment, I felt like that but for a while, a good 2-3 hours after, I can feel that my chest was pretty tight, and I felt like when I tried to take FULL deep breathes, sometimes I could, and other times, I felt like I could get 90% full, but not 100% full and I didn't feel satisfied with the breathe. You know when you are like under the bed, or some where close and you can't fully breathe because there is like pressure on your chest, that's how I felt, but with nothing holding me down.

Today is Tuesday, so it's been a couple days, but I still have trouble getting full breathes in, and I find my mind wandering alot trying to figure out what happened, do you think it was an anxiety attack? or was it something else? I had something like this happen 5 months ago, but it was very minor, this one was pretty terrifying, especially since I feel like I passed out (I dont think I did, I just think I was so in my mind that I was overwhelmed.)

Each day I feel a little bit better, but I am afraid it will happen again and I worry!

Thanks a lot for anyones help here.

Ryan

It does sound to me like a panic attack, of sorts. Like the negative flood of thoughts kicked off the fight/flight response.

I had something happen at work that was similar, and I too didn't think I was really under any unusual amount of stress at the time. After thinking about it, I kind of was. Nothing paramount, but little things for while added up I guess.

I suppose it's been a week, so if you're not back to feeling tip top by now, you might want to stop at your doc's for a check-up. I with I had done that instead of waiting 3 months. I still got the "everything looks fine" diagnoses, but the peace of mind would have been better suited early on, instead of fearing that something could be really wrong for 3 months. That had much longer term effects with me.