I had my first panic attack a month after my grandmother died - we weren’t very close but I found her dead in the hospital bed, the nurses said she had been alive 10 minutes before when they checked her.
A few weeks later I had my first panic attack, convinced I was having a heart attack as I’d already developed classic health anxiety and been to A&E with shortness of breath a week or so prior. Stress, they said.
My partner dealt with it exceptionally well, refusing to call the ambulance as I stumbled around and took me outside for a few laps of our block.
Three years later and I haven’t had another panic attack, but I am still a very anxious person and still suffer health anxiety, though now I tend to manage myself instead of running to the doctors with every symptom.
What I have noticed through is that after a period of extreme worry or anxiety, for maybe an evening, I will spend a few days completely wiped out. Feeling a little off balance, woozy, and generally absolutely exhausted. It comes in waves. It lasts for a few days then goes away. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does it terrifies me and sends my health anxiety through the roof. Does anyone else get this?
It almost feels like the lead up to a panic attack, but the attack never happens so I just have these lingering feelings of awfulness. I’ve had a look online and there is nothing about it at all, just information on actual panic attacks themselves, but for me there is a definite warning state that comes hours or sometimes days prior.
Anyone else?