the panic attack

This morning, for reasons unknown to me, I had a panic attack. This wasn't a 'normal' panic attack for me. I usually find them relatively easy to deal with due to having a lot of experience in sorting myself out during panic attacks. This morning it was different though. I didn't know how to deal with it and I don't know why it happened.

I was getting ready for college and then I just began to feel nervous. This nervousness was shortly followed by a strong need to be sick. I had to fight this though because I had to leave the house in less than half an hour and I didn't have time to be sick. I don't know if you've ever had to try to stop yourself from being sick, but it's not that easy to do, especially while panicking.

Surely almost being sick would be enough to deal with, but that's when I felt really light headed and my arms and legs began to get numb. My vision narrowed as I started to see black, and my body went cold. This was when I knew I was close to passing out.

The best thing for me to have done would probably have been to stay at home, but instead I forced myself to go to college. I then had to sit in an enclosed and crowded room for almost an hour. During that hour, I had to stop myself from passing out, as well as stop myself from being sick, and somehow listen to what was being said. As you can imagine, it was quite difficult.

I wanted to run out of the room and just find somewhere quiet to panic and cry, but I couldn't. There was no way for me to get out of the room without drawing attention to myself so I had to force myself to stay exactly where I was. So, while sitting in the room having the panic attack, I managed to sort myself out by using basic things that I have learned throughout my life. I was pressing pressure points on my wrists to reduce the feeling of needing to be sick, and breathed deeply and slowly while focusing on a single object in the room to stop me from passing out. Thankfully these little actions were very successful in helping me to deal with what was going on.

I think my experience with panic attacks helped me a lot today, but I have never experienced anything that bad so I was in unknown territory, but I think I handled it well considering I had to do it alone, in silence and without drawing attention to myself.

The panic attack lasted for just over two hours, and the cause is unknown, so I can't prevent it in the future. I just hope I don't have to put up with anything that bad again. I didn't think I was going to be able to make it through it without doing something bad. But, somehow I did.