I have a panic disorder with GAD.
My anxiety is constant hyper fixation on things I can’t control and want to plan for everything thing. It’s an over reaction to everything. It’s constantly beating myself, trying to be the best for everyone and constantly feel like I fail people and they hate me.
Example: yesterday I texted a friend that is kind and sweet and they didn’t respond and I’m trying not to fixate on that they haven’t texted back still and thinking they are annoyed with what I texted (I texted about being super sick and asked their advice about missing a class). People have normal reasons for not responding, but things like this freak me out and make me spiral if I lose self control. I have to try hard to let it go and realize it’s not a me thing and not the end of the world, even if I do someone annoy or upset someone.
If my husband is ten minutes late coming home I wonder if he’s gotten into an accident and if I’ll have to be a young widowed mom.
Like what? I have no chill 😅 I constantly have to talk myself off a ledge.
My panic disorder goes with my anxiety, but the panic attack is an out of control body experience. I can’t breathe, I spiral out of control, full on panic, cry, can’t think straight, my heart races, I sweat, I feel like I’m just going to die and life is over. There are two kinds explained to me about panic attacks: situational- something happens that triggers the fall over the edge-and random - no cause, no known trigger in the moment I can think of, I’m just all of a sudden having all those physical symptoms, except the spiraling is more of ‘what happened? Why is this happening?’
The way my Dr describes it is the mental anxiety overflow and mental spiraling are the anxiety attack. It typically leads to the physical panic attack if unchecked. Or the physical panic attack can just occur due to an unknown overload. My randoms occur often with pain, exhaustion and weakness when I keep pushing myself.
This is just my personal experience.