What Are Panic Attacks?
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, a panic attack is a sudden attack of intense fear -of disaster or of losing control- that lasts for several minutes, when there is no real danger. The attack triggers several physical reactions and can be extremely frightening. It is important to remember that a panic attack is harmless and one will not die from it.
What causes panic attacks?
There are many causes for panic attacks -there is no consensus on only one reason for them-, and every person is different. What might trigger panic attacks on one person, might not trigger it on others. Genetics, major stress situations in life, major changes in life, mental health issues, and substance use/abuse are all potential causes for panic attacks.
Panic happen because you’ve been building up stress and worry over time, creating a ball of energy inside you. When your body is saturated with this energy, it has to come out somehow, so panic attacks happen.
In my case, on top of many other stressors, I was worrying so much from the beginning of the pandemic that my parents were going to die, and that I wasn’t going to be able to see them. Then, my dad and stepdad had a stroke, only a couple of weeks apart from each other, and I wasn’t able to travel to see or help them because they live in Colombia and I live in the US. On top of that, I felt that I should be doing more than what I was doing to help the world. Seeing so many people lose their job, close their business, and struggle to feed their families really hit me hard. I felt powerless. I was carrying a lot of fear, guilt, and worry. Every day that went by, I kept stressing more and more about the situation.
So, I did what I thought was the best coping mechanism, buried myself in work, and ignore my feelings and stress. I was running myself to exhaustion every day. For work, I coordinated food distributions for the community -where we distributed more than 500,000 pounds of fresh food from March to July-, and when I wasn’t working, I was volunteering in every food pantry I could. Naturally, after almost a year of just collecting worry and stress, my body gave up and I had my first panic attack.
What are the symptoms of a panic attack?
Symptoms are also something that vary from person to person. Some people only feel one of them, some others feel all. Some of the most common symptoms are:
Heart racing/palpitations
Shakiness
Shortness of breath
Nausea
Chills
Sweating
Dizziness
Lightheaded
Numbness of your extremities
Chest pain
Intense fear that you might die or lose control
Depersonalization/Derealization (DPDR)
I felt 90% of these symptoms, with DPDR being the scariest one. I will go into this subject more in depth on a later post.
What to do if you suffer from a panic attack?
The most important thing you can do is look for professional help. You might need someone to help you cope and teach you how to minimize panic attacks. In many cases, if you don’t treat panic attacks -or the root problem-, there can be complications.
Some complications include developing phobias, developing a panic disorder, isolation for fear of social interaction, and more.
If you or someone you know are in need of help, remember there are resources out there:
SAMHSA’s National Helpline, 1–800–662-HELP (4357), (also known as the Treatment Referral Routing Service) or TTY: 1–800–487–4889 is a confidential, free, 24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year, information service, in English and Spanish, for individuals and family members facing mental and/or substance use disorders.
Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Lifeline) at 1–800–273-TALK (8255), or text the Crisis Text Line (text HELLO to 741741). Both services are free and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The deaf and hard of hearing can contact the Lifeline via TTY at 1–800–799–4889. All calls are confidential.
