The not-so-age-old question: What does a panic attack feel like?

What does a panic attack feel like? A question I get so often but words fail to give an appropriate answer. I always try but have never given it justice. The terror and the mix of physical symptoms that hit you in an instant are challenging to describe. Trying to grasp for words to get this experience across is like trying to hold water between your hands as it quickly trickles over the edges and through the gaps of your fingers.

For me, it always starts with a simple symptom. Having a headache, sometimes even feeling tired can trigger me. A simple symptom with a reasonable explanation. It doesn’t matter how reasonable it is, the mind has other ideas. Thoughts start racing without my ability to stop them. Could it mean I have a serious illness? Why do I feel nauseous, is something wrong? This voice grows until focusing on anything else becomes impossible. While I try to keep attention on customers at work my mind is at war. My “normal” inner voice trying to carry on and stay calm, and the anxiety voice, shouting louder and louder to be heard, until it starts to wake up my survival instincts.

Once gone this far, there is no turning back. Nervous energy fills my body. The shaking starts, I need to tap my leg, pace up and down, move in some way. When at work and unable to move, it quickly expels my panic attack forward. I start to feel faint, or almost like my head is not attached to my body, hovering above me instead. My muscles start to feel like led. So heavy I fear my arms won’t move. If I get up off my chair, surely I’ll be rooted to the spot, unable to pull my feet up from the earth. I’ve looked in the mirror once around this stage, the reflection opposite me is horrifying. Lips the same colour as my milk bottle skin. Not a great sight for someone who is already afraid they’re dying.

My stomach squirms and mouth dries up. All this build-up for one epic climax – my heart has been quickening and beating harder this entire time until suddenly it takes off – thrumming like the wings of a caged bird who wants to break free. It beats so hard and so fast, surely everyone can hear it. Every single time, I am genuinely convinced that it is going to stop. Terrified, waiting for a deafening silence, when the next beat doesn’t sound.

All the while the chaos in my mind is undefinable. A million different thoughts running in all different directions but the message is always the same- I need to escape this. The truth is there is nothing to escape from, just a false alarm in my brain.

It’s so hard to convince people that these symptoms are above my control: “Listen, my instinctual physiological and psychological response for stress is way more sensitive than the average person’s okay..”. It just doesn’t get through.

People talk about how a panic attack feels, but not as often the other chronic symptoms of anxiety. For me, the long term effects of this stress on the body has led to a number of serious issues. During bouts of anxiety, my heart develops an abnormal rhythm, for weeks, sometimes months on and off. It begins to hiccup and trip over itself as it struggles to adjust to the fluctuating stress hormones in my blood. I remember lying in bed one night and every few minutes my heart would lurch off-beat in my chest causing me to jump forward. Although the fear of dying is the main driver behind my anxiety, at points like this I lie in bed and through the palpitations, wonder how easier things would be if my heart would stop in my sleep, and I would not have to constantly be this afraid anymore.

With so much of my energy being directed to fight or flight on a daily basis, my digestive system no longer functions correctly. My weight drops dangerously low and my stomach forgets how to digest food. Even when my anxiety levels are “normal”, I’m left with a hypersensitive stomach as a reminder of the disorder.

Constant aches and pains are normal due to all muscles being so tense for months at a time. One particular time, driving the long road to Belfast with some friends, trying to concentrate on the road for hours and also join in the laughs – no one could see my inner torment as every cell in my body was crying out in pain. Taking regular hot baths at this time is the only relief.

Being on high alert for so long leads to pure exhaustion. Working during these periods, you feel like a zombie. Standing around feels like torture as your eyes struggle to stay open. Always fighting through the heaviness to do your work. It’s not the way you feel tired at night, it’s every part of your body begging for rest.

Regular tingling in the hands and feet becomes normal, as do weeks of daily pounding headaches for company. As you can imagine, for someone having health anxiety, these chronic symptoms only aggravate the condition – a constant vicious cycle.

After my worst point, I was housebound for a couple of months. Because I couldn’t do anything without having panic attacks and I didn’t have the energy in me to do anything anyway. A 20-minute walk with my dogs would leave me needing an hour nap because I would be wiped out after a brief period of “activity”.

Panic attacks were a regular occurrence for almost a year before I was diagnosed at age 20. Before this, I had not heard of the term anxiety disorder and did not know it existed. Instead, I thought I had a life-threatening health issue as doctors failed to diagnose my symptoms. All the while, I was absolutely terrified of what I was experiencing.

Now, 6 years later, things are so much better.I’ve educated myself on all things anxiety. Instead of having these attacks daily. It is something I now only experience every few weeks. I know that it will never “go away” – that during periods of intense stress, this unwanted company will always return. There is something I am glad of though. I now know that even when these rough patches arrive, I am better equipped to cope, and there are always months when it’s okay. That is surely something to be grateful for.