age and circumstance when panic attacks started

[jasminex]

Hi  everybody

i am new here and i am just wondering how old you all were and what stressful events occurred before your panic attacks started.
I heard once that they can just come out of nowhere, but for me it always starts with fearful or extremely negative thoughts that are  triggered by stress or having to much coffee, salt, honey wheat or chocolate. These foods generally make me feel hot and anxious. i was born with anxiety disorder, and I've always scared easily, but my first panic attack happened when i was 8.  It happened after eating bread with honey and i had obsessive thoughts about dying   According to my mother, fearful thoughts always happened after i ate the honey or chocolate. The anxious thoughts got worse when my nasty brother came in my room at bedtime and whispered in my ear that i was going to die that night.  I was so frightened by what he had just said to me, that i couldn't move - I was paralyzed with fear-  But then i started shaking and i stayed that way until my mother took me to the ER. They couldn't find anything wrong with me though, and gave my mother a referral to a pediatrician, but she never did take me. I was off school for the next 2 weeks because i couldn't move off the couch and i had shaking fits.  After 2 weeks, my mother - who felt helpless because she didn't know what was wrong with me- told me i should pray and so that's what i did. It helped me get  through each time i had an attack and then they just stopped. - until 4 years ago that is.

Please share your first time (age and experience)

[Conspiracy Bird]

My anxiety disorder started when I was nine years old. The circumstance was the 2004 presidential election and the recent Baslan school hostage situation. I had severe OCD when I was seven years old though, it passed however.
I don't have a typical GAD, I probably have something else mixed in. I didn't really have a trigger or stressful situation. Like I said, my GAD is not like it is with most others.

[tinalouise45]

I vaguely remember having what seemed like a panic attack when I was at the mall and in my teens. It happened so fast but it was a really weird feeling that  I still remember. It never came back again until I had a daughter and about 8 months after I had her the full blown, rush to the ER, can't breath, feel as if I am having a heart attack panic attacks actually began and changed my life. It took a long time to even be able to go into a store, wait in line, get groceries, ect.. without having the fight/flight panics attacks each time. I still get it but not as bad because I know what it is now but it is still terrible to live with because you never ever know when it will rear its ugly head again and throw your day/life into a whirlwind of fear.

[butterfly77]

My anxiety and panic started just after the birth of my daughter, I was 25.  When she was born I realised just how big and bad the world can be and I was so scared that I could not protect her.  I was scared of not being a good mother.  My brother died suddenly and tragically when I was 11 so it is related to PTSD.

I started to come right after about 2 weeks, but I was still what I would call a nervous wreck, but I was able to get some sleep and I wasn't scared of being on my own anymore.  But that is when both of my kidney's started failing and all the meds they had me on sent me around the bend.

After I got through the kidney thing, I really started to feel better and really adjusted to mother hood and just loved it.

However, 17 months later when my son was born I went downhill big time.  I was scared of everything happening again, I was scared he was going to be a colic baby like his sister, I was scared he wouldn't sleep like his sister wouldn't.  He was truely the dream baby (slept through the night from day 1) but PTSD flared my anxiety and panic up again.  It took me so much longer to be able to calm down enough to get a decent nights sleep.

6 years on and I still have times I struggle.  There have been a couple of times in that 6 years where i've hit total rock bottom and developed agoraphobia.  I don't cope with change all that well.

My latest flare up is due to a number of things, but thanks to meds and a lot of self talking and family and friend support i'm on the upward again.

[jasminex]

Hey Everyone

Thanks for sharing your experiences. Reading them helps me to connect and not feel so alone,

Jasmine

[learning to cope]

My first attack was when I was 18 after I lost my daughter. She was born premature and died. I was devastated but never really reacted. Weeks later I was lying in bed and went into full on panic mode. My family drove me to the ER, praying the entire time. It was determined that nothing was wrong but I never recalled hearing the word "panic" or "anxiety". Since then I have went to through stages of panic and anxiety such as depersonalization but was unaware until 2 yrs ago what was going on with me. Since finding out what all my issues were I now suffer from panic/anxiety issues on a daily basis. I have panic attack almost daily. I am on no medication since I am afraid to take them. I feel like a prisoner in my own mind sometimes. This is hell

[Albedo82]

My first attack came when I was 23. I was just out of college and had no idea what I was doing with my life I started dating a girl and wanted to be with her but also wanted to go to grad school. Going to grad school meant I would not get to be around my girlfriend that often, and around the time she started pulling herself away from me. One night when I was spending some time with her I suffered a full blown panic attack out of the blue. It was very confusing and very scary, I immeadiatly put all the blame on her for what I was going through, but was conflicted because I didn't want to feel that way about her.  I thought I was going crazy, and ended up seeing a psychologist and going on anti depressants. I started to discover what panic attacks were and it eased me a bit knowing what I was feeling was normal. Not long after, my girlfriend broke up with me while I was devasted I felt I now had a reason to go to grad school. As years have gone by I've been able to asses that whole time of my life and have calmed down a bit, but still deal with panic symptoms and still have another fear of having one.

[wyrick.samantha@yahoo.com]

My attacks started in May of 2008 while driving. At the time, I was working full time as a manager at a local grocery store and taking some classes at college. I had just taken the promotion to manager and was having a bit of a hard time with my classes. I really think my anxiety started from trying to do way too much and trying to please people mixed with genetics.

[MrBBB]

My panic attacks started at a very young age, probably about 10 or 11. I used to get them when I had to give a speech at school and sometimes when I couldn't sleep I would get them. I was very hyperactive and nervous back then, and still am somewhat.

[shygirl26]

I had my first panic attack when I was 19...I was away at college, missing my parents, my brother, home, all of that stuff. In the middle of the night, at like 2am, I just started having chest pain, sweating, shaking - it seemed as if it all came out of the blue. Like a lot of other people said, I thought I was dying. I just laid there and tried to sleep, ended up sleeping around 5am (and getting up 2 hours later for an 8am class). Definitely wanted to go to the ER but didn't, mostly because of pride (didn't want to feel stupid).

[abeja_reina_1989]

I've always had anxiety, OCD and depression but it became unbearable when I turned 20. It was so bad that I had to quit my job and could barely leave the house. Therapy and meds helped a lot. This site also changed my life because I felt like people actually understood me

[crazygirl1]

 I was about 21 years old when my 1st panic attack happened. At the time I was dealing with issues in my relationship-I had been with the same boyfirend for a very long time & we were ahving trouble. I was also dealing with issues with my mom-she was an alcoholic. Life was very painful for me & I didn't know who I was or where to turn. All of a sudden I started having panic attacks.

[CoolCalmAndCollected]

I was about 11 and on a school field trip.  In the big tour bus, our teacher told us everyone had better use the bathroom before leaving Washington D.C. or we would not get a chance to go.  I got all hot and disoriented and sick-feeling with panic, then made the whole bus wait while I ran into the museum or whatever government building it was, to use the bathroom but I'm sure I didn't have to go - I just felt "sick" and didn't understand what was happening.

I had other precursors to that, though, in the year or so leading up to it: Being afraid for no reason during long car trips at night (this STILL happens to me) but I'd try to pin it on something and I saw bottles of pills in  my mom's purse and had obsessive thoughts like what if I took one - what would happen to me?

And I guess the first full-blown one was a year later when my mom went to parents night when I was a new middle school student and I started crying that I wanted my mom, and my siblings had no idea what was wrong and gave me glasses of water - it was a bad, bad panic attack.

You'd think I wanted my mom for security reasons, but maybe not surprisingly, my mom had alcoholism and very bad anger management issues and personality disorders for as far back as I could remember so I lived a stressful life for the most part.

[Overthinker]

I've been anxious basically my whole life. I remember a few times where I would just scream and cry and be absolutely terrified of things that shouldn't have scared me, but those were fairly spaced out in my early childhood, so my parents thought they were tempertantrums. The panic attack that started it all was when I was 6. I had a really bad stomach flu and I was afraid of throwing up. Ever since then I've had panic attacks daily. With help from several psychologists, I can now function almost normally but they still stop me from doing a lot of things. I'm 16 now. I can't take any medication for it because I'm too afraid to.

[Moonwick1]

 Looking back at my life (with what I know and understand now) I'm pretty sure I was born this way. I remember my dad taking me to school in the mornings and I'd meltdown the closer we got. I'm be in the floorboard of the car in sheer panic over being forced to go. I hated meeting new people and was often scolded for my refusal to play with other children. I pretty much hated any social situation so my mom signed me up for girl scouts to cure me lol. When invited to other childrens birthday parties I'd get so nervous about having to go that I'd vomit. Once there I spent the majority of the time hiding in a bathroom to avoid the others.

 My first actual panic attack was probably at about age 7. I sat on my grandmas back porch and listened to my aunt relate a news story she'd read about a child who choked to death. I was so tuned in to the thought of choking that I refused to eat. The thought was always on my mind. I went for 6 days without eating a single bite of food with the exception of applesauce and jello. My mom got worried and took me to the dr. He suggested she force me to eat (great dr, huh?) so she did. Well the ole fight or flight kicked in and I couldn't flee being as I was being held down, so I fought..The result? I choked on the food that had been forced into my mouth. I lost 13 lbs that summer.

 Over the years, when life became more stressful then usual, I'd have relapses of panic attacks. I had no idea what was happening to me and just assumed it was health related. The Dr never found anything..Life would calm down and so would the frequency of the attacks.

 Recently the big one hit..The one that was so bad I passed out after the flush and dizziness. My husband called 911. After lots of talking to drs and appointments....I have an Anxiety/Panic Disorder..I've read a lot about it and now know that I've always had it! Lucky me, huh? lol

[sayikay]

Mine started when I was 25.  It was probably about 9 or 10 months after my first child was born.  I started feeling anxious, dizzy, sick at my stomach, and I knew for sure that with all of those symptoms, plus a few others, I was going to die.  It was a horrible feeling.  I saw my family doctor after trying to self medicate with wine and beer for a few months.  Let me be more clear, I wasn't a drunk woman holding a 10 month old baby, but I would come home from work and have a glass of wine to "unwind".