The attacks ended up getting so severe and persistent that I went to whole foods and picked up inositol. It is a supplement which is known to help with OCD, anxiety and panic attacks. Still not taking medication. The known dose to help with anxiety and panic is 6 pills but I've been taking two a day and there has been a noticeable decrease in anxiety and panic, so I'm grateful for that. Sometimes if I sit still and try to think of where I am in space and time I start getting it again, but generally I'm able to control it now.
It is a horrendous indescribable feeling. I'll be sitting in my car at a red light with my mind basically bank, and I look at the sky and the street and everything around me and suddenly everything looks unreal and imaginary. I have a thought that "Wow this is it. I exist and I'm trapped on this Earth, I can't leave. The sky and the openness of the universe will always be above my head." I have this sensation that the Earth as I know it is plummeting straight down at impossibly high speeds - it is simply a terrifying certain doom feeling that lasts for about 3 seconds (3 long seconds) followed by the uncontrollable racing heart, violent relentless rocking motion (both visually and the sensation of it), feeling of loss of control, feeling of losing touch with reality, feeling of certain doom. Every time one of these panic attacks happen, it takes a huge toll on my emotional state and seeing that there is no end in sight to them, it causes deep depression after I give in to the severity of the attack. At times it can take everything from me. I try to stand out in my driveway but that horrendous feeling keeps happening and it makes me want to go back inside, even though logically I know I'm no safer inside than outside.
I tried walking two blocks to the bay with my family and I could barely handle it, and I tried to pretend I wasn't really there. At first I tried to take the fear head on, but it was too powerful so I ran (outdoors on the sidewalk, away from my family) until it passed and ran back to my family. I kept walking and they were looking at me like I was crazy. The feeling I get makes me grip my side, and it may appear that I'm a positional schizophrenic while I am walking in what is the only way to cope with the fear. My mother said to stop walking that way, and I looked her in the eye and said things like "Leave me alone." or "I don't care." because it truly feels like doom and she does not understand. I told her I was going to go to whole foods and get something serious to help me. She tried telling me to take valarian root pills, and I was convinced that they were not going to stop these horrific panic attacks. My younger brother said to stop (walking that way) and I didn't even answer. Yes I feel bad about speaking to my family that way, but to give you an idea of the level of terror in moments like those, my rational thinking is pretty much non-existent. It was just me and the terror, nobody can help me when it hits, not my family, not even God, I'm completely alone when it hits. Even now sometimes it seems like only a matter of time before the supplements won't be enough and when they get twice as strong I will lose it for good.
Those are my feelings on what I've been experiencing but that will not stop me from doing this program and continuing to go outside, drive, go to school, and accept the way things are in a hope that one day they will be different. I've come too far to give up.
