You know what, the same thing happened to me, I was about 11 years old when I started getting panic attacks, they lasted until I was about 15, when I got into friends and fun I forgot all about them, they would strike here and there. Then when I was about 19 my family moved out of state, a lot of things were going on I became very depressed and started panicing again, so I do believe that it comes and goes and it is in your mind, but I am still suffering now since then and im 23, and its easier said then done to just start a business or just walahh make life better, my sister took medication and felt great, me I tried once and bugged out, everyone is different and I wish I could overcome it like you did, congrats! Some people arent as strong to fight it!

My biggest fear is vomiting. Im scared to death of it, I used to live with a nausious feeling 24/7. I wouldnt leave my bed just incase I threw up!!!!!! I would never leave the front door without someone dragging me. I couldnt eat incase I got food poison, I thought I caught a bug everywhere I went.(i have never actually thrown up due to anxiety). Your symptoms never go, you can just control them very well and they will not appear as much and when they do you know exactly what to do when they come. Like for me when I go to the movies, I sometimes get the feeling that I feel sick and I just shake my head and tell myself I am being stupid. You are a strong person you beat this when you were younger, so why not now? Cause you are older and can analyse what you are feeling so much better. This is actually feeding it. I remember this one time I was sitting on the floor saying this is the night when im going to get sick, I can feel it. I sat there scared to move until I said to myself it cant get any worse than this. So I jumped up shook my head and said "i am the healthiest, fitest person around" I went outside and walked around the block singing to myself, and telling myself, im fine and I feel fantastic. You know what? I felt 80% better. I then started knitting!!!!! That took my full concentration and at the end of the night it was the 1st time I felt kind of normal!!! It is as simple as that.

Im not saying it's easy or that what you are feeling isnt the worst and scariest thing to go through. It is!!! But I want you to have hope that you are strong enough to get through it. For me the feeling that I will vomit is the worst symptom I have, so to make myself feel better, I needed to do something 1st of all to make myself feel hungry (cause how can I feel sick if im hungry??!!) so I made up this breathing technique: you get a digital clock. You breath in for 3 and out for 3. Every 10 times you do this the clock clicks over 1 minute. So after 10 times you do it, you look at the clock, a minute would have clicked away. If you do this for 10-30min you will find yourself relaxing and I always started to feel hungry!!! The trick was, I wasnt thinking about how I was feeling, I was counting my breaths and counting that every 10 times and then I looked at the clock and it would tick over. I didnt have time to think about feeling sick. That is the trick. Talk to yourself and tell yourself how great you fell and then straight away occupy your mind.

I have anxiety..I agree with everyone saying that maybe if you keep your mind busy it will go away. I had it during the first years of high school then during junior and senior year I made alot of friends and went out and was enjoying life- no anxiety at all. Then after two years of college, I moved away from the life I use to have and now live in this very quiet and low populated area...Totally different from the big city I use to live in, san francisco. Recently I have been experiencing alot of anxiety and panicing....Im trying to keep myself busy. There is one certain thing I worry about, like my health. I have shooting pains in my chest, my breast, randomly and periodically...My doc says its acid reflux and for some reason I don't believe her........That makes me think of all the other things I might be. Anyhoo..Im undergoing tests for different things which relieves my anxiety a little...Especially when I get negitive results.

I totally agree with you! Good for you! :d

I had my first panic attack out of nowhere while I was driving about 3 months ago. Didn't know what it was...had everything checked by the doc and physically I was fine. Then I had another while driving and started to fear driving. Then I had a bad low grade one that lasted for 2 days while I was at home. I did not sleep that whole night until 7:30am.

Doc prescribed Xanax, Took it once and it worked wonderfully. Felt high for an hour and once that subsided just felt normal. But I didn't want to live life taking a med and knew it was addictive so I did not take anymore.

What helped me was getting educated. Read some books and realized how much of it is in your head as others have suggested here. It comes on when I don't want it to but I try to ignore it, stay busy, and always say in my head "whats worse case scenario? my heart beats fast, I get paranoid and then recover in 20 minutes??" and when I put it that way it doesn't sounds so bad. That in itself stops it. I think what worked me up the most in the beginning was worrying I was going crazy because I did not know what was happening to me.

It is a constant battle though. I do find I am getting better and better where sometimes I go a day or two without even thinking about it, but then other days I am pushing it down all day. I find its worse when I am at home all day with my 2 year old. So getting out when I feel it coming in is good. Go to the store, the park, whatever...get my mind onto something else. Or call someone on the phone and clean multi tasking takes up your mind. Chamomile tea also makes me feel better at night or taking a hot bath...I do this when my mind starts moving 100 miles an hour and I fear I won't be able to sleep. Also avoiding caffeine has helped too. I notice if I have lots of sugar and caffeine it comes on more.

The funny part about all this is everyone said in the beginning I needed to relax. But relaxing I have found is the worse thing to do if I feel it. Staying busy and having a lot on my plate works great, but you would think it has the opposite effect.

Yeah, I see what you are saying about keeping busy, but at the same time, my anxiety comes on when I am very far from home or if I know that I will have to be away from home for a long period. My anxiety is the fear of being really sick or fainting, so I dont like being in an uncomfortable place where I feel like I wouldn't be safe if I was to start not feeling well. So I would like to run errands or somethign to keep busy, but sometimes that just brings on more anxiety about being alone in a store or something and passing out by myself. I have fainted about 8 times in the last 3 years and my doc agrees that it doesn't sound like the faiting is anxiety related, but they don't know I am more prone to fainting. So now I have created the anxiety and fear of thinking that every moment is the next potential moment that I will have another episode. Instead of just living life and dealing with the episodes as they come, I obsess about the possibility and don't really live my life because I am afraid of what might happen. I just wish I knew how to stop that cycle.

Wow that must be so hard for you. At the beginning of my attacks I felt a similar fear about being afraid to leave because I might pass out somewhere. I never actually passed out though so your situation sounds more intense.

Well you can still talk yourself out of those anxiety feelings by saying "what the worse case if I pass out? A stranger finds me and people at the store have to help me" sure its not ideal but its not life or deal either. I read this book called Anxiety: Finding Strength in the Face of Fear. It taught me some technicques to self talk myself out of it the attacks. I also think seeing a professional to help you learn some techniques might be helpful too.

Just know that your normal....this is just something your body is doing on its own and you just have to find a way to work around it. Never stop seeking answers, if succumb to the fear it will ruin your life and no one deserves that!

My anxiety began after graduating high school, life totally changed for me and I guess I didnt know how to handle it..so poof! my first anxiety attack came along. Some of my symtoms were the feeling of butterflies in my stomach to the point where I couldnt sleep when I needed to and also loss of weight. I am now 23 and I also agree that its all in your mind, try not to concentrate on your anxiety. Occupy your mind on activities, try to remember how life was like before your anxiety took over. You can become that person that you once were.

i had this since i was little but i dont remember how young.. but i got it really bad during a very abusive relationship with my ex husband.. then i got better. so from about 20 to 25 i was a complete nimwit... then i just got better after fighting it and being on my own with 4 kids to feed. then it came back at 29 i am now 30 and still cant get rid of it.. cant remember how i did it before so if anyone knows any sure fire ways let me know.. it seems so much harder to beat the second time around.. has anyone noticed this?

Sometimes the best approach is simply to sit down and think your way through your problems. One approach is to work out your thoughts and feelings and about the things that cause you stress and to test your assumptions and beliefs about them, especially where unhelpful or unrealistic. By trying out new ways of reacting you can essentially change your behaviour to something more positive and useful.

It's something you can do yourself, although the approach is also used professionally (it's called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) - see Wikipedia for more). I used a similar approach many years ago to give up smoking,.

I hope this helps - a natural solution that just requires a little homework!

it really is helping for me to read that i'm not the only one who goes through this. what's funny is i went through anxiety attacks when i was 18 for a couple of months after a bad experience with smoking marijuana. I smoked after that a couple of times and didn't experience another anxiety attack again until now. i'm now 27 years old. i'm goin through alot of stress and now my anxiety is the fear of driving myself crazy because of my stress. My worst fear is to lose my mind and end up in a mental institution. so my thoughts are always "am i ok? or did the stress drive me crazy yet?" so now this is making it hard for me to get over the anxiety and worry. anybody have any advice for me? I plan on seeking help from a professional because this is crippling my life. I'm afraid to get a job because i'm thining I might have an anxiety attack in public and embarass myself. what can I do to get my life back?

I am so glad that I found this!! When I was a child I had an experience with anxiety..I was always afriad that I was going to die in my sleep or that I was going to sin and go to hell. I would constantly ask mom if my thoughts were sending me to hell. This lasted maybe 2 months and then boom I was fine. Now I am 20 and it is hitting me again! I struggle with obsessive thoughts about going crazy, or something happening to me that cant be helped. My family recently moved out of state (We are verrryyyy close) and my husband and I were seperated, it has just been a stressful time in my life. I started out having panic attacks, and when I had my first one, I had no clue what was happening and I was sure that I was losing my mind. It is the most horrible feeling! I am proud to say that I havent had a panic attack in at least 3 months. This is huge for me!! Especially with no meds. Dont get me wrong, sometimes I feel like im about to have one, but I simply lay down, do my breathing excercise and repeat to myself that I am okay and nothing is wrong with me. I basically talk to myself like a small child that needs comforting, and it helps. Sometimes I pray and tell God that I need strength to overcome this, and He never fails. God has really helped me sort my way through ALL of this...without him I wouldnt have made it this far. Also, something else that has helped is I talk to a therapist every 2 weeks. He is very reassuring and tells me that I am not crazy, I am just a normal person dealing with anxiety. It helps a lot to hear that from a professional!! Anyway, I know how you all feel, some days are much harder than others, but I do agree that a lot of this is all in our heads...which makes it that much harder. I guess my advice is dont let this ruin your life, get up every day and make the decision that no matter how hard it is or how scared you are, you are going to make your life worth living and eventually, it will get easier day by day. The more you lead a normal life and do normal activities, the more normal and healthy you will feel, at least thats my experience. Also having a good support system is so helpful. I have my husband and my mom who are there for me whenever I need them. Also, relying on Jesus to help me through has been the biggest thing. Just pray for him to give you reassurance and peace of mind....pray for strength, he will give it to you, I promise. NEver once have I prayed for God to give me the strength to get thru the day and be able to sleep at night, and then not been able to rest. Every time I pray that, I fall asleep and sleep well. Have faith! Its really hard to do, but believe me....step out in faith that God is going to bring you thru and he will. One last thing, I also take vitamin b6, b12 and fish oil every morning. My therapist told me this has the same effects as medicine...it just takes longer to work. He also said walking 3 times a week along with the vitamins is VERY beneficial, I have found this to be true. Just know that I know what everyone is going thru and I promise, you will get thru. Jesus didnt create fear, I recommend reading scriptures on fear, he doesnt want his children living a life of fear...so hand it over to him. Will it be easy from then on? not at all, but he will provide you with the strength you need. I PROMISE!!!!!

To msroyalty25, you can defeat this. Don't let it control your life. Drugs that induce is gave it to you early, a cause. That is good. You can beat this. Fight it and don't stop. Don't think about it. It seems you haven't got breaks, I got it from the same way. I got breaks though. In about a year, and it comes and goes, but it is close to being GONE.

Thank you so much for saying this!
I've been trying to find a say to convince my friend that she can control it, all she has to do is to occupy her self and to just jump right in!
I didn't know how to say it in a sensitive way other than "just do it".
Thank you so much!

I realized about 3 years ago that ALL those "episodes" when I was a child was anxiety. At that point I still didn't knwo what was going on & it had gotten so bad that I voluntarily admitted myself to the hospital! Now I know that I periodically suffer from moderate-severe anxiety. It peaks when, what I deem to be, major changes are going to occur. I can go weeks, even months, without any anxiety at all or just an hour or so here & there. Right now, I'm in the throws of a pretty major period of anxiety and battling not to go to the hospital again. I know about breathing techniques, they do help. I suck at exercise techniques, can't seem to motivate myself to do them. My biggest problem with all of this is when I feel good, I completely ignore the possiblity that it will eventually happen again. I stop going to therapy & stop taking the meds. I'm in a fair amount of mental crisis right now, but I KNOW IT WILL PASS. It's just very hard to get through when it gets this bad. Serenity prayer over and over and over and over... there is a light, I just can't see it right now...

If you or someone you love has ever delt with Anxiety you know first hand how disabling it can be to one's life living in constant fear.Often times those who recognize the symptems actually fear the medication itself hence leaving thier lives to spiral out of control. You do not have to give into anxiety but rather train your brain to do the opposite.It first time without medication and relaxation techniques was hard work but then when i started having major blips i resorted to medication because things have gotten so bad, still in early stages of starting the meds so will see if when it kicks in actually helps.