| The other responses are quite good, but let me add a few things on coping with panic attacks. They get more tolerable over time. Remember that actual health problems almost always develop over time. Even COVID takes days to kill you. At 40, you have a low likelihood of sudden cardiac death. It can happen, of course, but as long as you work out and eat well, you're doing what you can. So, if you feel like hell for 5 minutes, with distinct waves, it's probably a panic attack. The tingling symptoms you get are probably the result of hyperventilating. Slowing down your breathing can help. To an extent, though, these things just have to be ridden out. Cold water helps a lot. Go to the sink and splash water on your face. Optimal temperature seems to be 20 C (68 F). That'll help lower your heart rate. Slow your breathing to match. Also, as someone with panic attacks, I know that during the first ones, I feared the shame and embarrassment that would accrue to sudden collapse at a young age (I was 24). Thing is, no one's going to think it's your fault. If you have a random-ass heart attack at 24 (or 40), it's not something you did and you shouldn't feel bad about yourself. You can still die-- life is inherently risky-- but no one's going to think bad of you for being unlucky, and you shouldn't think bad of yourself (in that extremely low-probability counterfactual) either. Death: either there's an afterlife or there isn't. If there is one, it'll be interesting to see what's on the other side of this whole thing. If there's no afterlife, you won't exist to be disappointed. Either way, not worth dread. People die, but no one is dead. If those who have left us still exist, they probably see themselves as more alive than they were when down here; and if they don't exist, then it is not accurate to say they are dead so much as they just aren't. Plenty of Buddhists meditate on their own death. It helps to process the inevitable; to dedicate 10 or 20 minutes once in a while to the acknowledgement of mortality. Don't do this during a panic attack because you can't really "meditate" while in one. Music often helps. Smells can help, as long as you don't develop that meta-level anxiety. There's also no shame in seeking therapy and medication. You said 20 attacks since April-- that's about 1 per week. If that's all you have, taking a benzo, typically at a low starting dose, as-needed, isn't going to make you an addict. You don't want to be taking those things every day though. Finally, panic attacks do end. They are the ultimate troll, and they can throw all sorts of weird-ass symptoms (including phantom smells) but they don't last forever. Each wave, in my experience, is about 90 seconds (90 horrible seconds). Awareness, crescendo, semi-relief, return to merely moderate anxiety. The interval of vulnerability (in which these waves are prominent in my mind) is 15–60 minutes, 90 minutes on the outside. As I get older, the attacks themselves get a lot milder. That said, the physical recovery is more of an issue. Even a mild attack leaves me feeling like I overdid it at the gym. But I'll take that over the all-out psychic horror I experienced in many of my first ~50 panic attacks. Good luck! I'm sorry to hear that you're going through this. |