[skylanh]

I had a critical acute stressor a few years ago, I wont describe the situation, but the symptoms were:

- panic attacks

- waking up into a panic attack; imagine sleeping, then waking hyperventilating, shivering, and for lack of a better word "freaking out"

- sleep disturbances

- periodic severe emotional disturbance

- inability to remove the stressors, and critically, I had to increase the stressors involved as it was time critical

I was able to take two weeks off from work, and I took escitalopram.

I didn't find escitalopram to be ... a game changer, but it did allow me to "decide" how I was going to feel, and if I felt I was going to have a panic attack, I could head that off through feedback and self aware thinking.