The elevators had just been maintained, so no problem, right? I was doing laundry and was in my PJs. I carried my basket to the elevator and hit “1”.
The elevator went off with a jerk, and dropped three stories really quickly. Normally, the floors sound like “beep…beep…beep” as you pass, but this time, it sounded like…a smoke detector or an alarm, like “beep beep beep!” No pause between. Then, there was a really sharp jerk, and the sudden stop almost knocked me off my feet.
This repeated itself, this time going really quickly down FOUR floors. I was white-knuckling the railing and lowering myself closer to the floor so I wouldn’t fall. The second time knocked over my laundry!
The third time, there were only two floors to go, so it wasn’t as bad- still, I completely panicked, as I knew that a falling elevator can easily kill a person, even with not many floors.
It turns out, there were brake problems. The jerking was the emergency brake intermittently kicking on.
My coworkers all think I’m an amazingly calm person, and usually I am. But last week I was walking around my car and slipped on a patch of black ice, and grabbing the door handle was the only thing that kept me from falling. Maybe I should have let myself fall because I twisted something in my back out of place. It wasn’t agony, but it sure felt bad, so I thought about my mother’s claims that using an inversion table is good for your back. What’s there to lose, I figured. I may as well try hers.
Well, it turns out that being tipped upside down and backwards makes me feel pretty damn panicky. It was truly awful and I barely was able to make it through five minutes of what felt like torture without trying to get away.
Later on I remembered that way back when I was seven or eight I was on one of those old fashioned Ferris wheels, remember the ones with the fixed seats?, and had found that almost as awful when we got tilted back while they let other people get on.
I’m not sure what being tipped back like that triggers such a horror in me, but hopefully I’ll never forget again!
The first time I had to unlock the alarm at work, I had been given the wrong alarm code. When the alarm went off, it panicked me and I had trouble focusing on what to do next. I found myself running upstairs, and then wondering what the hell that was supposed to achieve. I managed to control myself enough to do what needed to be done - call the guy who sets the codes and ask him for the correct code, enter it and disable the alarm - but I was shocked by how hard it was to think, focus and be calm with the alarm going off.
Sorry to say my stories are just mundane. I am never in imminent danger, but I have frequent panic attacks that I would say are severe in condition as those mentioned concerning imminent danger. I had one today and I am completely exhausted.
Riding a motorcycle over an edge. It had been a tall pile of gravel but the county removed half of it while I was away. My fault for not properly scoping it out but I was only 12. Definitely one of those crap your pants moments because all of a sudden you’re twenty feet in the air. I survived without major injury but the bike was pretty messed up, especially the forks.
Rolling a truck on a hill with my father on the farm. I was on the outside. You always think that you will just calmly step off to the high side but things happen quickly. By the time I jumped, the truck was half way over so I basically flew/was flung about sixty feet or so downslope, which was a Good Thing, because the truck rolled one and a half times. Two and a half times and it would have caught up to me lying there unconscious. I suffered a broken arm.
Skiing a cat track in the fog. I knew the mountain like the back of my hand so I got cocky. I was just taking a cat track around the side of the mountain to get back to the lodge as it was too foggy to get any real skiing in. So I’m cruising along, going way too fast for the conditions thinking that I should be coming up to this feature where the trail splits and one side goes high and the other goes low with a difference of around twenty feet or so between the two parallel paths. Just as I was thinking that, I found it by sailing off the edge into the fog. As as was falling, I remember thinking that this was going to hurt. Then, as I was still falling, that this was Really going to hurt. Heart in your throat panic, adrenaline injecting into the bloodstream. I just kind of went limp, since there was no way to anticipate the “landing” and I once again escaped uninjured.
Another time climbing Mount Rainier via the Kautz Glacier route we had a rock about the size of a small car come tumbling down during our descent. It passed between myself and my friend who was roped to me 75 feet away. Fortunately, it didn’t catch the rope. Not really much chance of that as it was bounding pretty high but at the time… major pucker factor.
Getting separated from my group snorkling off Cozumel. The boat dropped us off in the current and would pick us up a half hour later. Anyway, all of a sudden I noticed I was kind of alone and swimming on the surface was tough with a little chop and I swallowed some seawater and started to feel a little panic. Again, more my imagination, but explain that to my hindbrain.
Another time was rafting the Middle Fork of the Salmon. The bottom of the raft got a huge rip and was full of water. No danger in sinking as the tubes were intact but it made it sluggish to handle in what was a fairly technical portion of the river and no place to put ashore. It was just three of us white-knuckling it, hoping no one goes over or that the raft doesn’t flip.
When my daughter’s father was in a wreck I saw it happen. I had such an anxiety attack I passed out. I think I was hyperventilating but I don’t remember. After that happened I had a cluster of similar panic attacks and even now three years later I have them.
I panicked for a few moments while almost drowning from a riptide during Spring Break (about 15 years ago) in South Padre Island. I managed to recover and swim sideways until out of the riptide, though I was exhausted.
My friends had given me up for dead and were discussing who was going to tell my parents – I was gone for more than an hour and ‘washed up’ about a mile or two down the beach.
My lungs hurt for a week, and I had nightmares about drowning for months. Closest I ever came to dying.
I’ve had this happen on a motorcycle a couple of times, and I’ve heard from a couple of people who have had it happen to them. Navigating through a turn, leaned over pretty good, when a momentary loss of traction or other distraction incites a visceral fear of a low-side* crash. But you’re approaching the fog line at the outer edge of the curve, so you need to turn tighter. The motorcycle is capable of it - there’s actually plenty of traction, and you’re not yet leaned over so far as to be dragging hard parts - but your mind has slipped into a primal “stay away from the pavement” mode. Intellectually, you want to turn the bars to make the bike lean harder - you know that you need to - but your arms won’t fucking do it. It’s as if the handlebars are up against a hard stop, and you can’t move them - but it’s all in your head. You can’t do the smart thing (turn tighter) because you’re panicking.
In my case I was lucky because the few times it’s happened, I managed to complete my turn before running wide. A couple of friends have not been so lucky. Now that I’m more experienced and know the limits of my bike better, it hasn’t happened to me in many years.
*Non-bikers: a “low-side” is when the bike loses traction and gracefully slides out from underneath you, gently depositing you on the pavement; if you’re wearing decent gear, you tend not to get hurt unless you slide into a stationary object. Contrast this with a “high-side,” in which the bike briefly loses traction and then suddenly regains it, launching the rider over the top of the bike; you come down hard on the pavement from a significant height in a potentially troublesome orientation, and tend to get hurt even if you don’t slide/tumble into a stationary object.
I don’t blame you! That reminds me of a story my mother tells. She and her mother were at the cabin on the beach in the woods, just outside, and both heard what they assumed was a bear. Now, my mother and her mother were incredibly close, and either would say they’d lay down her life for the other and mean it. But in the moment, they pushed and shoved each other out of the way to get through the door, back inside! They got a good laugh out of that, once they recovered their senses.
I have no doubt that panic attacks are much worse than actual panics (that is, the actual panics that we survive), because in the latter, there is a real reason for the panic, and usually all it takes is a moment of cool thought to correct the situation. With an “attack”, you can know it’s not rational but that doesn’t help one bit. I’ve never had one and hope I never do, and those of you who do have my sympathy!
Been there, done that, only didn’t quite get to the panic stage … but sure was stoopid longer than I should have been! Body surfing at Byron Bay in Australia, beautiful 5’ or 6’ rollers in smooth water, breaking perfectly, best body surfing ever! And then I found I was outside of the breakers. So I swam towards shore, but it felt like I was trying to swim up the waves and couldn’t make it. So I tried using the waves to move me forward, but always ended up on the back side, sliding the wrong way, out to sea. So, I gave it the ol’ college try, put my head down, and swam like nobody’s business to get over the cresting waves just before me … only to fail. And now I was TIRED! I remember thinking, “Gee, this could be fatal.” Thankfully, it finally dawned on me that I was probably in a rip current, and I’d seen specials about it on TV and read articles in magazines. They say to swim parallel to the shore, but I figured it’d be smarter to swim at a 45 degree angle, and within a minute I was in shallow water walking to the shore (but still winded!)
That sounds like when I’m trying to jump off a cliff: I can’t get my muscles to cooperate. I’m not sure I call that panic; I’d call that “irrational but understandable instinct”. Not that it matters!
Aha, we have a similar distinction for windsurfing falls, which I call “pile driver” (not exactly the gentle case of a bike low-side fall!) and “catapult”. Fortunately, we windsurfers are falling in water and rarely going much over 30 mph, so it’s a lot more forgiving. I think I’ll stick to windsurfing, since I make a lot of mistakes!
I was sparring in class, rotating through people. I was trying to push myself to keep up, but my conditioning was down. I got a bit winded, but was still trying to keep at it. Suddenly I found myself at the point I desperately needed air and no amount of inhaling was getting me enough. I had to seriously talk to myself to keep from freaking out, and just keep breathing in and out deep and steady, and fight hyperventilating. Also had to stay on my feet and avoid lying down, to aid airflow.
Now I pay closer attention and watch that line better.
The one time I panicked there was no actual danger. The times there was actual danger, I didn’t panic - one time I got so scared that once I’d gotten the car back under control I was kind of surprised to find myself intact and my sphincters in working order, but I did not panic.
I had a horrible attack of claustrophobia during an ESL exam. 'twas one of those days so beautiful, so perfect, that you wish you could bottle a little bit of them and open the bottle for a whiff during the worst days of winter. And I go to the exam, and the exam was to take place in this cavernous basement, where the only natural lights were small, unreachably high windows, the artificial light appeared to have been designed as if for a room with real windows, and the seating/sideboards arrangement meant that once you sat down all you could see was a sort of tunnel of sideboards between you and a piece of green blackboard.
I got a 4.0 for grammar, 3.7 for vocabulary, but was told I’d have to do a second test in front of a group of teachers due to the presence of “a strong Hispanic accent”. Given that all I could think was “getmeoutofheregetmeoutgetmeoutoooooooout”, I was surprised I’d been coherent enough to follow the bedamned tape and give any sort of correct answers, much less with perfect grammar and good vocabulary.
When we were given the grades, one of the other incoming foreign TAs, a graduate of the university of Shanghai, piped up with “excuse me, this not Miami? I in wrong place?” Yeeeeeeah, how is a strong Hispanic accent a problem there? Dunnow, but I’m still surprised I did as well as I did.
Once there was the I was at Starbucks, lost in my thoughts, and crazed man with knife ran in. Some people screamed, others threw chairs or ran. It was insane. People were crying. They had to take one guy to the hospital for medication.
Sorry, I’m lying. Actually not. I have PTSD from my childhood and anxiety / panic attacks are common symptoms for people who grew up in that level of abuse. The problem is that they seem as real as if someone were there in Starbucks with a knife. There really isn’t anything dangerous, but something triggers you and suddenly it all goes to hell.
The funny thing is that they come not from situations which are actually dangerous, such as when I had fallen and was sliding down a slope toward a cliff, but something which triggers a memory of my father.
I had Vietnam war vet friend who would always have to sit against the wall in a restaurant. We couldn’t ever sit in the middle. I can understand that. That doesn’t happen all the time, but there are times when I have to.
Therapy and drugs help, but nothing really cures it, at least for me.
just once - it was decades ago and I was sound asleep in my apartment when lightening hit the building. but I only figured that out later*.
at the time, I didn’t know what happened but I woke up across the room with my brain in chaos. I knew it was thunderstorming and the noise of the thunder was still echoing so I knew there had been a strike, but I was convinced the building was on fire and I did not know what to do about that.
I remember thinking “if I leave before I am told to by the fire department, will they be offended?” and running from window to window, trying to see where the fire was.
don’t remember how long it took to calm down but my brain was NOT working for a bit there.
the intercom system where you could buzz people into the building was fried, no other damage
I used to fly Single Engine Light. I was fine as long as I was landing at a regular airfield with markings and stuff. I was even okay with night landings. I had 40 solo hours including some aerobatics.
Then an instructor took me out to do emergency landing training along a road. I panicked. As we were approaching ‘final’ the visualization I had shifted so that I had no idea how high I was above the roach. Have you ever seen those tilt-shift pictures where it looks like you’re seeing toys, not real views. That’s what it was like.
I didn’t scream or anything, I just started breathing heavy and froze. “You have the airplane.” I told the instructor. We tried 3 times. Couldn’t do it.
I found out I have no depth perception. It doens’t matter in most cases because my brain has learned to interpret depth based on normal measurements. When I was put in that odd angle from the airplane, my brain couldn’t do it.
I suffer from sleep disorders, one of them is “waking dreams”, i.e. hypnopompic and hypnogogic dreams. For those not familiar, this is when you are either falling alseep or waking up and go into a dream state, where your body registers sleep paralysis like normal, but you can sort of register the environment and your will to move.
It is a very bizarre situation, because your emotions get jacked hard but you feel frozen. It is believed to be the basis for alien abduction beliefs as well as historical beliefs in succubuses and incubuses and whatnot - night demons.
Anyway, my typical scenario involves feeling like a burglar or whatnot has broken into my room and is approaching my bed to attack me in my sleep. I’m lying there trying to pretend to be asleep until they get close enough, and then surprise them with a counter attack.
Anyway, one event I remember involved that kind of scenario playing out in my apartment one night. After the fact there were plenty of things that were obviously not realistic at all, like changes to the room layout and stuff. But during the episode, it feels absolutely real and is terrifying as shit. The scariest thing you can ever experience.
And then I jerk awake and flail about and then realize the situation, heart pounding, gasping, total freak out mode. Adrenaline rush, mind in a panic, can’t calm down, and can’t go back to sleep for a while. Have to do something else to relax, like watch tv.
Another time I had a dream that a rattlesnake had somehow gotten into my room and was coiled around my head and ready to bite me if I moved. I have snake issues, so this is not unexpected, but talk about freaking me out. Yeah, not a good feeling at all.