Help Me! :( - General Health Message Board

IttyBittyWonder · 06-02-2005, 06:38 PM

I get AWFUL anxiety/panic attack in church. I sing in the church choir and the choir is all the way in the front. I feel like I will stop breathing,go crazy or die. I feel like running away everytime. The funny thing is that I start to calm down when church is almost over. I can't sit still in church when others are so calm and listening I get racy thoughts like I will lose control and my breathing starts going funny which makes me think something is wrong with me. I look at the clock everytime and if its like 5-10 minutes before ending I feel better. Even if I sit in church I feel like this until its time for church to end. I try to distract myself from the awful thoughts by either coughing or playing a game on my cell. It helps sometimes but not alot

Im not on medication. I'm only 21 and a sophmore in college and I think if I start pills now they will have bad side effects. Also I have another problem....I keep checking my heart beat all the time. if even the TINIEST defect I sense I start to panic and think something is wrong with it. My mom says I'm fine so did a doctor I saw 1 year ago. My blood pressure recently was 130/60 and my mom said that if something was wrong with me the blood pressure would show it. Please reply encouraging replies so i know I'm not going crazy...

HELLASRULES · 06-02-2005, 06:59 PM

Hon, You are NOT going crazy. I had this same problem when I was in college. At this time in your life there are a lot on stresses, and sometimes it just hits you with an anxiety attack out of the blue. You may not even realize that you are under stress from things. At 21, you have a lot of life to live ahead of you. Maybe there are fears as to what the future holds. Sometimes we don't even know these fears are there.
I let it escalate to the point where the anxiety/pannic controlled me. I would hate to see anyone else live thru that. If you have a college physician, I would go see him, explain what you are experiencing, and maybe see if they can find a therapist to help you. No one wants to go on drugs, and you may not even need them. But just talking to someone unbiased may help. Don't suffer with this. You don't have to be afraid of a therapists help. I went through it on my own, and wish I had real help then, because it affected me greatly for years.