xanax is great, but it's also very dangerous. It's one of the most addictive drugs out there, and your body gets used to them pretty fast, then when you don't have them anymore, you will have even worse panic attacks while your going through xanax withdrawal.

Fair enough, I am not saying get some xanax somewhere and all will be fine.

You need to take those under constant medical supervision, the fact that you need those pills to function in life means that you are pretty flawed to start with, which as an Asperger I am.

The fact that they help me with poker in general is just a plus.

you may want to get a full check up from a GP first and then decide which way to go.

I found out I had hypertension and an electrical issue with my heart. The cardiologist got my BP under control and the anxiety went away. If I skip my BP meds I can feel it creeping back, starting with road rage and progressing.

Also crowds seem to induce the anxiety. Was at the MGM for a MMA weigh in and got caught up and mashed in the lobby crowd.

Started looking for a way out, but in the mean time started breathing into the nose and out the mouth for a count of six each. Seemed to help, but I can't stand to be surrounded by people so I avoid concerts, sporting events, movies, etc.

I always carry a xanax pill in my car key where the battery of the little LED is supposed to be located.That fact alone let's me cool down. Sporadic xanax use doesn't do any harm. Anti depressants will screw you over in many other ways and if you stop taking them the anxiety will be back worse than before-I guarantee it.

I never thought these affect so many people. My co worker husband has panic attacks and I was never able to process it. She would't sometimes come to work because her husband is acting up and I would think it's not right (I am her boss). Even though I always let her stay at home when it happens.

If it's psychological, why can't you stop it? Maybe poker, being such a mentally draining game is not the right choice? Ever though of working out? Gym cures a lot of things.

there are a couple supplements that might be useful. plus exercise.

the supplements i know about: same ,fish oil, rhodiola, relora, and saffron.

Be careful here. The first panic attack I ever had happened at the gym. I was doing weighted squats for reps, high intensity, and became lightheaded. Then I started having shortness of breath. I guess I got scared and started panicking. The next thing i know, my extremities are numb and tingling. I am on the verge of going out of consciousness.

It's all in your head though. Today I was doing squats and felt the shortness of breath and became lightheaded. I didn't panic because I understand my body now. That's what it takes to get over these things.

^ That doesn't necessarily apply to everyone. I have had some in my life, and was luckily able to attribute the cause (too much caffeine caused one). I think the reason most people don't talk about panic attacks is because it's kinda embarrassing. I used to have bad ones as a teenager about not wanting to die. I couldn't wrap my head around the idea, and some infinite "heaven" sounds even scarier.

I think they "can" be stopped, but for some people not having them anymore is more scary than taking the steps to rid themselves of it. I know that sounds silly, but it's the same logic that keeps battered women with their abusive husbands, keeps people in jobs they hate, etc.

the same reason people can't 'stop' being bi-polar or schizophrenic. Chemical imbalance, brain damage, genetics or whatever can't be controlled by just wanting it to stop.

Believe me, if that worked I would have stopped being crazy a long time ago.

Sounds about right.

The thing that I have a bigger problem with understanding is that the discribed panic attacks is this thread sound nothing like mine.
I mean it sounds like they see it comming, like getting lightheaded, short of breath, getting scared and stuff like that.

My attacks happen mostly when I get lost inside buildings like hospitals and I do not find my way to where I am going, or in the supermarket when I get stuck and cant make a choice between two similar kinds of sugar or something.

Isn't there a difference between having panic attacks and being schizophrenic/bipolar? Isn't one curable with psychological counseling and other is not? I am speculating here because I don't know much about the subject.

+1

fear is a product of your imagination and can be unlearned if you work hard on yourself. also sometimes your body signalizes you that you need to change your lifestyle aswell through fear. it has absolutly nothing to do schizophrenia, autism or whatever

Sounds good if you are a normal person, but what when you are flawed, when you are autistic, and above all, what if your fear is subconscious?

You need to seek professional help if you feel something fundamental is wrong

That was kinda my point, all them panic attacks that people see comming which they are supposed to work on, they arent really panic attacks.

Sorry for reply in a 4yo thread however I can't PM the OP (because my account is new or something like that) and I have a lot of interest in this subject.

I have the exactly the same trouble/feel, I'm living years and years with this and seems like nothing can help me, I'm so ****ing tired about this, I can't have a life.

How things are going for you all that have panic attacks/anxiety/agoraphobia in this last years? What helped you to have a normal life?

Thanks!

I had my first one in August of 2010 and it was terrifying. I didn't leave the house for about 3 months and lost about 25 pounds in the process. Eventually I worked up the ability to leave and see a doctor. They put me on Paxil first and that was awful, made me feel like a zombie 24/7. I got switched to Zoloft and that was like a miracle. I've been on it ever since and have only had very occasional mild bouts of anxiety. It also helped that I had my father to talk to about it since he was the one who passed it down to me genetically, and had to deal with them in a day and age where you didn't talk about it.

All medicines effect people differently. YMMV. Good luck.

Do you have a "special interest" (as is often the case within the "Asperger" experience)?

I have had several over the years, when I played guitar I played 15 hours or more a day. I'd wake up and pick up the guitar standing next to my bed, I'd go to bed and put the guitar next to my bed. Hell, I even quit my job back then, because it got in the way of my playing the guitar - my wife back then was kinda shocked at that, it didnt really help our relationship.

When I was into reading books, I'd take out books in five or six libraries at the same time. I have read thousands of books, I do not have a photographic memory but I do recal most of the information that I have ever read, I just cant tell you the number of the page it was on.

I go overboard about the things that I like, I cant help it.

Make no mistake, it is not a fun thing to be, an Asperger, there is good and bad. When I was eleven I started watching German TV, 6 weeks later I spoke fluent German, stuff like that comes easy to me, I listen to it and soon I start to understand. I remember being stationed as a soldier in Germany, at this bar I frequented there ppl thought that I was German, they didn't believe me when I said that I was Flemish.
But on the other hand, there is easy stuff - according to Neuro-Typical ppl - that for the life of me I can not get my head around. Learn today, forgotten again tomorrow.

I do myself but it just isn't to be believed on here. Their loss. What about minutia regarding some subject? What subject(s) did you read about? I've often wondered about something related to dyslexia on non-literature subjects. Like mechanical things, for instance. Utter confusion and a scrambled effect when looking at it trying to learn it.

Subjects i'd choose in the library would be kinda at random, I'd walk around there and when I saw something - like pharao's of Egypte, I'd read everything they had on Egypte, all the dynasties, plus that I would search in other libraries just to see if they had other books on the subject.
All things science, astrophysics, quantummechanics, musictheory, psychology, stuff like that.
All the Roman and greek authors, Herodotus, Flavius, Xenophon, Plato, Schiller, philosofers through the ages.
Mechanical things, yes, you know, I used to be in a Motorcycle Club and I would destroy the thread just by changing sparkplugs, worst mechanic ever, no doubt about that.
I knew people that would wear out threads by taking the engine apart so many times, They could do it blindfolded, I'd ask them to theach me this or that about engines or transmissions, but the day after it would all be gone again, I just couldn't remember it.
That is how it works, I learn something and remember it for life, other things I could learn all over again every day and the next day it would be gone. I do not have a real choice in it.

When I said "I do myself" I meant do have a special interest, not do have panic attacks. I had some similar to panic attacks as a boy, but they weren't out of the blue, always involved some specific thing I was afraid of ... not just suddenly stricken with terror with no apparent trigger. So it was definitely anxiety, but don't know if it was panic attack.

Anyway, do you have a quantum mechanics in a nutshell interpretation about the nature of reality. I love the Bohr quote ... "Nothing we call reality can possibly be real if this discovery is true." The discovery, QM, did turn out to be verified. Ergo, nothing we call real is really real.

Not any more real than a dream, perhaps. Just a perception. What about the idea that our senses are attuned in some way to a quantum show, sensing it as "real," with the whole thing, including 200 billion galaxies, being an apparition.

Not my field at all but I've always been interested in layman accessible explanations of it. I was being badly and compulsively badgered by physics student about it, she just couldn't let it drop and wrote incredibly long and technical explanations as if each post was a research paper or something. Eventually a funny thing happened. I asked her to expound upon any possibilities that the whole shebang is kind of a quantum computer simulation, nature's quantum computer ... and she totally quit harassing me. Never answered.

I'm interested in the idea that nothing we sense is really "out there" in any sense but the result of transductions of our brains. There is no red, there is no table, etc. ... just streams of photons and electrons and plasma and whatever, that our brains transduce/decipher/decode a certain way to produce a perception ... which has nothing to do with any "objective reality." Interested in that. Since we know our senses our completely unreliable to start with, only tuned into some little segment of any spectrum, we actually can never make any comment about the nature of reality ... only sort of list our perceptions (which we already know don't describe "reality" reliably).

No 'nutshell' explanation/interpretation here about QM I am afraid, the more I learn about it the more unlikely it seems while undeniably true/real at the same time.
I alway's liked 'the kopenhagen school,' ppl like Niels Bohr, Pauli and the likes. Never understood Einsteins 'war' against them, he tried and tried to prove them wrong but never got close.

If any of you have this condition, which is basically agoraphobia, strive to do these 3 things before anything else:

Eat well, get adequate sleep, exercise intensively. Focus heavily on these 3 things as they will be your foundation during recovery.

Just trust me on this before you ever think of going on meds.