What is severe anxiety disorder and what does it feel like? I’m in the midst of a full fledged panic attack right now. So if you know anyone that suffers from anxiety maybe a little of what I feel is what they may be going through. So let me explain what it does to my as I try to describe in an much detail, what it feels like to have a panic attack.

Physical symptoms

Muscle cramps      I have muscle cramps whenever I try to sleep or just sit and relax. The cramps are mostly centered in my legs and feet. It will start with a cramp in my feet. The muscle along the inner foot, cramps and pulls my big toe out away from the rest of them. I can get that under control by massaging the muscle usually. But when the foot cramp starts, it’s usually a sign of bigger ones right behind it.

When the pain of the foot cramps stay for longer than 10 minutes then the cramp usually moves to the calf muscle. Now if either of my calf muscles start to cramp a whole new tier of pain in felt and I can’t even walk. The spasm is so intense I get shooting waves of pain all the way up my spine. And then this is sometimes followed (when I’m real lucky) with the worst of all the cramps, my hamstring muscle.

When the hamstring starts cramping, every neighbor around knows it. I scream in bitter agony as the muscle gets rock hard and it puts me to the floor, completely debilitated and unable to even stand or move. My leg gets locked into a position and I can’t move it. I need help to get my leg into a fetal position to try and stretch the muscle out. If noone is around to help me then I lie on the floor screaming in agony as I try to ride out the pain and use anything I’m near to get my leg in a stretched position.

The leg cramps mostly happen when I’m laying down to go to sleep, or am already asleep, they wake me up out of a dead sleep into a world of sharp, unrelenting pain. Imagine waking up out of a dead sleep to the feeling of someone literally pulling your leg out of it’s socket.

I don’t care for bananas so I drink Orange Juice to try and get my potassium up.  I do a very physically demanding job and live in Florida where it’s hot most of the year. This time of the year especially I drink a ton of water because I sweat so hard at work. This dilutes my system and drops my potassium down making me much more susceptible to muscle cramps.

Next I have a constant mild spasm in my lower back. I can’t get comfortable in a sitting position for long. The pain sometimes spreads up my spine into my shoulder blades.

Lastly my hands themselves sometimes cramp. Just like the foot, a single set of muscles in my hand spasm and pulls either my thumb or thumb and first finger into a position away from the rest. This usually happens when I’m driving or at work.

Feeling of choking Then I get a feeling of choking. Like I have something stuck in my throat that hasn’t fully swallowed yet. I swallow to try and get the lump down but it doesn’t go away. I drink water or something to try and help the blockage down but it doesn’t go away. Usually the only thing that makes this go away is sleep. And if I don’t medicate myself with something to help me sleep I can’t fall asleep because my mind is spinning like a CD. I can’t focus on any one thought for more than 5-10 seconds. And the thoughts that come into my mind come in at lightning speed and are 9 times out of 10, something I’m stressing about or a past trauma.

During this attack when I feel like I’m choking I also have trouble catching my breath. I feel like I just did a 100 yard dash but I haven’t done anything but lay down.

Constipation As unpleasant as this is to talk about (or read I’m sure) I have alot of trouble just pitching a deuce. I have to put a stool under my feet to lift my legs up to more of a constant squatting position or I’ll be on the commode so long my legs will begin cramping. Imagine this. Just a simple everyday thing like taking a dump stresses you out and turns into a battle. Constipation doesn’t happen every time. But it is always there when I’m a little more worried about something in my life.

Mental symptoms

This can be rather lengthy so I’ll just try to highlight the most common

Racing thoughts My thoughts don’t come into my mind gently and easily. Memories from childhood can just suddenly pop into my mind. Memories in which I did something that was publicly humiliating, or something I failed at (like getting knocked out in little league when playing outfield and a fly ball went over the top of my glove and hit me directly in the eye socket knocking me unconscious. I woke up to the entire team and coach shaking me and my mom in the stands crying.

The worst possible scenario of anything and everything is the only thing that sticks in my mind. I cannot stop from catastrophising every single event or situation around me. The littlest thing gets me irritated and angry. Typing on this keyboard right now is about to send me into a rage. It’s not my keyboard because I fried my PC so am using my fiances. He keys stick. It’s driving me bat shit crazy making it very hard to even concentrate on what I want to type.

The sound of the cat’s water dish (it has a water fall in it) is making me nervous. I hear constant water falling and it’s irritating me. If I hear a car driving by outside the house it seems loud and that irritates me. I feel like I’m choking again and that is starting to get me upset. I know the cramps will be right behind. I can’t think of one thing I can do to stop or alleviate this feeling of irritation and nervousness. All that is coming into my mind is irritation, depression, anxiety, hopelessness, worthlessness. It’s like a broken record of negative thoughts just popping into my head and out for another to replace etc…It doesn’t stop.

So I try to find this happy place and think of somewhere I would really want to be relaxing. That of course is on a beach near the ocean. But then I get irritated because if I think of actually going, there will be other people there and I’ll have to deal with their sorry asses, talking, making noise or god forbid actually wanting to speak or converse with me. I don’t want human interaction of any kind with someone I don’t know. I look at people out and about as my adversaries. When I drive I feel like every other car on the road is purposefully getting in my way or slowing me down to get to my destination. I get highly aggravated that so many people are breaking laws and driving so inconsiderate to others. This scares me because I drive trucks for a living. The feeling of everyone out to get you while in a Commercial vehicle is double as bad. If you don’t watch out for stupid ass people not paying attention, or knowing they will cut you off and slam on their brakes to make a turn can set me over the edge. The only thing that keeps me from snapping is the KNOWING that the vehicle that cut me off was going to do it. I’ve driven for so many years I can very accurately predict what any other car on the road is going to do so I prepare for it. The satisfaction of correctly guessing what they were going to do is enough to keep my anger at bay. But I really get pissed is someone gets one over on my I wasn’t expecting. Thankfully I can more often than not guess the intention of everyone else around me.

However another situation arises out of this road rage that gets me to worrying. When I get in my personal car instead of the big rig, I now feel like I have to get back at every other asshole on the road that treats me like shit when I’m in my big rig. Here is where I drive with the utmost aggression and defensiveness. Because in my big rig, I’m governed at 65 miles and hour and take a long time to get up to speed. Not so in my car. And I’ll be god damned if some asshole that knows they have a turn coming up and are in the wrong lane to turn, will cut in front of me to do it. I’ll go to great lengths to keep those assholes from getting over. I don’t know if they’re driving ignorantly of their surroundings or intentionally waiting for the last second, either way it’s no excuse to let them in for either of those scenarios in my mind. I believe more thought should be put into driving than 95% of the car driving population do.

I can’t finish what I’m doing because I’m on my wife’s computer and she needs it now. So I think I’ll go finish my panic attack elsewhere.