You spin me round right baby right round: by Ashley Sinclair

Fast forward some years again to last year, through a solid maybe 20 or so similar experiences of panic attacks at this point, and I am on the couch again (in a different living room this time).

 “Should I go to the hospital? I can’t see my hands. Why do my hands look like they are swimming?” I remember thinking, struggling to hold out my arm. I was so dizzy, I had to sit down on the couch. This experience made me pilot into a full-blown panic attack, so again, naturally, I thought I was dying.

 This time was different. It lasted for what felt like hours. I’m not exactly sure how long it lasted, but this is just how it felt. I was 99% ready to have an ambulance come get me, but the 1% stopped me because 1) I was out of state/had just moved from Wisconsin to Florida so I had no idea of my surroundings and was not confident in this and 2) what would I even tell the doctor? That I was dizzy and my hands were swimming? I’m sure they would send me to some mental institute. So, I rode it out.

 This individual experience was something new that I hadn’t experienced before, compared to my other panic attacks. Usually, my panic attacks consisted of feeling like someone was stabbing my heart (I imagine it feels like a heart attack), tingling of sweat perspiring throughout my skin, and shortness of breath (the scariest part to me). The shortness of breath usually led me to go outside away from everyone and everything, put my hands on my head, and walk around and breathe the cold air until I could catch my breath again. Now, I recently moved to South Florida from Wisconsin, which is a whole other story, so I unfortunately cannot breathe in nice crisp air anymore.