# Just had full blown panic attack while driving on highway



## WinterDave (Dec 5, 2003)

I am very territorial, work, and everywhere I go (which isn't much or a lot) is within about a 3.5 mile radius of home...And I hardly ever drive on the highway, and even then just for about ten miles or so...Well, I needed some pants for work and the only place that I could get them is about 25 miles a way..So I get on the highway heading towards Boston at about 5pm, as it is raining and getting near dusk...I am very anxious, but push myself on as I need these pants or basically I can't go to work tomorrow evening...I had asked my friend to drive me but he was tied up visiting a sick coworker tonight...I should have tried tomorrow afternoon before work, hoping for dry, sunny, and no rush hour traffic....Well, after about ten miles, as I am ignoring my mounting anxiety by having the widow down and trying to pay attention to the radio:Bam! I am trapped in a flow of heavy traffic on both sides of me, feeling extremely high or intoxicated with everything being unreal or surreal...That's the best way to describe how my panic attacks feel...I managed to hang on until a highway exit, and luckily came out right near a busy road that would lead me back home...All of this was only about ten miles from home...I was in an area which I didn't know much, stopped at a gas station, double checked that the road would take me back towards my town...Stayed in the car, drank some soda, smoked a cigarette, waited about 15 minutes., really shaky and messed up..And there is no way that someone could have come and got me, with another person driving my car home, or me leaving it there...I had to drive home...And knew I had to leave right away to get home before it got dark, or it would be worse...I hate driving at night too...Just kept telling myself this is just a busy road (during rush hour traffic), but I can pull off any time I like and walk around..That's part of the cause of the panic attack:being trapped on the highway, can't pull off etc...Being in unknown areas also does a number on me...So I know this route will bring me in the vicinity of my town, and its heading in the right direction...Then I am stuck in heavy traffic at a long, red light in the middle of a busy intersection....I start to get the panic attack again...The light stays red for about three minutes as I start feeling drunk/high again...Once I start moving again, I feel better...Eventually, I noticed a place that I knew, that was just a couple
of highway exits from my town...So I get back on the highway and am getting the panic attack again, hanging on for dear life just to make it two miles to the next highway exit which brings me out just a few miles from home...It was a lot of things, the highway, being trapped in a flow of traffic that you can't stop and pull over from, rush hour traffic in the gloom, as it is raining, in an unfamiliar place etc...I used to get panic attacks several years ago, and it alll started one night driving on the highway right near my town...They progressed to getting in my car on a three mile drive to work would cause them...That won't happen again this time, but I fear even short drives on the highway are definitely out for now...I am just happy/lucky I made it home without anything really bad or really embarrassing happening to me.... :rain


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## Bon (Dec 24, 2005)

I really hate it when something like this happens. You're the only other person I've heard describe it as feeling drunk. I know what you speak of.

Do you get a shaking feeling, although you're not visably shaking?

First of all, you pick a heavy traffic time, even someone without anxiety tends to get nervous. It's getting to be dusk with rain, yeah, it's going to affect a lot of people.

What's the worst thing that could have happened? You pulled over, had something to drink, smoked, tried to calm down. 

You made it home, you're alive. My comfort zone is extremely important too me as well, yet sometimes we have to venture out.

Sometimes the feeling you described, high or drunk, comes over me, when I least expect it. Once my mom said "You need to eat something" I thought, sure, right.....Eating actually helped, just a thought;-)

You got through it Dave. You're NOT lucky, you made it happen, YOU got yourself home, you found a way.


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## millenniumman75 (Feb 4, 2005)

WinterDave,

What do you worry about happening while you are on the highway that makes you panic like that? Granted, you only have control over yourself when you are on the highway, but what causes your panic attacks?  :hug


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## WinterDave (Dec 5, 2003)

I don't know, I think I have health problems that may contribute to the panic attacks....I am definitely shaky on the inside but don't know if other people see it....The highway is too much I guess:too much traffic, in a unknown area, it's like move on or die....No chance for a "time out"...I very rarely get on the highway, and usually just in light traffic, on a sunny day...Rush hour traffic, at dusk, in the rain, heading toward Boston did a number on me...And I am not repeating that mistake AGAIN! I called in sick to work for Thursday evening, and my friend is coming over after he gets off at work at 4:30pm and is going to drive me up to that clothing store...Work no longer allows sweat pants or blue jeans after 20 years of doing so...I ordered scrubs online but they were a bit small and mainly came without a drawstring which is ridiculous...If I go into work in sweat pants, I am just going to get sent home or get written up...I went to a local place yesterday but they were no longer in business, hence the disasterous, spur of the moment highway trip...To try and get some pants that would fit the new dress code policy....I almost died or got in a car accident for a damn dress code policy....Arghhh! :lol


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## Bon (Dec 24, 2005)

You're allowed to wear draw strings? I never was, I was told the resident could use it against you, like choke you to death;-)

I hope you feel better Dave. Unlike John-John, I didn't ask what caused it, simply because I thought you were in a new environment;-) I did ask but deleted it, and there is no point to this paragraph-). I had to add something after the drawstring paragraph;-)

I think you're describing free floating anxiety, been there, it's horrendous, I don't know about you, but there are days I'm fine, then it will just hit me, out of the blue, that shaky, drunk feeling you refereed to. Then you get disoriented, can't think, thoughts start going a hundred miles an hour, when you're really not thinking about anything.


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## limelight85 (Mar 15, 2008)

Panic attacks are brutal, unfortunately ive had plenty of them. Do you take any medications? 
xanax helped me alot with my panic attacks. They wont continue forever once you learn to disarm them they lose alot of there scariness. My first one was the worst because i had no idea what the heck it was. 

Heres a few tips ive learned: dont try to fight it just allow the anxiety to be there, and reassure yourself that its only a surge of adrenaline that will pass. Try to slow down your thoughts and breathing. Take deep slow breaths, i kinda imagine myself in slow motion.That ones real important. Hyperventilating just continues to feed the anxiety, you have to try to break the anxiety cycle.Definitely consider taking a tranquilizer if you dont have them already, they can really give you a weapon you can use to take some of the edge off.

I had panic attacks everyday, but once i started using these techniques and got some medication they became fewer and far between.They are a truly terrifying experience, but you can overcome them!


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## Dreamcatcher (Nov 8, 2003)

> feeling extremely high or intoxicated with everything being unreal or surreal...


Ooh, Dave, I know that feeling too. My anxiety has been acting up lately, and just the other day too, I had a panic attack while driving on the highway. I was driving in a somewhat unfamilar area, and I was also driving my brother's diesal truck, which I'm not used to driving at all. Just driving along with the flow of the traffic, trying to figure out what exit I needed to get off of and I just started panicking, my heart pounding, and just...argh. :hide Nothing bad happened, and I got to where I needed to be, but it's terrifying. :sigh


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## jenkydora (Nov 11, 2003)

WinterDave said:


> I am very territorial, work, and everywhere I go (which isn't much or a lot) is within about a 3.5 mile radius of home...And I hardly ever drive on the highway, and even then just for about ten miles or so...Well, I needed some pants for work and the only place that I could get them is about 25 miles a way..So I get on the highway heading towards Boston at about 5pm, as it is raining and getting near dusk...I am very anxious, but push myself on as I need these pants or basically I can't go to work tomorrow evening...I had asked my friend to drive me but he was tied up visiting a sick coworker tonight...I should have tried tomorrow afternoon before work, hoping for dry, sunny, and no rush hour traffic....Well, after about ten miles, as I am ignoring my mounting anxiety by having the widow down and trying to pay attention to the radio:Bam! I am trapped in a flow of heavy traffic on both sides of me, feeling extremely high or intoxicated with everything being unreal or surreal...That's the best way to describe how my panic attacks feel...I managed to hang on until a highway exit, and luckily came out right near a busy road that would lead me back home...All of this was only about ten miles from home...I was in an area which I didn't know much, stopped at a gas station, double checked that the road would take me back towards my town...Stayed in the car, drank some soda, smoked a cigarette, waited about 15 minutes., really shaky and messed up..And there is no way that someone could have come and got me, with another person driving my car home, or me leaving it there...I had to drive home...And knew I had to leave right away to get home before it got dark, or it would be worse...I hate driving at night too...Just kept telling myself this is just a busy road (during rush hour traffic), but I can pull off any time I like and walk around..That's part of the cause of the panic attack:being trapped on the highway, can't pull off etc...Being in unknown areas also does a number on me...So I know this route will bring me in the vicinity of my town, and its heading in the right direction...Then I am stuck in heavy traffic at a long, red light in the middle of a busy intersection....I start to get the panic attack again...The light stays red for about three minutes as I start feeling drunk/high again...Once I start moving again, I feel better...Eventually, I noticed a place that I knew, that was just a couple
> of highway exits from my town...So I get back on the highway and am getting the panic attack again, hanging on for dear life just to make it two miles to the next highway exit which brings me out just a few miles from home...It was a lot of things, the highway, being trapped in a flow of traffic that you can't stop and pull over from, rush hour traffic in the gloom, as it is raining, in an unfamiliar place etc...I used to get panic attacks several years ago, and it alll started one night driving on the highway right near my town...They progressed to getting in my car on a three mile drive to work would cause them...That won't happen again this time, but I fear even short drives on the highway are definitely out for now...I am just happy/lucky I made it home without anything really bad or really embarrassing happening to me.... :rain


Even though that was horrifying for you and for me, because I have the same fear, you were very brave. My fear comes from seeing roadside memorials, flowers, crosses, and the pressure to overtake slow drivers is too much for me and the reasons you mentioned, unfamiliar roads, not knowing what to expect.
I just dont get on freeways for the above reasons. But I did have to drive the coastline a month ago, I hate the steep cliff drops what seems inches from the car.
jenky


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## dennis101 (Apr 26, 2012)

*Hey guys i have the same problem as most of you have just said above,I've been to many doctors been in and out of the hospital x6 and yet the don't no whats wrong with me my local Doc says i have many symptoms the send me to relate to Anxiety:<2days ago i was driving on the motor way in the light listning to my sounds then hit the part of the mototr way where they don't got any lights then boom i started to panic for no reason heart started racing my mind was set on me going to pass out while driving..So i did i quick u-turn and drove back home with my mind thicking bad thoughts and my heart wanting to race me in my car i seem to get alot off panic attacks at random times and other symptoms with it...*

*-muscle pains*
*-muscle weakness*
*-feel doom(world is coming to an end)*
*-light headedness(feel light)*
*-tightness feeling of a band being around the skull(pressure in head)*
*-double vision(dots.blur from off something then disapears when you look at it)*
*-panic attack(racing heart)*
*-Tremor(shakes in any part of the body mainly hands etc)*
*-Cold sweats in fingers*
*-Fear(forgetful of little things than remember later)*
*-Insomnia(lack of sleep)*
*-feel full when you had hardly any thing to eat*
*-loss of weight*

*so those are all my symptoms i get but im slowly getting use to it but really need help with it i carn't control it to the point where i feel like going out and hanging with friends and making out im ok when im not<im now afraid of going back to fighting as a muaythai kickboxer as these symptoms really have made a no go zone in my life for what i use to do*


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## iris68 (Mar 23, 2013)

dennis, I would like to give you a highly possible cause of your diverse health problems. If you read this post, please reply and I'll be happy to answer. Remember, solution is always the simplest, although in this case invisible, so it get's unnoticed. However, we all suffer, more or less, because the cause is ubiquitous and unfortunatelly imposible to escape. But the saddest thing is that majority of people are contributing to this misery and what's worst, even paying for it.


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## CoolRanch (Mar 24, 2013)

As hard as it is in the moment you have to convince yourself that it's ok and you will not die. I'm not sure if you can actually pass out from them though, that's something to consider while driving. I have the same thing sometimes and I tend to avoid interstates and pull off into a parking lot if I feel one coming on and wait it out. I had an attack at work years ago that was so bad that I called 911. Of course I get to the hospital and they do an EKG and tell me I'm in great shape.


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## millenniumman75 (Feb 4, 2005)

*This thread was started on March 19th.........2008.


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