I’ve written a couple of articles about my anxiety, but I haven’t written an article describing what it feels like to have a panic/anxiety attack.

So today, I decided to write one. And if you’re interested in learning a little more about these attacks, you can check out last week’s article I posted, titled "50 Things People With Anxiety Want You To Understand" by simply clicking on my profile and scrolling down until you find it.

First, let’s define the different meanings behind a panic attack and an anxiety attack. In an anxiety attack, a stressor triggers fear and apprehension; one might feel their heart racing and become short of breath, but once the stressor disappears, so does the anxiety. On the other hand, a panic attack is more complex. There is no necessary stressor (but there could be), and it is unpredictable. With the latter, one usually feels fearful and begins to uncontrollably tremble. A sudden adrenaline rush strikes the individual, leading hyperventilation, thoughts of doubt and utter uncertainty of their surroundings, which in the end results in thoughts of death or a possible heart attack. Either of the two attacks can be short-lived, but there can be what you call "anticipatory anxiety" where the person is constantly thinking about the next attack they’re going to have in the future. Having another psychological disorder/illness, (e.g. depression, hypochondria, OCD, just to name a few) increases the intensity of these attacks. Since May/June of 2010 when I had my first panic attack, I have been suffering from both, but mainly from panic attacks, and in addition in five of those six years I had severe OCD, which would make the attacks 100 times worse.

The most important thing behind these attacks is the trigger. It all begins when a thought arises and concerns the individual. Things that usually don’t bother you may bother us, and is probably the reason behind the trigger. Physically seeing something that is misplaced or should not be happening can cause utter terror for the person. It can be anything, from accidentally seeing a squirrel fall from a tree, watching the news about terrorism, becoming self-conscious about a high pulse, or even finding out that your dog is sick.

After the trigger has been identified, there is a lot of uneasiness that happens in our minds that causes us to literally lose our minds; we get a sudden uncontrollable shock that begins to take over our body, kind of like drinking alcohol and not being able to control the dizziness. It’s just there. Everything happens within two to five seconds: A trigger begins to concern us, which leads us to overthink and flash a horrible scenario within a blink of an eye; we become self-conscious about the scenario, compelling us to act quickly and try to fix it (but we can’t); we begin to uncontrollably tremble, sweat, get a stomach ache, pace back and forth, feel dizzy, begin to get tunnel vision, and feel tense, which results in self-consciousness about our rapid heartbeats. All of this happens within those two to five seconds, and then the panic/anxiety attack begins. If you’re having a hard time picturing what this feels like—and I don’t blame you because unless you can relate, you wouldn’t know what it feels like—then picture a sudden adrenaline rush after drinking a Monster energy drink, five cups of coffee, and finding out that somebody robbed your apartment and has your whole family held hostage hanging from the edge of Niagara Falls.

After a few seconds/minutes, the attack will dissipate, and there is a sense of relief—it feels as if we were just won the lottery. There are times where the panic attack didn’t fully reach that climax point, and like an optimist not reaching their goals, the attack will compel the body to keep on having them until that highest point is reached and every inch of the body was affected by it, or in an optimist’s perspective, the goal has been reached. Sometimes, we become scarred from the location where the attack took place, so we avoid every possible encounter with it to prevent an attack, because now this place has become a trigger. And what comes next is a continuous cycle of these attacks. Depending on the day—because nobody could ever know how often these unpredictable attacks are going to happen—it may happen 10 more times, or perhaps we won’t have one until next week, month, year, who knows?

The aftermath will drench us. We will go from feeling like the Queen of England, to feeling like Lionel Messi after losing the World Cup and the Copa America these past few years. I had to add a little humor here because both ends don’t meet, and this label does not define us; it gives us a reason to stand out and be stronger than the average person. Whether you fully understood what it feels like to have an attack or not, know that in the end we will still be the same people you love and care for.