GRR... A panic setback

Frankly, my panic was unendurable. I don't know how anyone can tolerate it. When it began in late May, I actually let it go for about four hours one day and thereafter, when I was sure a panic attack was coming, I'd take my .5 mg. Ativan and be done with it. I just cannot tolerate that level of terror and fear. I don't know how anyone can do it.

Of course, I'm kind of the reverse of you, Yes, because four weeks ago today, I stopped taking Zoloft and have had no panic attacks and no depression since then. Of course, I have become embroiled in vitriolic religious fights with every person on this forum :lol: but I have none of the symptoms that brought me here in May. I guess I don't know why I'm still here.

But anyway. My point is only that I tip my hat to anyone who can stand the terror, and it appears that many people just live through it. I could not. It's just unendurable. I know why people jump off buildings or shoot themselves. I might well have done the same if I hadn't the medicine to make it stop. One little .5 mg. Ativan within about an hour made me feel "normal," not drugged, but normal. However, the depression got worse and worse and worse and one day I just stopped everything (my doctor told me to trust my body's messages). Went from 150 mg of Zoloft to zero.

I just wanted to say that I don't know how you all can endure the panic attack. I cannot get my brain around how anyone can endure that horror. I just couldn't.

I think it may be time to leave this place. Why am I here on this list when I have no symptoms anymore?

Yes,

I was on the Zoloft for a long time, and our body's reactions to things changes over time, what with the variation in hormones over our lifetime and so forth. I don't really know in my case what actually happened, but because I was on such a low dose of Zoloft (50 mg), I think it could well have been simply a short-term anxiety that left on its own when Zoloft was completely removed from my system. Unfortunately, my doctor thought, and probably rightly, that the answer to the panic on 50 mg of Zoloft was to INCREASE the Zoloft, but after 6 weeks or so, while I had no anxiety, I had worse depression than I'd ever had. He says it's rare for a person with major depression to suddenly not be depressed, but it's four weeks and counting, and I appear to be "cured" or in remission, at least. Time will tell. If I don't get depressed again within, say, the next year, I will be one of a few "rare" cases, according to my doctor, who had previously had me classified as someone with an "organic disorder" that I would have for the rest of my life. Psychopharmacologists live and learn too! :wink:

But nobody really knows much of anything about these conditions except that sometimes drugs lift depression for some people and sometimes they don't.

My panic was short-lived -- but only after I decided I could not tolerate four hours of it. It probably would have been about that length or longer had I not taken ativan. I never had a worry about addiction because I didn't need to take it every day and it was such a low dose.

I tried the techniques of Claire Weekes. Didn't work.

One thing my sister, who is a physician herself, had suggested to me and I didn't try it because I just could not do it in time was this: when you feel a panic attack coming, run and get a tall glass of water and drink it down as quickly as you can without choking.

For those who are continually getting panic attacks and aren't taking a drug to stop it, it's worth a try.