Where to begin?
I suppose I have always been a rather "highly strung" sort of person, prone to various (often irrational) anxieties... pretty much since my teens. That said, I would never have characterized those anxieties as being "attacks."
One of my cousins in Denmark struggled with panic attacks and even went to the local hospital emergency room the first couple of times it happened... she genuinely believed she was having a heart attack.
It started in her mid-20s and was an issue for the rest of her life.
Although I could clearly see how Lise was suffering and empathized with her in her discomfort, I was perhaps a little on the cavalier side in thinking to myself "oh, how bad can it really be?"
I first found out on a vacation trip where one of the things we did was visit the hot springs and vapor caves in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. The cave part of the resort includes some long fairly narrow chambers that run down relatively close to where boiling steam is coming right out of the ground.
Of course, you're actually nowhere near the directly boiling parts of the cave, you're in fairly tightly enclosed chambers where the temperature is probably between 105 and 110 degrees (40 to 45°C) with very high humidity like a steam room, and a slight odor of sulfur in the air.
I was in there for no more than a couple of minutes before I started feeling uneasy, and was experiencing some chest pressure, and what felt like my heart skipping erratically. Less than 30 seconds later, it felt like I couldn't breathe anymore and splashing myself with the cool water sitting in buckets in the steam rooms did not help in the slightest. Then it started to feel like the actual cave walls were closing in on me.
Thankfully, I was in one of the cooler chambers near the cave entrance so I was able to make my way back out under my own power, but it took me a good 15-20 minutes of sitting in the freezing (relatively speaking) cooldown pool before I could breathe normally and my heart rate came down, and the feeling of pure dread subsided.
Just to add a little bit of perspective, I have been in saunas and steam rooms before and never had this kind of experience. While I'm not fond of heat, I tolerate it pretty well.
Ever since that incident, I have sporadically had to deal with panic attacks. They seem to happen once every year or two, sometimes in small clusters where I might have several in the space of a week, and then nothing for several years.
They mostly seem to come up when I'm asleep and dreaming, and I encounter — in a dream situation — a place where I feel confined, hot and unable to breathe.
Most recently (back in the spring) I was dreaming that I was being cemented into a thick wall in a hot underground parking garage... and I woke up out of breath and with a pounding heart and chest tightness. Not pleasant.
The only real "remedy" I have is to get out of bed and go stand with bare feet on the cold tile floor in front of the refrigerator... with the refrigerator door open so I can breathe the cold air. It generally takes about 20-30 minutes before I feel calm enough to go back to bed... and sometimes I'll end up only laying there for a few minutes before I have to get up and repeat the "cooldown cycle."
Although still unpleasant, I at least know what I'm dealing with now.
Thanks for stopping by and have a great Sunday!
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2026.08.09 01:45 PDT
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