Panic attack or social meltdown?

[Candypanda]

I've always referred to the instances where I get really upset and cry a lot as emotional meltdowns but yesterday a professor of mine said I was having a panic attack.

What's the difference?

 

[Fitzo]

I don't understand how someone else could presume to know what you are feeling better than you do. To my mind a panic attack is where you are literally feeling stressed and panicked, maybe sweating/shaking in a situation where you are not actually in real danger. Whereas an emotional meltdown is where real feelings have been triggered by actual circumstances that are identifiable and you have probably experienced before.
That would be my interpretation anyway.

 

[Gracey]

A panic attack (like most things) happens in degrees.

At the extreme end your heart, triceps, neck muscles and chest will convince you that the end is coming. You're about to die. You'll experience respiritory distress and the gaseous exchange between your 02 and C02 is so out of wack you'll be close to respiritory arrest.
You'll sweat and shake uncontrollably and probably won't have enough breath to be able to cry.
You'll believe your soul is about to surrender and this is what it must feel like to die.

There is a beginning to the above. Starter symptoms.
All to do with the physical effects of stress and anxiety.


I'm not sure I could tell you what an emotional meltdown is.?

I'm only just starting to learn about my own 'melt downs' (due to frustration and not panic.)

What is it you experience? What thoughts are running on a loop through your mind just prior to your experience?

 

[kay]

My panic attacks used to be completely physical other than the fear of the symptoms. I would end up even getting a sensation of numbness all over me. Eventually I learned the very first most subtle symptoms and learned to stop it before it got any further. Now I have no more panic attacks.

Emotional meltdowns involve uncontrollable crying for me. I just cry and cry and cry and in some ways do feel like the world is ending but it's not due to any weird physical sensations. Just acute and sudden freaking out.

The meltdowns are stress build up, I think. Just all the bottled up emotions finally reaching that last straw. Panic attacks I think were maybe partly due to stress but were primarily just being hyper aware of my body and panicking over tiny, normal feelings until I was in the same mode as I might be if I woke up in a trash compactor.

 

[Candypanda]

Thank you.

I appreciate all of the comments, especially the one with a distinction between frustration and panic.

I had studied for 18 hours over the weekend for a chem midterm including
reading all of the texts
reading a high school chem book and how it explained the same topics
did two practice exams
met with a tutor

then during the test, I was in a room of about 80 kids and kids sneezing and coughing was a lot. I sat on an aisle seat where I always sit and the professor kept running along that aisle to set a timer.

So then I started to cry heavily (akin to uncontrollable crying, as mentioned in kay's post) because it was loud, and I think frustration explains this more accurately than panic. Or even more specifically, sensory overload.

I wasn't shaking. I didnt think I was going to die. It was just loud.

Also I have to say, I really appreciated the forum as a place I could go with the original post, and again with the feedback and ability to reply, etc. Glad this website exists.

 

[Beguiling Orbit]

I see both conditions as being on a spectrum. Nervousness or stress is the mildest form, a panic attack is in the middle somewhere and an emotional meltdown is on the far side. Speaking of the far side (and panic attacks)...

 

[Coupe]

To start, I just want to say that I'm very sorry that you had to go through that, @Candypanda , and I hope that you are feeling better now. <3

TW for self-harm
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It's difficult for me to distinguish meltdowns from panic attacks, as well - particularly with the first one I'd had in years, when I was also attending college. I'd been embarrassed pretty badly in a group of people I was working with in a difficult class, and I could feel my emotions building as the end of class approached, and once it ended, I wasted no time in getting out of there and running to my dorm room, where I proceeded to melt down. The point where I get confused as to whether I was having a panic attack or a meltdown comes from the fact that my breathing was fast and erratic, and the very top of my head felt numb and had a "pins-and-needles" sensation.

The psychiatrist I was seeing at the time said she thought it was a panic attack, but I'm still leaning more towards it being a meltdown, since I felt very angry and depressed during it, and might have self-injured by slamming my head against the wall or the iron bars of my dorm bed (because the feeling of my head being numb scared me), although I don't remember for sure. What I do remember is that it went on for almost an hour until I was able to very gradually self-soothe by petting a nearby stuffed animal and watching Youtube videos, and when I started to feel more in control, I gulped down cup after cup of water and ordered a pizza, since I felt like I was starving at that point.