There are many Myths surrounding Panic Attacks
There are many myths surrounding panic attacks and top of the list I believe are concerns that a heart attack may be the result, possibly even causing death. In an otherwise reasonably healthy person it is safe to say that death by a panic attack is impossible.If you can move around, and speak whilst in the grip of a panic, then despite the unpleasant and uncomfortable feelings, you're not having a heart attack. This is still true even if your heart is beating like a crazy drummer, you are just having a panic attack and not going to die from it.
Other myths include fears that having an panic attack could cause you to literally go insane. Even if you were the unhealthiest person on this planet, insanity has nothing to do with having a panic attack.There are many things in life, including long term stress and traumatic experiences, all of which have an affect on our peace of mind, but to be declared genuinely insane you need to have some kind of internal brain damage. So, no is the answer, panic attacks cannot drive you insane.
The fact is that we are either in a panic attack or not throughout all of our lives, there is nothing in between. It is a fact that most panic attacks last a very short time, possibly a few minutes, maybe ten or even twenty minutes. Up to an hour is actually possible but very, very unlikely.If you are still surrounded by the original conditions it is possible to go back into a panic attack if you are feeling seriously threatened by the situation, but once again not likely to last too long.
If fainting is something that does not happen to you under normal events of your daily life then the chances of a panic attack causing it to happen are as likely as winning the top prize in a national lottery. If this is something that you do regularly under other circumstances then you could not categorically rule it out.However, you need to know that the nature of a panic attack is about protecting you and is not programmed to do the opposite by making you vulnerable when you need help the most.
A Panic Attack will cause me to lose control of myself
This can be quite a big fear in general for a lot of folk, and it is fairly widespread under normal circumstances anyway, but can be exaggerated even more when imagining the specific feared situation that you know brings on the start of your panic attacks.Once again this myth is based on fear and imagination and not a physical or an accurate fact.