This might be long. It's my first time posting anything on a subreddit, really. I feel like my friends and family are tired of hearing about it or just don't have anything else to add so I don't know where to turn.

Brief history: I have GAD and depression, I've tried several medications over the last decade. I don't have much of a history with panic attacks, or at least not as I understand the term. Looking back, I do wonder now if some of my episodes were panic attacks, and that I just didn't *really* know that's what they were like until now. My first obvious panic attack with physical symptoms began as I went under for a surgery. I remember reaching for someone and saying something was wrong, then losing consciousness, and it continued the very moment I was conscious again in recovery. I thought something had gone horribly wrong and/or I was dying. I could not breathe, except I obviously could. It felt like endless minutes that I desperately fought for air while clearly getting enough air to freak out. After I left the hospital it didn't happen again. 

Fast forward a few years to April 2nd of 2021. I'm in a clinic about to receive my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. I'm actually super excited, I've been waiting for this moment for a long time. And I'm not scared of shots, I've had many medical problems and have been poked and prodded and humiliated and in debilitating pain, a needle is nothing. Except when the needle goes into my arm it feels like someone grabbed my heart with their hands and tried to crush it. It was over as soon as it happened, but still alarming. I manage to walk into the observation room to wait out the 15 minutes before I can go, but something doesn't feel right. I'm lightheaded, my chest starts to feel tight and hurt, I fear I'm going to drop dead at any second. I flag down a nurse and she assesses my condition and very kindly tries to assure me, catching on that it's probably anxiety long before I even consider it as a possibility. All the other patients are staring at me, unashamedly interested, or maybe paranoid that it's some sort of reaction they're witnessing. The nurse hovers over me a little too much. I know she means well but this is all making the anxiety worse, so I lie that I feel better and I go home, thinking it will stop when I crawl into my own bed. It doesn't. It lasts for several hours with small periods (under ten minutes) of feeling like it might end soon in between. The next day I'm fine.

I'm fine for about two weeks, and then it happens again. For a full 7 days. If it stops, it doesn't feel like it. It's day and night of heart palpitations and lightheadedness and fear. I listen to TED talks and read dozens of articles and cry and feel like I'm going crazy. I get my 2nd dose of the Pfizer vaccine on April 2nd, expecting it to be even worse because now I'm living in fear of what will happen this time, and my symptoms finally just...dissipate. There's no scary jolt in my heart, and the lightheadedness and tingling and chest tightness subside over the course of the day. I assume this weird episode in my life is over. I feel incredibly stupid, especially considering I wasn't scared of getting the vaccine in the first place. I'm ashamed and think all my friends are probably thinking I'm a hypochondriac. 

I talk to my primary care physician and she suggests we rule out anything heart-related before changing my medicine, because I've always had a fast heart rate. EKG is normal. I still get an appointment with a cardiologist. I go on May 4th, yesterday. Everything looks fine, EKG is normal there too. The doctor wants to schedule an echocardiogram and order a heart monitor to wear for the next 30 days, just to be sure. My good mood goes swirling down the drain because I don't want to do all this. It's taking too damn long. I'm starting a new job on Saturday and I just want to change my meds before it strikes again. I get in the car to go home and start feeling tingly and light headed and I get pissed because, really, honestly? Why? I was fine, and now I'm not? After a low stress doctor's visit? I get through it and tell myself that it will pass, that it WON'T last for hours because I simply refuse, and after an hour or so I feel somewhat okay again, and gradually feel normal. 

This morning I take my little sister to school, eat some breakfast and lie down watching Youtube videos. I'm a little tired so I close my eyes. Light suddenly dances behind my eyelids and my face feels weird, so I open them again. I get the familiar wheezy feeling in my chest (sometimes it's pressure, sometimes it's like I'm short of breath without actually being short of breath), my limbs feel tingly and go numb, and of course, I feel like I'm about to die. I grapple with it from 8:30ish to 11:30ish and manage to fall asleep. I wake up at 2pm still feeling on the precipice and fight my way through it until almost 5pm as I'm typing this now. It's mostly subsided but I'm still lightheaded and anxious. I don't know when my echocardiogram is yet, my next doctor's visit with my PCP is in a week and I start my new job in less than 2 days. I'm currently taking Wellbutrin and Buspirone and it's felt like they were doing nothing for me for a while now, but I haven't had the time or the money to search for an actual psychiatrist and therapist, and weaning off meds and starting new ones is such a PAIN that I've been putting it off, so this is the prize I won. 

How do I get through this when it seems to be happening purely out of fear for the next one? How do I not freak out when I start my job? I'm so afraid of it happening at work, right as I'm starting this job I fought so hard to get all throughout the pandemic. I do all the grounding techniques and tell myself it'll end soon and it can't last forever and it still happens, it's never over in 30 minutes, it always takes an hour to several hours to calm down.