I'm a severe panic disorder sufferer, mostly fueled by health anxiety/hypochondria (heart attack paranoia, random "I'm gonna die" fear etc), and ever since my first panic attack, it's usually all been in my chest, focusing on my racing heart, fearing that my heart will stop/burst, etc. But lately, as of the last few months, the "feelings" that I get when anxiety or panic hits have moved to the inside of my head. This is kind of hard for me to describe so please bear with me. I'll try to have a TLDR at the end.

About a month or two ago, I noticed getting these sort of "pressure" or "rush" feelings in my brain. It started out more purely physical, with annoying pressure headaches that freaked me out and made me wonder if I had a brain tumor (extreme I know, but I lost my mom to one a few years ago so it scares me). 

Eventually after the actual pressure headaches/physical pain stopped, I've started getting this sort of different feeling that triggers full blown panic almost every single time. It's like this scary "rushing" feeling. Like, it feels like though my body is sitting still, my head is flying down a highway at 70mph or something. It makes me sort of dizzy and disoriented, though I've been fighting anxiety long enough to tell that the "symptoms" all seem to be related to panic attacks rather than something physical. Regardless, it's absolutely terrifying and I have an extremely hard time fighting off the anxiety when it hits.

Oddly, I've noticed one particular trigger for it is being excited, or really "into" something. For example, if I'm playing a game and I'm at my favorite level, and in the middle of fast-paced action or something, I get that "rush" feeling and my mind instantly kicks in with the fight or flights, which leads to having to stop and focus on not panicking. Another example being the new Arcane series that released, me and my friend are both pretty big into League and have been looking forward to watching it for a long time, but every time I watched an episode with him it ended up triggering that rush feeling and I spend most of the episodes fighting off anxiety quietly, being too embarrassed to admit I'm freaking out for no reason.

The real breaking point was a few days ago, I went out to lunch with some friends and as we left the restaurant and on the car ride home, that rush kept hitting (I had a cup of mountain dew with my lunch, maybe caffeine rush?) and eventually I lost all ability to cope with it and had a full blown panic attack in the car in front of everyone. It's kind of a blur now but I remember I would calm down slightly and then the rush would come back and I'd just yell "oh god, oh god, oh god" over and over. Im still shaken and embarrassed thinking back to how out of control I was in front of everyone, and fear of it getting that bad again is what's really making me want to get to the bottom of this.

It's almost as if my mind has associated the feeling of a natural, healthy dopamine/adrenaline rush as a bad thing and the wires in my mind have connected it to the fight or flight response, just like how my heart rate rising even slightly used to trigger panic. This is especially agonizing, as anymore, I have to focus on not enjoying things "too much" or getting "too excited", lest the awful rush feeling hits and sends me spiraling into craziness.

Tldr my panic used to be triggered by feelings in my chest/feeling my heartbeat, but recently, I get these fast headrush feelings in my head that trigger my fight or flight and panic attacks, often triggered by being excited, overwhelmed by things. Anyone else have this or know why I might? 

Sorry for rambling, anxiety and typing eloquently don't go hand in hand for me.