What is a Panic Attack?
A panic attack is an acute event in which a person feels an intense feeling of dread and an array of physical symptoms like sweating, high pulse, and trouble breathing. While panic attacks can be a sign of underlying generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), they can also happen to people with no underlying anxiety disorder.
What is Generalized Anxiety Disorder?
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is a condition that is characterized by chronic and sustained worry that is intense enough to interrupt daily life. Professionals diagnose people with GAD when they display these symptoms for about six months and have anxiety for more days than not during that time. The six-month timeline exists to ensure that people do not receive anxiety diagnoses when they experience acute problems. While trained professionals can effectively help people who have short-term anxiety disorders, they do not diagnose these patients with GAD.
What is PTSD?
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that people sometimes develop in response to a traumatic event. PTSD has been known by many names in the past, such as “shell shock” or “combat fatigue” but PTSD does not just happen to combat veterans. It can occur in all people, of any ethnicity, nationality, or culture.
People with PTSD have intense and often disturbing thoughts and feelings related to their experience long after the traumatic event occurred. They may relive the event through flashbacks or nightmares, they may feel sadness, fear or anger, and may feel detached or estranged from other people. This can lead to avoiding situations or people that remind them of the event, or to having strong negative reactions to something as ordinary as being touched.
It is natural after a dangerous event to have some symptoms or to feel detached from the experience. A health care provider—such as a psychiatrist, psychologist, or clinical mental health counselor—who has experience helping people with traumatic events can determine whether your symptoms meet the criteria for PTSD.