Hey forum - long time, no see (again)!
Long story short:
I've had quite a few anxiety-attacks in the past few years. Attacks I would call fairly "normal": around 10-15 minutes, hyperventilating, crying, but I'm able to calm myself down fairly quickly using grounding techniques.
However... I had a really scary anxiety attack a couple of weeks ago, and it scared the heebie-jeebies out of me! I put myself in a situation I kinda knew I couldn't handle (theater warm-up) - but I wanted to try - and surprisingly I couldn't do it.
The thing that followed then was just something I hadn't experienced before. I managed to lock myself in a bathroom and totally broke down; sobbing, screaming, flailing everything, smashing my head and fists against the walls - I couldn't control my body at all. It lasted for a good 45 minutes or something like that (didn't really have any sense of time), and it only stopped because I became too exhausted. It was a really scary and uncomfortable experience, and I really don't want it to happen again.
My problem is now that my anxiety ABOUT getting anxiety attacks has risen a whole lot, and I had to stop going to performance-class and I keep to myself a lot more, which is making me more anxious and sad - and I know this kind of behavior was what led to my depression, and I just really don't want to end up there again.
Do any of you lovely people have any tips as to how to handle this? I'm not able to see a psychologist on a regular basis and I live at a boarding school: being around a 100 people all the time is pretty much unavoidable.