Some people diagnosed with panic disorder fear that they will faint during an attack. Various beliefs and disaster scenarios can be mentioned, such as being left without help after fainting, being trampled by people, suffering physical damage, and being robbed, which accompany the fear of fainting when faced with certain environments and conditions. Then, first of all, it should be examined how realistic the possibility of fainting is during a panic attack.
Factors that cause fainting can be considered as fainting due to low blood pressure, and sudden fainting of biological or organic origin. In fainting cases of organic origin, such as anemia, metabolic disorders, and biochemical factors released from the vessels, the person experiences a sudden fainting without experiencing symptoms of the feeling of fainting beforehand, his consciousness is momentarily shut down, he cannot remember what happened during the fainting, and therefore he does not even have time to take precautions from the beginning. When blood pressure drops as a result of inadequate function of the heart and vessels, the heart rate slows down and not enough blood and oxygen reach the brain, causing fainting.
When the physical symptoms experienced during a panic attack are examined in the face of these factors that pose the risk of fainting, a different picture emerges. In a panic attack, symptoms such as accelerated breathing, increased blood pressure along with heart palpitations, tremors, sweating, numbness and tingling, and dizziness cause the person to feel as if he or she is going to faint because he or she cannot stand any longer. As a matter of fact, when the history of people who have experienced this fear for years is examined, it is possible to see that this situation has not made the person faint even once.
The secretion of adrenaline during the attack has a stimulating effect on the person. Unlike a real fainting, falling to the ground, that of a panic attack is not dangerous, it is cautious around the person. Even if he has difficulty responding to what is happening, he can hear the conversations around him. Again, unlike fainting, the person can react to painful stimuli given to him/her, and while the tongue biting situation in an epileptic seizure is not observed, the person can bite his/her lips, hands or others. In addition, unlike the fainting period in an epileptic seizure, panic attacks can last much longer, starting from 15-20 minutes and extending for hours.
Therefore, panic attacks can last much longer. The physiological symptoms caused by exercise in the body are not of a quality that can make a person faint. However, it should not be forgotten that the factor that triggers a person's panic attack is a psycho-sociological stress factor. Some people with a diagnosis of conversion disorder respond to a psychological stress load by having a panic attack-like seizure and fainting, even though they do not have any organic problems. Conversive people are people with weak psychological resilience, who feel this deeply by concretizing their inner distress and have problems externalizing it, who are extremely affected by the negative words and behaviors of others and experience intense emotions, who restrict their desires and desires and who need others to pity and show interest in their situation. When these people have difficulty in coping with family and environmental problems, they protect themselves with an insurance function that relieves the system that is overloaded and strained by temporarily getting away from the problems by fainting and passing out. This usually happens when you are around people. It is a system that a person develops unconsciously after learning that he can only get the love and attention he needs by fainting. Therefore, this condition is classified as a separate diagnosis and should not be confused with panic attacks.
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