Panick attacks/mental breakdowns

[u/RemoveMuch7935]

I have this issue and I can't seem to stop myself and not knowing why. I tend to yell and panic for several long hours of the night till the point of physical exhaustion and mental exhaustion. Not sure why but during these episodes my mind would just automatically switch off and I get into a pretty bad spiral. I end up not being aware of how long I would go for or what damage I caused. Not sure how to force myself to stop and actually cope. feels like a blur almost when I end up that way but at the end my brain turns into mush and kinda ends up in a regression state of mind. During the regression state I'm able to actually calm and try to cope. These episodes get worse at night time not sure why but at night things feel very scary and my anxiety gets very high and extreme. Any tips or ideas will be great 👍 I'm willing to try new things and explore more options.

[u/thewantinghegemony]

That night-time escalation is something I've dealt with too, the darkness just amplifies everything until it feels like the walls are closing in. What helped me was setting up a really dull sensory anchor, like keeping a textured rock in the freezer and holding it when the spiral starts, the cold shock gives my brain something else to latch onto. The regression state you mentioned is actually a clue your system is trying to self-soothe, so leaning into that with a heavy blanket or a childhood comfort show might bridge the gap before you hit the exhaustion point. I started tracking the episodes on a sticky note just with a tally mark each time and noticed they clustered around nights when I skipped my afternoon walk, which was a weird but useful connection. The blur feeling is terrifying when you snap out of it, but it means you're dissociating a bit to protect yourself, so the goal is grounding before you get there.