Freak is a teeny tiny tracker that I use to track my panic attacks.
$ freak 1
$ freak 0
$ freak 10go get -u github.com/flaque/freak
"Panic attacks" mean different things to different people, so I can only really describe my own condition. But basically it's hightened fear / paranoia that generally latches onto a particular subject.
If you've ever been in a life or death situation like a car accident, you've probably felt a huge rush of addrenaline. You probably felt a weird mix of heat and cold as your body rushed blood towards your chest and legs.
My panic attacks are a lot like that, only more/less random and not really caused by anything. They're generally followed by an intense urge to leave whatever room I'm in and a bit of general fear towards the general situation I'm in.
Because my attacks are very "fear" based, I generally make a distinction between panic and anxiety. I've never been diagnosed with general anxiety (though I have been diagnosed with panic disorder) and the experiences of folks who have do not align with my own experiences. As far as I can tell, my attacks aren't made worse by excessive stress, though having raw data may disprove that.
In general, panic attacks are just annoying, not a particular concern. I've had them all my life and I've learned how to deal with them. Unless there's a particularly bad one, most panic attacks are like an annoying itch than a crippling concern.
In my life, I've helped communicate how bad of an attack I'm having with a 0-10 scale. A 0 being not having a panic attack and a 10 being the worst panic attack I've experienced.
In general:
| level | description |
|---|---|
| 0 | nothing |
| 2 | brief spike, no worries |
| 4 | I'll probably go for a walk |
| 7+ | I'll probably take emergency medication |
The following are the things I'm trying to validate with this raw data.
I've suspected for some time that these attacks come in clusters: a few weeks where I have a huge amount of panic attacks and then several months where I have few or relatively minor panic attacks.
I suspect that these attacks happen at the worst possible moments, for example on a sunday night when I should get to bed so I can get up early for work or right before I'm about to go into a meeting. Though without data, I don't have a way to know if this is true or if I'm just misremembering the most annoying experiences I've had.
I suspect that these attacks are reduced when I run more, so I'd like to cross reference this with my run trackers.
Of course. It's made purposely general so it could be used for lots of purposes. You're welcome to submit PRs though I may not take them if they're not super helpful.
I was debating "panic" but that was too close to Golang's panic().
When I was a kid, I didn't know what to call my panic attacks, so I called them freakouts. It wasn't until I got diagnosed that I called them panic.