panic attack

panic attack (plural panic attacks)

1. A sudden period of intense anxiety, mounting physiological arousal, fear, stomach problems and discomfort that are associated with a variety of somatic and cognitive symptoms.

   There was a client who was critical of me a few weeks back and it set off a panic attack.

   • 2021, Dr Philippa Kaye, Doctors Get Cancer Too, Vie Books, page 33:

     I think I had a panic attack last night, a sense of rising panic and impending doom – chest tight, short of breath, shaking.

• panic disorder