Anxiety doesn't fool around the first time

Anxiety attacks are funny things. Okay, maybe not so much funny as...panicky? I haven't had an attack in a long time -- possibly a year -- but I know the sure signs of an attack when I feel them. It's not easy to explain, but the best I can come up with is that my heart starts beating faster, I get nervous, I can't sit still, and the worst part about it is I have NO IDEA why they come. I mean, I could be sitting laughing with friends and then suddenly this dread starts to seep through me. Really, it's a feeling of doom.
But this time, I was in class with my wonderful cohort waiting for class to start when I felt the subtle approach of....anxiety. My first instinct was to bolt. Just leave the room and start walking somewhere. But class was going to start in a few minutes, so I sat still like a good student and hoped that after a few deep breaths it would pass. But it didn't. We're running on four hours now with no sign of relief.

Anxiety attacks really cause three main reactions: (okay, so they may not be reactions per se, but they are urges.)

1. I need to run. Or do something else incredibly active just to release the pent up energy and hopefully scare away the anxiety blues. I usually feel trapped and claustrophobic so the best thing for me is to get out somewhere and just run.
2. I suddenly feel a great need to organize and straighten anything and everything within sight. This is bordering on OCD. I think it's a need to have some control over something in my life, so I'll clean or organize my room, your room, my shoes, files in the computer -- you name it, I'll organize it.
3. And finally it's the desperate desire to either cry or scream at the top of my lungs. When I first started getting these attacks, the reaction was almost always to cry. And cry I did no matter where I was -- the dining hall at school, the bathroom (if I could make it there before the waterworks started), or in the lounge of the resident halls. It really didn't matter where I was because anxiety would crash down on me with almost no warning.

And now here I sit, neither running, or organizing, or screaming/crying. But the energy still courses through my veins, and my heart is still pounding, and it still feels like my stomach has become home to the pit of dread. The only thing I can do is ride it out. Another few hours maybe? Who knows...