In the past week or so I've been having feelings of extreme terror and hopelessness. I've had panic attacks all of my life, these are worse. I can't describe it but they feel so dark. I can't describe it, but they feel like absolute imminent danger. These feelings tend to linger throughout the day, at some points building up to absolute unbearable levels. I've barely been eating or sleeping. I have no idea why these are happening, My mind keeps getting filled with 'dark' images, not necessarily straight up disturbing, but ones that sort of imply something disturbing, like a dilapidated building at night. Once an attack passes, I can conjure up the feelings again by remembering these images or feelings, and it's been trapping me in a really bad loop where I can be feeling fine but remember these feelings and then start to feel them again and freak out. That's been my entire week, basically. I don't know why this started. I had two similar episodes back in the spring.

The only trigger I can think of is that I watched a disturbing true crime type documentary on Netflix a few days before this really came to a head. That night I couldn't sleep basically at all. But I haven't really ever had something like that effect me in such a way before.

This is so fucking hard because I keep remembering this feeling and then all of the sudden I'm feeling it all over again. Even when I'm not dwelling on it, something will remind me of the images or anything of that feeling and then I'm back in the hole. This is so fucking horrifying because I can not feel safe. Even when I'm at home with my family, I still get that feeling again. I just can't seem to escape it right now. It's so disturbing and uncomfortable.

I'm trying to tell myself that this is just anxiety but it so fucking horrible, this is so severe to even other panic attacks I've had, and this has been going on for days. I'm entering a partial hospitalization program on Monday, and my psychiatrist prescribed me Ativan but I'm too afraid to take it because I don't want to get addicted, although it might come time when I have to take it. However, that only provides 4 or so hours of relief in a day, and I don't want to be taking it constantly or else I definitely will get addicted. So basically if I take some right now then that means I can't take any for the next few days in order to be safe.

What is going on here? What do I do? How do I stop remembering the horrible feeling constantly. I just haven't been able to escape to cycle. Please offer some help.