Panic Attacks have taken away all Confidence

Hello All,

I wanted to throw out this topic and see if anyone has ever had any similar experience with panic.

My name is Michael and I am a 34-year-old nursing student. I am halfway through my program and currently on my Summer break for another 6 weeks. At the beginning of Summer, I began having panic attacks which continued for many weeks. My specific experience during a panic attack is not your classic heart attack symptoms but instead, I dissociate from my mind and have a full-on mental episode. This is all new to me and it has completely changed my life. The continuation of these experiences is never-ending as I now wake up each morning feeling fear. It is like I wake up into a world that I now know it can happen at any time, so the world is suddenly just scary beyond belief and I just want to sleep. I have started taking an Anti-Anxiety med a few weeks ago but it just makes me feel foggy and a little apathetic.

Last year I started out confident and despite my BSN nursing school bring an absolute beast, I held onto who I was inside. I feel like I have lost that person. The individual I know who completed all those pre-reqs and classes to succeed seems to have been lost in all this fear. Instead of being excited to continue my education and career, I now fear whether or not I have the ability to even focus on writing a solid paper or study the content I need to know.

Has anyone ever dealt with dissociation/panic and if so, how did you progress from there?

Thanks for reading