Fear and Feelings of Losing Control and Anxiety
Fear of losing control and feelings like you could “snap,” “lose it,” or “explode” are common symptoms of anxiety, especially anxiety and panic attack symptoms.
Many anxious people feel like they could lose control or have involuntary episodes of feeling like they could lose control.
This article explains the relationship between anxiety and fear and feeling like you could lose control.
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Fear or Feelings of Losing Control Common Anxiety Symptom Descriptions
- Feel like you could suddenly lose control of your mind or actions.
- Feel like you’ll suddenly “snap” and uncontrollably “lose it.”
- Feel like you could lose control and do something awful to someone.
- Feel like you could uncontrollably "lose it" and do something to make yourself look foolish, such as becoming uncontrollably hysterical, having to run away, passing out, vomiting in public, gagging uncontrollably, stumbling around, choking uncontrollably, losing control of your bowels, “freaking out,” etc.
- Some people describe this symptom as a strong feeling that you’ll “lose your mind.”
- Feel like you might be unable to control what you say or do.
- The thoughts, "What if I lose control?” “What if I do something awful?” “What if I snap?” “What if I make a fool of myself?” ”What will people think of me?" And “What if I completely lose it?” commonly occur with this symptom.
- Some people fear they could become uncontrollably hysterical and must be sedated.
- Some people fear they could lose control so much that they need to be put in a straight-jack and “institutionalized” for life.
- This symptom can also feel like you’ll suddenly “snap” and lose all rationality and sanity.
- This symptom can also feel as if you are on the verge of “exploding.”
- This symptom can also feel like you “can’t take any more” without “exploding” or “losing it.”
- This symptom can also feel like you are about to have a complete “mental collapse” or meltdown.
The fear of losing control can:
- Occur occasionally, frequently, or persistently.
- Precede, accompany, or follow an escalation of other anxiety symptoms or occur by itself.
- Precede, accompany, or follow a period of nervousness, anxiety, fear, and stress, or occur "out of the blue" for no reason.
- Range in intensity from mild, to moderate, to severe.
- Come in waves where it’s strong one moment and eases off the next.
- Occur for a while, subside, and then return for no reason.
- Change from day to day, moment to moment, or remain as a constant background during your struggle with anxiety disorder.
This symptom can seem more noticeable when undistracted, resting, trying to sleep, or waking up.
All the above combinations and variations are common.
To see if anxiety might be playing a role in your symptoms, rate your level of anxiety using our free one-minute instant results Anxiety Test, Anxiety Disorder Test, or Hyperstimulation Test.
The higher the rating, the more likely anxiety could be contributing to or causing your anxiety symptoms, including feeling like impending doom symptoms.
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Causes
Medical Advisory
Talk to your doctor about all new, changing, persistent, and returning symptoms as some medical conditions and medications can cause anxiety-like symptoms.
1. Anxiety-Activated Stress Response
Anxious behavior, such as worry, activates the stress response, which secretes stress hormones into the bloodstream, where they travel to specific locations to immediately prepare the body for emergency action – to fight or flee. This instinctual survival reaction is often referred to as the Fight or Flight Response.[1][2]
Visit the “Stress Response” article for the many ways it can affect the body.
The stress response causes many body-wide changes, including:
- Tightens muscles so that the body is more resilient to harm, including those in the head, face, and neck.
- Shunts blood to parts of the body important for survival, such as the brain and muscles, and away from those less important, such as the skin and digestive system.
- Stimulates the nervous system, which includes certain parts of the brain.
- Heightens most of the body’s senses.
- Increases activity in the fear center of the brain (the amygdala and others) and decreases activity in the rationalization areas of the brain (the prefrontal cortex and others).
- Increases a sense of “urgency to escape.”
- Heightens our sense of “doom and gloom.”
While helpful when in real danger, these sudden changes can cause an immediate intensity that can feel like you are about to lose control.
As the degree of anxiety and stress response increase, so can the intensity of feeling like you could lose control, “explode,” or “lose it.”
It's not that you will lose it or explode, but that your body has suddenly “energized in response to a perceived threat.
While this intensity can feel strong and even alarming, you don't have to fear it. It is just a sign that your body has experienced a stress response and is doing its job to protect you.
Suddenly feeling like you could lose control is a common symptom of an acute stress response.
2. Hyperstimulation
When stress responses occur infrequently, the body recovers relatively quickly from its changes. However, frequently activated stress responses, such as from overly anxious behavior, can prevent the body from completely recovering. Incomplete recovery can leave the body in a state of semi-stress-response-readiness, which we call “stress-response hyperstimulation” since stress hormones are powerful stimulants.
Hyperstimulation is also often referred to as “hyperarousal,” “HPA axis dysfunction,” or “nervous system dysregulation.”[3][4]
Visit our “Hyperstimulation” article for more information about the many ways hyperstimulation can affect the body and how we feel.
Hyperstimulation can cause the changes of an active stress response even though a stress response hasn’t been activated.
Just as an active stress response can cause acute fear of losing control, hyperstimulation can cause chronic feelings of losing control.
Hyperstimulation can cause feelings of losing control in other ways, too. For instance, hyperstimulation can cause:
- Nervous System Excitation and Dysregulation: A chronically stimulated nervous system can act erratically and cause all kinds of nervous system, sensory system, and limbic system problems, such as involuntary episodes of feeling like you could lose control.
- Homeostatic Dysregulation: Homeostasis is the body’s ability to automatically maintain a stable internal environment despite changes in the external environment. Hyperstimulation can cause homeostatic dysregulation, leading to internal regulation problems, which can affect the nervous, sensory, somatic, and limbic systems, causing involuntary episodes of feeling like you could lose control.
- Hormone changes: Hormones play a crucial role in homeostasis and many bodily functions, which can affect the nervous, sensory, somatic, and limbic systems. Since stress hormones affect other hormones, and hormones can affect thinking and mood, hyperstimulation can cause a variety of thinking and emotional symptoms, such as feeling like you could lose control.
- Sleep disruption and fatigue: Hyperstimulation can interfere with sleep and tax the body’s energy resources harder and faster than normal. Sleep disruption and fatigue can dramatically affect thinking and mood, causing involuntary episodes of feeling like you could lose control.
As long as the body is hyperstimulated, it can cause involuntary episodes of feeling like you could lose control. Hyperstimulation is the second most common cause of feeling like you could “lose control,” “explode,” or “lose it.”
Furthermore, because of hyperstimulation’s dramatic effect on the nervous system, it’s often a cause of involuntary panic attacks.
Involuntary panic attacks can cause "out-of-the-blue" spikes of intensity that can feel like you are about to "lose control, "snap," "lose your mind," or go "hysterical." Because these episodes can come out of the blue, they can be misinterpreted to mean something more than they are.
Even though it might FEEL like you are about to lose your mind, lose control, or go crazy, you won’t. The worst that can happen is that you become afraid, and that’s it. There is NO link between being fearful and losing your mind or control.
As long as the body is even slightly hyperstimulated, it can present symptoms of hyperstimulation, including feeling like you are about to “lose it,” “explode,” “lose your mind,” or go ‘uncontrollably hysterical.”
3. Overly dramatic and anxious behavior
In addition to the above, one of the most common causes of this symptom is overly dramatic behavior, such as imagining the worst.
For instance, we often become overwhelmed when we think something is too much to handle. Feeling overwhelmed can present a feeling that you could “lose control.”
Then, feeling like you could lose control can cause additional thoughts of “losing it,” “going crazy,” or “exploding,” and all of its implications (embarrassment, uncontrollably hysterical, doing something uncharacteristic, and so on). These imagined threats can trigger more stress responses, creating a vicious cycle of one fueling the other.
It’s common for over-the-top anxious behavior to fuel fear cycles:
- Anxious thinking creates stress.
- Stress increases anxious thinking.
- Increased anxious thinking creates more stress.
- Increased stress fuels anxious thinking.
And so on.
These fear cycles can spiral quickly, making everything seem worse and easily causing feelings and fears of losing control.
4. Other Factors
Other factors can create stress and cause anxiety-like symptoms, as well as aggravate existing anxiety symptoms, including:
- Medication
- Recreational drugs
- Stimulants
- Sleep deprivation
- Fatigue
- Hyper and hypoventilation
- Low blood sugar
- Nutritional deficiencies
- Dehydration
- Hormone changes
- Pain
Select the relevant link for more information.
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Treatment
When other factors cause or aggravate this anxiety symptom, addressing the specific cause can reduce and eliminate this symptom.
When an active stress response causes this symptom, ending the active stress response will cause this acute anxiety symptom to subside.
Keep in mind that it can take up to 20 minutes or more for the body to recover from a major stress response. But this is normal and needn’t be a cause for concern.
When hyperstimulation (chronic stress) causes feelings of losing control, eliminating hyperstimulation will end this anxiety symptom.
You can eliminate hyperstimulation by:
- Reducing stress.
- Containing anxious behavior (since anxiety creates stress).
- Regular deep relaxation.
- Avoiding stimulants.
- Regular light to moderate exercise.
- Eating a healthy diet of whole and natural foods.
- Passively accepting your symptoms until they subside.
- Being patient as your body recovers.
Visit our “60 Natural Ways To Reduce Stress” article for more ways to reduce stress.
Recovery Support members can view chapters 5, 6, 7, 14 and more for more detailed information about recovering from hyperstimulation and anxiety disorder.
As the body recovers from hyperstimulation, it stops sending symptoms, including this one.
Symptoms of chronic stress subside as the body regains its normal, non-hyperstimulated health.
However, eliminating hyperstimulation can take much longer than most people think, causing symptoms to linger longer than expected.
As long as the body is even slightly hyperstimulated, it can present symptoms of any type, number, intensity, duration, frequency, and at any time, including this one.
Even so, since feelings of losing control is a common symptom of stress, including anxiety-caused stress, it's harmless and needn't be a cause for concern. It will subside when unhealthy stress has been eliminated and the body has had sufficient time to recover. Therefore, there is no reason to worry about it.
Since worrying and becoming upset about anxiety symptoms stress the body, these behaviors can interfere with recovery.
Passively accepting your symptoms – allowing them to persist without reacting to, resisting, worrying about, or fighting them – while doing your recovery work will cause their cessation in time.
Acceptance, practice, and patience are key to recovery.
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Short-term strategies
Even though eliminating hyperstimulation will eliminate chronic anxiety symptoms, including the fear of losing control, some people have found the following strategies helpful.
However, keep in mind that each person can have a unique symptom experience since each person is somewhat physically, chemically, psychologically, and emotionally unique. What might work for one person might not for another.
Recognize that this feeling results from overly anxious behavior or stress (acute or chronic). It’s NOT an indication of a mental collapse.
Almost everyone experiences feelings of losing control when their anxiety and stress are elevated. It’s part of the human experience.
The only difference is that non-anxious people don’t worry about it, whereas anxious people do. It’s not the initial thoughts of losing control that’s the problem. The problem occurs when we think that these thoughts are more significant and threatening than they actually are.
Any strategy that calms the mind and body will eliminate this feeling.
Such as:
- Relaxed diaphragmatic breathing – Relaxed diaphragmatic breathing can reduce the effects of the stress response, reducing the intensity and shortening the duration of this symptom. As relaxed diaphragmatic breathing calms you down, this symptom subsides.
- Calm yourself (contain yourself) – As we mentioned, calming yourself with calming behavior can reduce the effects of a stress response and, consequently, this symptom. As you become practiced at containing your thoughts and emotions, you’ll find that you have great control over your thoughts and emotions and, therefore, reactions and how your body responds and feels.
This is why “containment” is an important skill required for short- and long-term success and why it is one of the Seven Principles to Conquering Anxiety Disorder. We explain these principles in Chapter 6 in the Recovery Support area.
- Go for a leisure walk/mild exercise – Mild to moderate exercise, such as going for a leisure walk, can help reverse the effects of the stress response. As your body calms down, normal brain functioning returns, eliminating the strong thoughts of “escape” and “losing it.”
When you combine containment with mild to moderate exercise, the body can return to normal, non-emergency stimulation more quickly. As your body calms down, this symptom subsides.
- Distract yourself – Distraction takes the focus away from fears, making it easier to contain them. Pleasant activities, or being distracted with something interesting, can help take your foot off of the “anxiety accelerator,” causing the body to begin the recovery phase of the stress response.
As the body calms down from the stress response, thoughts have more clarity as the rationalization areas of the brain resume their normal activity. Feeling more in control of yourself will reduce and eventually eliminate notions of “losing it.”
Recovery Support members can read the articles “Natural Ways To Shift The Body Out Of “Emergency Mode” – Introduction” and “45 Physiological Recovery Tips” in Chapter 14 for more ways to calm the mind and body.
Recovery Support
The Recovery Support area of our website contains thousands of pages of important self-help information to help individuals overcome anxiety disorder, hyperstimulation, and symptoms.
Due to the vast amount of information, including a private Discussion Forum, many of our Recovery Support members consider it their online recovery support group.
Therapy
Unidentified and unaddressed underlying factors cause issues with anxiety. As such, they are the primary reason why anxiety symptoms persist.
Addressing your underlying factors (Level Two recovery) is most important if you want lasting success.
Addressing Level Two recovery can help you:
- Contain anxious behavior.
- Become unafraid of anxiety symptoms and the strong feelings of anxiety.
- End anxiety symptoms.
- Successfully address the underlying factors that so often cause issues with anxiety.
- End what can feel like out-of-control worry.
All our recommended anxiety therapists have had anxiety disorder and overcame it. Their personal experience with anxiety disorder and their Master's Degree and above professional training give them insight other therapists don't have.
If you want to achieve lasting success over anxiety disorder, any one of our recommended therapists would be a good choice.
Working with an experienced anxiety disorder therapist is the most effective way to treat anxiety disorder, especially if you have persistent symptoms and difficulty containing anxious behavior, such as worry.[5][6][7]
In many cases, working with an experienced therapist is the only way to overcome stubborn anxiety.
Research has shown that therapy is the most effective treatment for anxiety disorder, and distance therapy (via phone or the Internet) is equally, if not more effective, than face-to-face in-person therapy.[8][9][10]
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Prevalence
In an online poll, 88 percent of respondents said they felt like they could lose control because of their anxiety.
Recovery Support members can read more information about thoughts of losing control in the section “Dealing with the Fear of Losing Control” in Chapter 6.
Common Anxiety Symptoms
Additional Resources
- For a comprehensive list of Anxiety Disorders Symptoms Signs, Types, Causes, Diagnosis, and Treatment.
- Anxiety and panic attacks symptoms can be powerful experiences. Find out what they are and how to stop them.
- How to stop an anxiety attack and panic.
- Free online anxiety tests to screen for anxiety. Two minute tests with instant results. Such as:
- Anxiety 101 is a summarized description of anxiety, anxiety disorder, and how to overcome it.
Return to our anxiety disorders signs and symptoms page.
anxietycentre.com: Information, support, and therapy for anxiety disorder and its symptoms, including Fear Of Losing Control.
References
1. Chu, Brianna, et al. “Physiology, Stress Reaction.” StatPearls, 7 May 2024.
2. Godoy, Livea, et al. "A Comprehensive Overview on Stress Neurobiology: Basic Concepts and Clinical Implications." Frontiers In Behavioral Neuroscience, 3, July 2018.
3. Yaribeygi, Habib, et al. “The Impact of Stress on Body Function: A Review.” EXCLI Journal, Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, 2017.
4. Teixeira, Renata Roland, et al. “Chronic Stress Induces a Hyporeactivity of the Autonomic Nervous System in Response to Acute Mental Stressor and Impairs Cognitive Performance in Business Executives.” Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2015.
5. Hofmann, Stefan G., et al. “The Efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: A Review of Meta-Analyses.” Cognitive Therapy and Research, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1 Oct. 2012.
6. Leichsenring, Falk. “Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy the Gold Standard for Psychotherapy?” JAMA, American Medical Association, 10 Oct. 2017.
7. DISCLAIMER: Because each body is somewhat chemically unique, and because each person will have a unique mix of symptoms and underlying factors, recovery results may vary. Variances can occur for many reasons, including due to the severity of the condition, the ability of the person to apply the recovery concepts, and the commitment to making behavioral change.
8. Kingston, Dawn.“Advantages of E-Therapy Over Conventional Therapy.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 11 Dec. 2017.
9. Markowitz, John, et al. “Psychotherapy at a Distance.” Psychiatry Online, March 2021.
10. Thompson, Ryan Baird, "Psychology at a Distance: Examining the Efficacy of Online Therapy" (2016). University Honors Theses. Paper 285.