When mine gets really bad, it’ll feel like a slow buildup of tension that is quickly released without my control. Almost like an attack. In the past, it’s actually felt like a shock as well.
But it sounds like NT people I’ve talked with don’t see it like that 🤔 and frankly neither does the internet at large 🥴
To me it feels like an inability to do something, like trying to click on a greyed-out text option in a game or something. It'd be like if you tired to move your arm and it just didn't work and stayed still no matter how hard you tried, like being paralyzed. Sometimes it gets bad enough where it feels like completely panic where my brain is screaming at me to leave what ever situation I'm in and that's the one and only option I have, although that's rare. There's always an aspect of fear to it, but only actual panic when it gets bad enough
I feel like I have learned helplessness preventing me from having normal panic now from 5 million undone imaginary homework assignments and texts i didn't answer and fake cold war anxiety from being a neoliberal child so now I just shut down when I'm truly afraid. I don't try to concoct a wild escape plan unless I can truly make a break for it like, hearing sirens and jumping over a fence, real escape. But concocting wild lies and explanations isn't something I can do off the cuff now sadly.