Hearing others hyperventilate...?

[ThousandMiles]

Is this a problem for anybody else?

Whenever I get panic attacks, difficulty breathing always seems to happen. But I've noticed that if I hear somebody else hyperventilating, or breathing really heavily/irregularly/weirdly, it makes me feel very uncomfortable and start to hyperventilate. 

E.g., in a recent exam, the girl in front of me starting jokingly "hyperventilating", and it induced a panic attack (I managed to control it but it was scary, suddenly my breathing went weird). And today, my psychologist was talking about it and then randomly demonstrated, and I started to have difficulty again. 
This has happened a few times before.

Is this normal? Any advice??

[JessF]

Hello ThousandMiles, it sounds like you have found something that triggers an anxiety attack for you.  Have you ever been in - or seen - one of those situations where (and forgive the mental pictures) where someone throws up and it causes other people around them to throw up as well?  Our bodies and brains can react in strange, 'copycat' ways sometimes.  Talking to your psychologist about it would probably be the best way to get advice about how to cope with it, but I would suggest that it might be worth talking to your school or university about your condition and see if it is possible to take your exams in a separate environment.  There is no reason that your study should suffer because of this.

[ThousandMiles]

Thanks for the reply!

I hadn't thought of it like that (the nausea thing), but I guess that's a good way of explaining it. 
And I am in the process of applying for special provisions to sit the exam separately. Thanks for the suggestion anyway, though ^_^