2018 – Lessons Learned

It’s the second weekend of 2019 and it’s been a lazy one. I’m sat bundled up on the sofa decked out complete in Harry Potter attire, a thick blanket, millions of pillows and a lovely cup of coffee:

Everyone in the house is ill but I seem to have got off lightly with this bug, having only been sent home early from work once this week and I blame that partly on having had vaccinations early that morning. I’ve taken this weekend for me to recover properly. Usually Sundays are my least favourite day of the week but I’ve spent so many of them over the last couple of months with friends, family, in recovery, or doing something enjoyable that I may have started to change the way I feel about the Sabbath day. Sometimes the best way to deal with something that has negative connotations is to create something new and better to associate with it, rather than burying your head in the sand and avoiding it.

Starting as I mean to go on

2019 has already been quite busy and I like to feel that I’ve started this year on the right foot, coming into the year with good friends, feeling positive about life and FINALLY getting my passport which means I can start to plan some adventures – I am seriously excited for this year, regardless of the many challenges that await me. Yet if you had asked me how I was feeling about life a couple of weeks ago, I would have told you something very different. I was experiencing extreme burn out from a pretty rough December and a pretty rough year – I had hit a wall that I honestly wasn’t sure I could get over. I 100% despaired, caught between a looming sense of hopelessness after yet more bad news and frustration that I was crumbling despite having survived a challenging year, but there are times when no matter how much you just want to keep going despite your world imploding, your brain and body just exclaim, ‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!’ and all you can do is feel all of those awful feelings. I was facing a week and a half of no work, something I have never had in my working life. Up until the last couple of days of work, I was surprisingly excited for Christmas and New Year, with lots of plans to look forward to and many MANY lie-ins to have. But Christmas is a time of year I usually struggle with and with everything that had been happening, I started to panic at the prospect of all of this time with no work to lose myself in. Thankfully(?) I had a lot of Christmas prep to do which afforded me no time to let my mind worry, but my body made every day a trial, with constant crippling chest pain, fitful sleep and always on the verge of tears – I cried a lot over the Christmas period. I ended up away for a few days with friends to see in the new year and it was definitely what I needed. I mean, it’s hard not to feel a little better when you get to chill out in a little place near the sea, wood burner going, while you’re curled up with a good book and a lovely dog!

A year of loss, of change and of growth

More often than not when I post on The Anxious Extrovert, I am reflecting on how I may have been feeling a year ago or how I would have once responded to a situation, and I have found that TAE has been great for tracking my progress with my mental health, which I guess has been part of the point of this blog. 2018 was the ultimate test of everything and some of my posts have talked about the payoff of CBT and therapy, as well as lessons I have learned just through experience and a better understanding of wellbeing: I have said it in a previous post that had the events of the last year occurred a few years earlier, I would not have coped. When I finally hit that mental wall near the end of the year, one of the few things that helped me get through it was the fact that I HAD survived what feels like the craziest year of my life, and much of it was possible thanks to all that I had done to work on myself.

The last year taught me much about loss and grief. I’m no stranger to these things, having been born to people who had me later in their lives, and sadly losing friends too soon in their own. Last year was a sad year as we lost my aunt Angela, and Dot, a friend who I had worked with for nearly 5 years at Asda – but nothing could prepare me for losing my mum. I’m not an expert on this, I learn something new about this process every day. What I can say with confidence is that is an experience that is unique to every person, every persons relationship is different, and that the 5 stages of grief are complete rubbish (for me, anyway). Every day I think about it, sometimes briefly, sometimes I recall everything so vividly that I am flooded with emotion as though I had just heard the news all over again. Sometimes it comes with no warning, or is an unexpected consequence. Very recently I had my passport interview and they asked a couple of questions about my mum – as I was heading to work afterwards, I was suddenly emotional. I also freaked out a few months ago when I thought I had a lost a receipt: the receipt was of the things I bought for her on the very last day I saw her and the thought of losing that piece of paper makes my heart hurt. The relationship we had was not a simple one and I have a few things to work through, which will take time, what I didn’t expect was to feel the way that I have and still do. I never understood the idea that grief becomes a companion, it never truly leaves you, and when this first began I certainly would not have described it as a companion! More like a malignant growth that fills your heart and mind with shock, pain, and constant reminders of what you have lost. Now I am coming around the idea as I learn to accept the moments when I suddenly think about the loss of my mum and the memories I have of her. It’s a process and I think it’s one that I will always be figuring out.

Loss can have an impact that goes far beyond grief. I didn’t suddenly wake up a new person with a whole new perspective on life, but I definitely feel differently about a lot of things. My priorities have changed and I feel more determined than ever to life live as fully as I can. Even though I still have the same every day struggle with my anxiety, I have a renewed determination to not let it rule my life (which is easier said than done some days). I’ve made some difficult decisions that I have struggled with and most likely will for a long time, but I am lucky to have wonderful friends and family that have and continue to support me. I will be completely honest and say that there are things that I cannot talk about right now. It’s a little bit because I have no idea how I would put it into words but it’s mainly because I cannot until things run their course. When I can I will because it’s such a powerful subject, not only for me but for so many others that I truly believe need to hear this story – it all comes back to WHY I do this blog. It may have started out as something to help me as I was nearing the other side of a dark time with my mental health, but it was born from the desire to share my experiences to help others.

It’s not all doom and gloom

Last year was hard and yet there has been so much good come out of it. After a difficult start to the year with my anxiety, I had decided to try some counselling again but I didn’t feel like I clicked with the counselor or that the sessions were doing anything for me. One thing she did do was to encourage me to take some time off work and use that time to think a little more about what I wanted to do. Well, after that I started a new job and it’s one of the best decisions I ever made! I learned a lot in my one year at The Coventry but moving to BCU has been a really positive move. I work with a great team who I am happy to call my Ask family and they have been such a pillar of support, more than I think they know! The super early mornings are tough but I like going to work, and when my mum first passed away, I wanted to be there, so I think that says a lot! I feel so much closer to my friends and to some of my family – something I have struggled with for many years is a sense of being disconnected and not really belonging anywhere, but my friends stepped up in amazing fashion this year: for the first time ever I didn’t feel alone. I have felt so loved and it’s so much more than I deserve, but it’s heartbreaking that it took something so awful to finally break that feeling. I cannot say enough about how amazing these human beings have been and I could not have got through everything without them. One of my friends got married and it was such a wonderful day! Another friend had her first baby, though I have sadly not yet met him. I’ve met new people who have helped me learn a little more about myself and what I might want from life… 2018 was a roller-coaster of a year but I am excited for 2019, even if it will also have it’s fair share of difficulties.

So what next? I have no real New Years resolutions because I never stick to them – I’m trying to do Dry January at the moment but I came very close to swiping one of my housemates beers earlier so I’m not sure how much longer that will last! But I’m turning 30 this year and you’re supposed to make a big deal out of that apparently. I had hoped to go to Australia for 4 weeks to celebrate the fact that my best friend (she lives out there) and I were both turning 30 but sadly I can’t do that anymore, so I still got my passport sorted and I plan to go to Vietnam for my birthday instead! I might not have resolutions but I have big plans to challenge myself this year and this is one of the biggest ones I can think of – I’m sure it’s a great idea as an anxious person to just go thousands of miles away for my first ever proper trip abroad… at least it will give me something interesting to blog about on here! I’m still learning lessons and I am sure I will have plenty more. I have a fair few things I want to do this year but I will save that for my next post.

Before I wrap up the first post of 2019 (woo), I just want to share this song. It came on the day before I got the news about my mum, as my friend and I were in the garden enjoying the beginning of what would be one of the best summers we have had in years. When we heard the line ‘Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good,’ we shared a look – I had opened up about my mum after she had gone into hospital and she had lost her mum several years ago. I had no idea that I would get that call the next day. Ever since then, I listen to this song in a whole different way, but I think it will always be relevant… they’re only wrong about one thing – my hair will be fine when I get to 40!

Everyone’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen)

Factory reset

Wouldn’t it be nice if we humans had a button we could press, or a sequence of movements we could perform, which would allow us to reset to our basic default settings? You know, when life gets a bit dramatic and you can feel it weighing on you, it’s just case of holding down all the buttons and resetting yourself to begin again.

Sadly, we don’t, although we do try various methods to get rid of some the things making us glitch or clog up our memory. I spent an entire day today just reading on the sofa, while snuggled under a blanket with a cup of tea, the sound of the rain outside, and it was fab. I actually cancelled plans with people which is very unlike me as I’m a pretty desperate human who likes to be around people, and I found myself not being as restless or distracted as I usually can be – it definitely felt like a factory reset day.

I won’t lie to you, I’ve tried other methods which haven’t been as successful or just been downright harmful, some of them I’ve done in the last month despite all the time and work I’ve put into developing better coping skills. I’ve spent a lot of time with people, which in itself is actually a good thing, especially when there was a time that I cut myself off from nearly everyone, but I haven’t allowed myself the proper downtime that I needed. I’ve been out drinking a lot and, well, drinking a lot, and getting away with no hangovers, over sleeping, not sleeping enough, not dealing with the everyday stuff like doing my washing and tidying up… I’ve done worse in the past, so this is good going but the past week my chest has felt like it is ready to implode and I’ve felt claustrophobic, regardless of whether I’ve been at home or around people.

Today I couldn’t ignore my mind and body any more and I’ve just relaxed at home. I’ve been distracting myself too much recently, drinking to help sleep, relax or forget, or immersing myself in the company of friends and work too much with no real time for myself. I’ve had a pretty big things to focus, even if some not pleasant, yet now they have gone, I’ve felt a bit lost and I know I need to face all the stuff that’s happened – I’ve been afraid to be alone with my mind. I’d started to become so much more comfortable in my own company but that had gone out of the window over the last couple of months. And you know what, today wasn’t so bad. I know everything is still there but I feel more like myself again and able to face everything that I need to.

Everyone has different ways in which they reset themselves: yoga, running, gaming, walks, cleaning… others not so great. Taking a proper week off, and having at least a day to almost completely switch off from social media, no music and no one really at home was definitely my reset today.

 

What’s yours?

Self-care

The last few weeks have taught me some big lessons in self-care.

I’m surprised to find myself even writing a post at the moment, for very real reasons that I am not yet ready to talk about more openly, but this is part of my self-care.

Today I did not feel like myself, I didn’t even feel like I was really there. I physically turned up at work but the actual me was trapped under a layer of serious fatigue and anxiety. I know it’s partly jet-leg from the weekend but I know it’s also very much to do with everything that is happening at the moment.

The weekend was fab, the best nights out are the impromptu ones and I definitely blew off some of the steam that is building and bubbling under the surface (I’m surprised I haven’t started sounding like a whistling kettle). I had a lot going on during those 2 days and I’m confident that my sleep didn’t reach double digits. I spent most the weekend connecting, and reconnecting, with the awesome humans in my life and it was worth the energy depletion I’ve suffered with today, but it’s made me hyper-aware of the madness that is going on under the surface.

Self-care is so important for mental wellbeing, not just the physical, and my skills and awareness of myself have been seriously tested. I’ve spent time reading, getting out, spending time with my friends and actually talking about how I’m feeling, not just occasionally blogging about it. I also know myself well enough to see I’m very close to falling back on old coping mechanisms, namely distraction, and today my mind and body angrily reminded me that I can’t ignore how I’m feeling – it’s dangerous, I’ve been there and I don’t really fancy going there again. I have been told that I am coping admirably and I’m surprisingly calm – ALARM BELLS GUYS – these things are not necessarily good things and once up a time a counsellor told me that being able to just brush myself off and just carry on, the thing that I thought was an impressive trait, was actually a huge part of why I came crashing down. Whoops.

I’ve only allowed myself a few brief moments to properly think and feel everything that has been happening. I kind of don’t have much of a choice at the moment and I’ve joked about scheduling a breakdown for mid-August because I’ll have the time for it then, I just worry that I may have pushed everything down too much by then. I’m trying hard to not let that happen.

Self-care is also letting my mind actually think but sometimes it can be too much at the moment. When I do I just feel a huge knot of emotions and thoughts, a lot of thinking about my life, and all the things I wish I did have the time and capacity for as a 29 year old who should be living their best life. They bump into periphery occasionally and get my attention, but then I just laugh and think about how I don’t have time.

The best self-care I have right now is my singing. When I was struggling with my deep depression I had almost completely stopped and I realised how much it had been helping me before. I completely lost my confidence in my abilities at the point though and it took a long time for me to regain even half the skill I had, and to find the joy and catharsis that I once gained from belting out a few songs. It’s been so therapeutic recently and spending time doing the things you enjoy is such an important part of caring for your mental health. Don’t get me wrong, I have moments where I think maybe a mad binge of alcohol, drugs and cigarettes might also do the trick but singing, surprise cake, old photos, sunshine, walks, meaningful post cards , books, awesome people, and sleep… I guess that will do just as well.

I do not have the words right now to describe just how grateful I am to and for everyone. Even the seemingly smallest of gestures has meant the world, and is a reminder of just how awesome humans can be 🙂 cheers!

Peace and quiet

Dear Brain, Chemical Imbalance, Toxic Thought  Processes, whomever it may concern,

Thank you for this moment of peace and fucking quiet! It’s been the most ridiculously noisy and chaotic time on the inside over the last few weeks. I’ve been feeling so shitty, low, pessimistic, lonely, exhausted, defeatist, bleak, anxious, nervous, resentful, irritable, angry, listless… the list goes on.

There’s been buckets of tears, and desperate messages at 4am, and desperate cover-ups to hide the public weepy moments.

There have been last minute plans and check-ins from friends, and the cute, beaming face of my littlest nephew.

And here I am in the most peacful spot I have found just outside work and there is quiet and there is stillness in my mind and body

I treasure these moments

Blogger’s Block (because let’s face it, I’m no writer)

I’ve wanted to write a blog post for a while now and it just hasn’t happened. In fact, I’ve been trying to write one this evening and all that has happened is I’ve leaned back in my chair, closed my eyes and listened to my music while intermittently venting to my friend. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, the hilarious thing is that I am now writing a blog post about not writing a blog post so maybe I should say I’ve been trying to get a coherent, focused post on a particular subject and it just isn’t happening.

It’s not for lack of writing; look!!!

Doesn’t really demonstrate the pages of scribbling I’ve been doing recently. I’ve had LOADS of ideas and they usually come to me when I’m either on the train, nipping to the loo at work, or on my walks to and from work. I’ve even written a little bit on the times I have these thoughts:

Good luck reading that mess

I have these bonkers inner monologues when I’m just gazing out the window (on the train, not at work) and I think, damn that’s actually quite good. But when I go to write it down, I just can’t capture the way I thought about it, or it takes too long before I can note it down and I’ve lost the essence of what I wanted to say.
Sometimes I spend ages writing in my notebook, for the words to never make it to here, the simple act of writing it down being therapeutic enough. Yet that isn’t really what this blog is supposed to be about and I’ve kind of lost my way with it a bit. Not having a set focus is being echoed in the lack of focus in my blogs. It was supposed to be all about how I manage life with anxiety, especially as someone who wants to let their more outgoing side out and yet it’s not really been that. It’s more like a monthly diary update of deep introspection, which is great in a way but not fulfilling the purpose of offering support and hope to those who have gone or are going through similar things.

Really, this blog is supposed to be a walk through of the challenges I face and how I’ve managed them, in the hope that it will give some guidance to those that might not know, even sharing in my failures or in my own lack of knowledge about the best way to do something (for me, that is – everyone’s situation is different). A great example would have been earlier this year when I ended up taking 6 weeks off work due to my anxiety, talking about how I felt about it, the discussions I had with my doctor, work, friends and family, and myself, as I muddled my way through it to the other side. Granted it was a really difficult time and something I found really hard to come to terms with at first, and also something I was unsure of publicly discussing in case my employers got the wrong impression about the things I was doing to get through it, but it’s something I could have written about privately and shared when I felt the time was right. Maybe I will now.

In all honesty I think I’ve withdrawn a little from talking openly. I saw a counselor for 6 weeks at the start of the year when I realised the decline from November was continuing and some of the stuff we talked about has made stop and think about the way I talk about my anxiety. Not in a bad way, she in fact encouraged me to write a book (apparently I have a story worth sharing, who knew), but because I was allowing my anxiety to define me. In fact, it was me. I’ve needed to time to think about how I talk about all of this.

Also, life happened. As always. Life and it’s damn curveballs. Things which have challenged who I am now, violently reminding me that they are still around.

It’s not all doom and gloom, as they say. I am actually a little proud of myself and it’s not often I will say that. It’s just that at the start the year I felt pretty shite and I thought that was it, I was going to feel like that for the rest of my life because I hadn’t stopped feeling that way for months, whereas now I actually have moments of complete peace – I haven’t experienced anything like that in years. Admittedly today isn’t a good day. I’ve been pretty sombre, deeply thoughtful and completely unable to get my game face on which has had the added effect of making me feel awkward and crappy at work because I’m a newbie trying to make a good impression, yet it just wasn’t happening today.

I love this view. The two cheesy inspirational quotes I have on the wall are two things I try to live my life by, yet they’re two of my biggest challenges. I also really love my little burst of creativity that I indulged in while I was off work – it’s the most creative I’ve been since GCSE art and even then my teacher told me my work was rubbish so… ner?

So, after whining that I haven’t been able to write a blog post, I’ll just leave this little ramble here. And hopefully I’ll get a little more of an idea about where I want to take this blog.

Time to set my alarm and face my 5:30am wake up call…

Letters to You

Dear You,

The future can never be known. It’s like a wall that is directly in the way of our vision that never allows us to see beyond the moment we exist in now. We feel we can plan for it – we create moments that we believe will definitely happen, such as me planning the words I write now, but these moments never quite happen how we imagine them to.
The truth is that the future is dark. Do not mistake that for hopelessness, it’s just a matter of fact. Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light  and that is where the future lies, just beyond it’s reach, just beyond our vision

What we can know is the past. We can see it stretching out behind us into infinity but like the future we can never touch it. We can see it all around us, like the echoes of the beginning of time humming quietly in the background of our universe, and we live in the consequences of it.

Which brings us to now.

Now is the only moment we can ever live in. Into the future we always travel, lighting it up as we go and bringing the future into the now. Now is the moment that has been created by the past, shaped by every now that has come before. Now is the only time we can ever touch, the only time we can affect the past and the future, simultaneously, occurring so fast that we never realise what is happening at every moment.

It’s now that I write to you, as I look back at your now and many others. The times you have lain there on your bed, staring into what seems like nothingness, when actually you are putting all that you have into trying to discern just a glimpse of what lies ahead so you can feel some relief from the fear of the unknown. What I would not give to be able to let you know that I am looking back at you during those moments at some point further along in that future that is yet to be lit up by your presence.  I have often looked back to you during many pivotal moments in my life and lightly whispered it’s going to be okay in the hope that it will be soft enough to float back to you. Maybe it has somehow and that’s why I am here. Because you knew never to give up.

I see you, that little girl. Afraid, lost, confused. I know you feel alone and abandoned, that you do not understand why this has happened to you and why everyone has left you with the monsters under the bed, your voice useless because of the storm that it can create. I know you feel that it’s all your fault, I know that you’re told it’s your fault and their word is law so it must be true, but how can it be? I know all you want is for someone to scoop you up into their arms and hold you, to tell you they love you and to make you feel safe, but everything is your fault so no one does…

One day you’re going to be surrounded by people who love you, who support you, challenge you and change you. They’re going to help you find the strength to step up and face not only the  monsters under the bed but the monster they made you make out of yourself.

And I see you, sitting alone in the dark of your home. YOUR home, a sanctuary that little girl could only dream of. Once again you’re afraid, lost and confused but now there is so much more, so much guilt for the pain you have caused. You’re going nowhere with your life and everything is your fault.
I know you cannot cope any longer with the pain you feel, the weight you carry. You can feel it crushing you, the past and your decisions, your heartache and regret. You’re isolated, forgotten and you loathe the person you have become. You’re an unwanted burden and to be gone would be a relief for those tasked with having you in their lives.
I know the only thing that stays your hand is how much you love your friend and not wanting to cause anyone any more grief by having to come home to deal with that.

One day you’re going to look in the mirror and you’re going to smile. You’ll smile because you will forgive yourself and you will love who you are. Because you know you’re not a burden but an essential part of so many lives, because you are worth something.

And I know this because you are me and I am you.

Without you I would not be me and I cannot thank you enough for all you have endured to arrive at this moment on the other side. What I would not give to reach out to you at your darkest points, just to hold you for a moment, to let you know you’re going to get to the other side and it’s going to be worth it. You will feel whole alone and yet you will feel part of something. You will find purpose and you will feel joy and you will feel these things in the simplest moments of life.

So I write this letter not just to you back then but for you in the dark, waiting to be brought into the light. For you who will have more battles to fight and more moments to reach out for. A letter that crosses all time, that reassurance that you can overcome.

Yours faithfully,

Me

Time To Talk

What a brilliant day to come back to Facebook!

Mental Health problems affect 1 in 4 of us, with many people having experienced some form of mental health issue at some point in their lives, and yet so many of us don’t talk about it or understand it. That being said, stigma surrounding mental health has lifted greatly over the years and a wonderful example of this is the huge difference in my own experiences. From first approaching a doctor 12 years ago after friends encouraged me to go and discuss what I was feeling, to my most recent visits, the level of understanding and empathy offered to me as greatly improved. 12 years ago my doctors dismissed my symptoms of anxiety because I could look her in the eye where as now the doctor listens, takes on board what is happening, and most importantly they take me seriously. Sadly I know this isn’t always the case, knowing those who have had terrible experiences with their doctors, but another wonderful example of how far we have come with understanding and stigma is that they had the wherewithal stand up and say ‘this isn’t good enough.’

That doesn’t mean we don’t need to do anything more. As someone who still battles their mental health and tries to do their part by being open about it, I can tell you there is still a way to go. Recently I have been going downhill and I have tried to do what I can to keep my head above water. I had been consistently physically unwell for 6 months which is unlike me and a fair few people knew that it was caused by a deeper underlying issue but I didn’t make the doctors appointment that I was being encouraged to make. Had it been anything else (or me to anyone else) like when I was concerned about my moles, I would have made the appointment in a flash. Sadly it wasn’t enough and I eventually drowned under the force of it. I struggled to talk about the extent of how bad it was with anyone. It took me to break at work for me to realise how bad it was.
A few people knew that I wasn’t at my best but the key element here is that I didn’t feel I could tell anyone the extent of what I was feeling. I felt ridiculous, weak, pathetic, stupid, and frustrated with myself because here I was again when surely I should be past all of this by now, and I thought everyone would think the same things. I’m not any of those things and most people don’t think those things of me, but right there is the power of stigma, even as someone who strives to be open, it’s still there enough to affect my ability to talk about and deal with my health.

Even as someone who has been dealing with anxiety and depression for many years I still have much to learn and understand about them and myself, just as much as anyone outside of these issues, and I’m grateful for the support and understanding that I have received recently. I’ve been lucky to have access to services through work which allowed me to be put in contact with a counsellor and have my first session in under a week of making the initial phonecall – that’s amazing and a luxury as well because there are a lot of services out there that people don’t know about or feel unable to access. The biggest tool that has helped has been TALKING and there is something powerful about having those conversations.
Without talking about what I have been feeling there was no way anyone could even begin to understand or help. By not talking, everything that had been bottled up ended up exploding when that little bit too much pressure was applied. Without talking I couldn’t begin to quite fully understand just why I had ended up back in that place again. And those conversations have a bigger impact than we sometimes realise – it deepens understanding, it lets those closest to you know that you need support, it can help you find the services you need that you didn’t know were there, it can lead to someone being able to support someone else better,  they may realise they may need some help themselves, or they may spot the signs and offer support to someone who may not know how to reach out.

Time to Talk Day is a hugely important day, helping to raise awareness of a subject that still needs that push, to help those suffering in silence realise they’re not alone – that’s why I do this blog – and to offer advice to those who want to help but don’t know how.

Remember, we can talk about it any day, any time, not just today. And if you want a chat, I’m here 🙂

And as always, thank you to every person that takes the time to read my blog and to support it either through wonderful messages, sharing my posts or just a like xxx

Click here to go to the Time to Talk website for a few tips on how to start those conversations

There is no off switch

I rarely have a moments peace. Even when the house is empty, the laptop switched off and no music blaring out of my room there is still the constant noise of my brain. We all experience this and it’s usually when we need our brains to switch off – who hasn’t had an existential crisis when they’re trying to drop off to sleep despite the fact that earlier in the day they put a sock in the fridge? But that noise is the constant buzz of my every day life and that noise is constant worry. Some days it’s quieter than others and every now and then I do actually get a day of peace but those days are VERY rare.

Yesterday one of my friends asked me about my anxiety: how did I know I had it? For him he understood that anxiety is something we all experience so he couldn’t comprehend someone saying that they HAD anxiety. I am not the best at describing things so I’m not sure I was really helpful in explaining but I appreciated the fact that he genuinely wanted to understand – note to anyone reading this, is’s actually OK to JUST ASK and if anything I prefer it, it shows you want to understand!
I talked about when I first just had a feeling that something wasn’t right which was when I was at college. I noticed how I could be extremely withdrawn and worried about saying something that would draw attention to myself, being unable to handle the jokes and conversation, and then there would be days when I felt weightless and nothing fazed me, I was like two different people. Those were the days that felt like a fog a lifted from my brain. Until college I don’t think I had ever experienced anything like it but I definitely think I was showing the signs, all I knew was that it just didn’t seem right. It was tiring and made me feel physically ill as I was worrying about each day, what would be said and how I would be. I went to the doctor with my concerns that I was suffering from anxiety but I was dismissed because I could look her in the eye. I just shrugged my shoulders and left but I wasn’t happy, I knew SOMETHING wasn’t right.

Over the years since then it’s become pretty definitive that I have anxiety and I am officially diagnosed with it having had various treatments to help me manage it but my friends other question is one that I have been asked or heard discussed many times: how did I know that my anxiety was actually a problem? And the answer to that is extremely subjective but the broadest answer I could give was that when it starts making it difficult for you to function in every day life, that’s when you know it’s a problem. But knowing when you’re struggling more than another person or what is considered normal is again very subjective because everyone has different tolerances. I knew my anxiety was a problem because of those days of feeling withdrawn but also when I was actually diagnosed unintentionally at 19 when I became depressed after breaking up with my long-term boyfriend. I was kind of pushed to go to the doctors when I wasn’t sleeping or eating and when my doctor sent me off to the hospital to speak to a specialist, they diagnosed me social anxiety! I was happy to have FINALLY been understood but it wasn’t what I was looking for at that time. But at the same time I didn’t think it was crippling my ability to function, I still managed everything and I was happily working my way up at work even if I did have the odd bad day with my anxiety. No, the worst was yet to come.

Now I can say that this isn’t social anxiety anymore, this is ANXIETY and it’s definitely affecting my ability to function in every day life. I don’t often get a moment of peace in my mind. I could almost accept the physical part of my anxiety, the shaking, the tight chest, the churning stomach, if I could manage the mental part of the anxiety. I can’t control the worry and I worry about everything, making it hard to get through the simplest of tasks without my brain blowing it way out of proportion, second guessing everything I do in every aspect of my life, which leaves me wide open to every negative remark that comes my way. All of this has been a lethal cocktail that has been pulling me down into the toxic thought process: I doubt myself as a person. I feel sorry for the people that have had to deal with me over the last couple of weeks especially those who have seen the super emotional side of me but emotional is something I have definitely been. I’m struggling with the sense that I am vague, that who I am is insubstantial, that I lack any depth and I’m just floating, not really belonging anywhere, and just being tolerated by the people around me rather than being truly connected to them. This isn’t the first time I have experienced this but this is the first time I have experienced this alone as I’ve essentially been in some kind of relationship for the last 6 and a half years, which isn’t me saying that I need someone but it’s the first time I haven’t got the guaranteed comfort when I feel bleak.
So much of this is my overthinking, over-analysing and over-worrying, my anxiety, which I know is part of the cause yet it’s easy to forget and start to believe everything I am thinking and feeling. I even sat and cried to my poor housemates, stating that I didn’t know how I was supposed to keeping getting up every day feeling like this. And I do wonder because waking up every day with anxiety makes me want to tear my hair out sometimes – it’s tiring and frustrating when you can’t think straight or function like most others around you. I feel like it saps me of my personality because I spend so much of my brain power trying to get through the day without screwing up too much or overthinking everything I say and do to everyone around me, to the point I let it mess up my weekend away to London which I had been so excited about. I’ve been reminded that this real crisis of identity has most likely been brought on by all the change that has occurred over the last few months and the fact that there are still ongoing things that I am currently dealing with. Those people are probably right but being the person I am I’m more inclined to say it’s just something wrong with me.

My brain has been 100% in overdrive over the last few weeks and sadly there is no off switch. All I can do is take each day as it comes but I have decided to go back to doing something I used to when I first started counselling, which is to take some time each evening to make a record of how I have thought and felt throughout the day. Just typing up this post has helped so I’ll see how it goes.

As always, thanks for reading 🙂 xxx

Recovery

Taking a day to recover after what has been a manic couple of weeks. Feeling a tad rundown and out of sorts this week, although I’ve been told by multiple people at work that I look well and I have a spring in my step!

I feel in a daze at the moment and even the familiarity of work isn’t helping with that. The weirdest part of it all is my anxiety; I’m physically in fight or flight mode but mentally I feel surprisingly calm. This isn’t the first time this has happened but when I mentioned this to my counsellor many months ago, she even seemed to think it was strange! My immediate thought was oh, God, there really is something weird and wrong with me (no jokes, please), so if anyone else has ever experienced this, please do let me know!

I know it’s just an adjustment period and I will settle in time, but I really would like a decent night of sleep. That’s not too much to ask is it? I’m reaching the point where I may fall asleep mid-transaction at work.

I’m very lucky to have people that have arranged this day off last minute for me so I’m going to try and use it wisely. I might take a stroll around, as long as the weather holds out, grab a few bits for my room, get paperwork sorted for my passport (officially the most expensive passport ever) but most importantly, just relax