When I started this blog, I almost decided full stop that I wasn't going to mention my anxiety disorder, but the more I think about it, the more I battle with myself. After all, I want this blog to be as much a personal diary as a public one, I want to look back in a years time and see exactly what I was doing, how I was feeling, and whether or not I've made any progress.
These past couple of months have been quite the struggle, I want this to be an outlet, so I can't really be honest with my readers or myself until I face one of the hardest parts of my story so far.
In april 2013 I found myself in A&E, I remember staggering into my mum and dad's room begging them to call an ambulance, something serious was wrong with me, I needed help, I've never felt so sure that I was dying in my life. I remember lying on my parents bed when the paramedics arrived. Everything around me appeared blurred, the only thing I could hear was my heartbeat and the way that it seemed to be skipping between 100 miles per hour and nothing at all. I couldn't breath. My whole body was shaking. I felt as though I had a kind of pressure pushing down on my whole body and crushing me into the ground. I thought I was having a heart attack. When I finally got every test possible taken and spoke to a doctor, they told me I had, in fact, had a panic attack. A PANIC ATTACK. I had just had what was to my knowledge and full belief a close encounter with death and they tried to pass it off as a panic attack. Did I believe them? I sure as heck didn't. Instead I spent the next few days googling what possible types of cancer or thrombosis or heart complaint I may have had. I know it sounds insane, but bear with me on this one.
Of course, it didn't take me long to realise that everyone I encountered agreed too that what I had experienced was in fact a panic attack. I remember one lady saying to me 'You would be amazed at what your mind can do to your body. It's terrifying'. I think that was the first thing that really resonated with me. Terrifying. That is exactly what it was. I was in no way prepared at that point, though, to believe that what happened to me was in my head. It was real. It was terrifying. It was definitely real.
As you can probably gather, it wasn't long before something similar happened again. I felt it start the same. Tight chest. Unsteady heart beat. Everything got loud and then very silent. I couldn't see. I didn't want to see. I wanted to run. Because this time, I knew that it was real, I knew that I was dying. I was even more scared this time because I had known all along there was something serious that the doctors had missed. I cried a lot. James took me in his arms but I couldn't answer his questions, I couldn't open my mouth to speak. And then it passed. It faded out and I was left in a state of destress and relief. I started to wonder what I would have to ask the doctor to get a brain scan, I felt like a walking time bomb, something was terribly wrong with me and I needed to find out what it was. I needed to know the truth.
When I visited the doctor, though, she informed me again that my symptoms were totally normal and matched panic attacks perfectly. She prescribed me with some Beta Blockers and said that she would arrange for some therapy. I still didn't really believe her. I did not have a mental health problem. What was going on was not in my head, it was real. The more I worried and fretted, the more frequent the panic attacks became. I was crippled by them. I was in constant fear of death. It sounds extreme, but at the time I remember being terrified to sleep incase I wouldn't wake up, terrified to get on the train to see my fiancé because there would almost certainly be an accident or a terrorist attack, It took me forever to cross the road, I remember once even being sat in the cinema and being certain it would get bombed. I was so convinced that I was going to die in some manner, I cried myself to sleep every night, and was plagued with nightmares when I did sleep.
It was then called to my mind that I had always feared death, I had always worried that I was going to have a horrible accident or my parents wouldn't be alive when I got home from school. I remembered being six years old and sitting in the reading book library and crying because I hadn't told my mum that I loved her that morning and now she would never know. I have strong convictions and certain beliefs about what will happen when I die, so that wasn't the thing that scared me. It was the thought of leaving my family behind or living without me, I couldn't deal with it. By the time a letter came through the post with an appointment with the Cognitive Behavioural therapist, I was so confused about what was going on in my head and why my body seemed to be shutting down, I figured it was time I tried to get some help, I still wasn't convinced that It was the kind of help I needed, but the people I loved were getting desperate, and so I went along with it.
On my first appointment I sat with James and he helped me as the therapist debriefed me, delved into parts of me and my behaviour that I hadn't even noticed were there, I had thought in this critical manner for so long that I figured that it was normal. I was diagnosed with health anxiety, separation anxiety and generalised anxiety. I explained how real the pain was when I had these so called panic attacks, and she told me all of my symptoms without me having to explain them. It was then I realised that maybe the doctors were right, it was a relief to know that she'd seen it before and I wasn't the only one.
The therapy, for me, was a life saver. I don't know if it's for everyone, but it helped me to adjust to the way I thought. It helped me turn the fear into something positive and to accept that sometimes it would just be hard, but that was okay, because it would never be impossible. My therapist proved to me that I wasn't dying through medical reports which also helped. I started to feel like myself again. I think that I got help early enough for it to make a difference. Even though to an extent anxiety was something I had suffered with throughout my life in different forms it is common for it to surface and show it's ugly face in your late teens, so discovering it and dealing with it within the same year made a huge difference to my road to recovery.
Over a year on and I am still recovering. I might always be. I had a blip a couple of months ago that has lasted on through to now, it's been a battle for me, but I know I can get through it. It's taken me a while to realise the importance of being as happy as possible in my career. I've realised that I can't do twelve hour days. I know lots of people can, but I can't. I need more control, which is why I made the decision to go self employed and pursue my photography; Something I love and something that I can control fully. I need to live my life on my own terms. I spent a long time thinking that I should live my life in a certain way because people said it should be that way. I had a job that lots of people would LOVE and I should be grateful. I'm a people pleaser. It's only in the last few weeks that I've realised that the only way my health is going to improve is if I choose to do only the things that I love, so that I am in control of what I am doing, and this is where I will record my journey.
I'm sorry if this post is too long, but I felt all the details involved needed to be included. I have been worried that I shouldn't post this, I see comments on youtube videos so often saying that people only talk about anxiety because its in fashion, which is absolutely ridiculous, but I was scared I'd be labelled in the same manner. However, the reason anxiety appears to be 'fashionable' (it makes me angry just typing that) is because people are finally talking about it, and I think that it's so important that they do. This is my story and the way I experienced anxiety, everyone is different, some people have more or less extreme cases, but I hope that you can see that it is very real and I guess I hope that it helps someone.
No comments:
Post a Comment