I thought long and hard about publishing this post as it
is not my usual style of blog post not to mention a lot of it is VERY personal but
if it means reaching out to just a few people and helping them in any way shape
or form then that would be enough for me.
I am in no way claiming to be an expert on mental health
nor am I asking for pity, it is merely to raise awareness and lighten the load
for me, almost like a journal, a bit of therapy.
A few weeks or months down the line I may choose to
delete this post (and hoping I will be in a better place) but for now I wanted to share this post. It is a long post I
must say so you may wish to grab a drink and snack if you want to read on right
till the end....
Truth be told I have always been a bit of a worrier and
have always displayed signs of anxiety; I would be quite pedantic some would
argue over the most trivial of matters. I am not referring to the simple
planning of a girly night out and stressing over what outfit and shoes to wear
as let’s face it most girls today do, it would be something simple like
stressing over something I had to do, a few errands I had to run, having to
face a certain someone, planning one of my kids birthdays or if they became
sick, dreading a presentation or interview I had, worried about the future and
finances, an overgrown garden or packing for a holiday amongst other things, I
would start packing at least a few weeks beforehand at the fear of not packing
everything I had needed/wanted and the fear of forgetting something. I would
get this nervous stomach over pretty much everything and I often thought I was
abnormal for feeling like this.
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I was stuck in a
dead end job which I gradually began to hate, my overall confidence and self
esteem hit an all time low, even though I knew I was performing well within my
role. I wore frumpy clothes and hardly took any pride in my physical
appearance. When a position came up for another role within the same
organisation located within the Customer Care team I jumped at the chance. I had
found a line manager who was a people’s person, who took care of our well being and was fully supportive with any issues we had, whether that was within work
or outside. Gradually my confidence and self esteem began to grow, I started to
spend more time applying makeup and made sure I looked presentable and focused
on improving my performance at work. I would often have a laugh and a joke with
my colleagues and I realise now those were my ‘happier’ days, I was just
glowing. As they say, when you are genuinely happy, you just glow differently don’t
you? I came to work happy and went home happy. It was simple as that.
There was a period shortly after that where we had a few
changes made at work, at first I assumed my anxiety was just from the
transition of moving teams. I attributed my depressed
thoughts, nervousness in social situations, newfound irritability, and constant
worrying to a variety of factors.
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As the days went by, I started to realise
these feelings and thoughts were not going away, rather than having the ability
to control my own thoughts, my thoughts were in fact controlling me. Although,
I had a good working relationship with the majority of now my former colleagues
and had a few good friends, was performing well at work and socialised often
outside of work, inside I still felt lonely, unhappy and anxious pretty much all
the time. I could not remember the last time I had felt genuinely content
within myself.
It was only until my line manager and a few close
colleagues had picked up that I wasn’t ‘my usual bubbly self’ or appeared
‘distant’ that I had gotten in touch with a confidential help line that was
offered as part of the health services at work. After one brief phone call, I
realised the idea of opening up to someone, a complete stranger, that too over
the phone, didn’t really appeal to me and was not going to solve my problem. I
would much rather talk face to face with the three colleagues that understood
me (and could relate), I found it to be much more beneficial and it helped me
to some extent.
I would go through periods where I convinced myself I was
fine and was just overreacting, but then there were times where I did not want
to leave the house and face people, I did not particularly want to socialise
much nor did I want to be alone and feel lonely, it was a constant game of back and
forth. It was frustrating and tedious and I often
felt ashamed of feeling like this.
Some nights, I would wake up in a sweat, not being able
to breathe, gasping for breath, as if someone was suffocating me, I felt
trapped. I realised later it was all the anxiety and could have possibly been a
short anxiety attack who knows. I would replay most conversations I had with people
during the day in my head, wishing I had said or did things differently, or if
they were the slightest bit rude to me, I wished I had defended myself better, overplaying
it all and obsessing over the smallest things. When I would be surrounded by
people I would block out everything and laugh and joke, the majority of the
time, the joke would be on me but in a funny sort of way I liked it, it was
good character building not to mention help me forget how I was really feeling
inside. It was only when I was alone, my thoughts would all come rushing to me
at once, I would just feel numb and have this constant heavy feeling in my
heart.
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My appetite decreased, I was one of those people that during
periods of stress, I could hardly stomach any food. I reduced my time browsing
on Instagram massively; did I really want to see happy pictures of people or
their twenty random holiday snaps whilst I felt like this? A constant reminder
of what I was currently lacking in my life? How much I had wanted to be like
them or to be carefree? Not that I was not or could not be happy for those
people, but it didn’t help me feel any better. I was afraid of failure but had
no urge to be productive in any way. In my head I had all these ideas of what I
wanted my life to be like or what I wanted to do but failed miserably at
bringing those ideas to life, at the same time envying those that were able to quickly
turn their ideas into reality.
The sad reality was not many people understood why I felt
the way I did not even my partner (through no fault of his own), the very few
that did understand would often talk to me relating to their own personal
experiences, others would simply tell me I worried too much and that I needed
to ‘snap out of it’, if someone had complained of the effects of having asthma
or diabetes would they be told to snap out of it too?
From time to time, I needed constant reassurance and
clarification. I felt I needed to be ‘liked’ by everyone; I was a slave to
public perception and often felt worried and paranoid about what they thought of me, some even
thought I was annoying because of my constant need to be reassured and have
things clarified but I just could not help it, being annoying was certainly not
intentional.
To this day, my anxiety has not been medically confirmed
by a medical professional, I refuse to take medication to ease it as I want to
overcome it naturally even if it took me weeks, months or a year. (By the way,
I am not saying there is anything wrong with taking medication for it). I
genuinely believe my anxiety falls into slight borderline depression, there is
a very thin line between the two and it is very easy to get the two confused.
What I have learnt however is that having anxiety is
quite common today and lots of people claim to suffer from it, I have come
across big social media influencers and Youtubers with a large following, many
of whom I follow who claim to battle with it too. Thankfully more and more
awareness of it has been raised through the media and in general life and it is
reassuring to know that I am not alone in trying to combat this horrible soul
destroying condition.
My only advice to others feeling or showing signs of any anxiety
is not to sweep it all under the rug. As a society, we are often told that
anxiety is not a big deal and that symptoms can be controlled with an on and
off switch. Psychological disorders are created in
your brain. It is not something you can always control or easily fix yourself.
If you have read all the above (well done for getting to
the end!) and can relate to it to some extent all I can say on the matter is
that you are not alone. The bottom line is we all deserve to live a happy and
worry free life.
