Thursday 22 November 2018

#Myanxiety

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.

Source: Google Images

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. 

Source: Google Images
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.

Source: Google Images

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.

Love and Lipstick

xxx