Life With Anxiety

It’s often a subject that is brushed over. Never talked about enough. But as anyone knows when you suffer with any form of a mental illness, you can’t help but feel isolated or alone. In some ways you often feel obligated to keep it to your self, and then still you want to open up and pour your self out to someone who is willing to listen.

For the past 5 years I have become very good friends with this cycle. I am 19. I have anorexia nervosa, depression, bulimia, and anxiety.

I am at the tail end of some, but my anxiety has been with me my whole life. When I was younger I would worry my self silly over the little things. If the moon was too big I’d go home and stay awake all night worrying of what the consequences might be. But life goes on and bad tendencies tend to fade.

5 years ago when I became very ill with my anorexia it all resurfaced. The major anxiety and the fear of anything. I’d worry about dying every night, and with the anorexia I would obviously worry about getting “fat” again. It was a vicious cycle that would never end.

For years I worried about the apocalypse, bombs, air raids, and always expect the worst. It wasn’t until 3 years ago, with the death of a close friend I pin pointed my fears. Death. It’s where it all led to. I used to worry the moon was too big, because what if that meant the earth was going to crash into it and we would all die. Everything that was unrealistic, became real to me.

As I got older and the stress of school and college settled my anxiety gradually took the back seat.

Unfortunately it didn’t last for long, on April 2nd last year, my best friend passed away. This brought back all my fears of what happens after? But at the same time I felt so selfish worrying about me when I wasn’t the one who was hurt. So I tried redirecting my fears, and being productive and making the most of life. I got a job and I had a house to live in, so life went on.

Last May I had an accident which caused severe damage to my arm. I was very lucky to survive considering I had damage to my veins, muscle, nerves and tendons. Recovery involved reconstructive and plastic surgery, months of physio-, and a mental scar. And as you can guess, my anxiety became worse than ever.

This time the pain had happened to me, and it unleashed a fear that I had never had before. It was possible, the possibility of me getting hurt was possible, so I didn’t go near public transport, I didn’t go outside, I didn’t drink, I didn’t put myself in any situation that could potentially hurt me.

As you can imagine I became extremely depressed and isolated. My brain started to create pain. Chest pains were heart attacks. Headaches were brain tumours. I wasn’t even safe in my own house. I was driving myself insane. Then came the panic attacks. All day every day. Causing chest pain, which made the anxiety of having a heart attack worse.

Numerous trips to the hospital always confirmed it was anxiety. But every time it happened, I just went back to be told the same thing. It started to feel as if my brain was on fire. I moved houses, I moved towns, hoping to leave my fears behind, but they didn’t. They came with me and just made themselves worse. I wanted to be rid of this. I am strongly against medication so that wasn’t an option from the get-go. My mum suggested hypnotherapy. So I gave it a go. I went to this ladies home, poured my heart out about my issues and then tried to relax. It went ok. I didn’t get completely knocked out as I feared, but it was comforting to have someone there as you faced your own fears in your mind.

I left feeling somewhat relieved, excited to see the results. But then a 2 hour panic attack struck. I was devastated. Little did I know, that was the last panic attack I would have that week.

My panic attacks gradually disappeared. I was just left with the anxiety and the fears. A few weeks later when I was sitting in my lounge, my brain convinced me that my anxiety was actually just me going crazy. Which of course, made my anxiety worse. I called my dad and told him to come over. I sat in his car for two hours, and cried and let loose. I told him everything, why I was crying at that moment, how my brain had been telling me that everything and anyone was a weapon and it eventually came about how badly I wanted rid of this.

It was almost as if a lightbulb turned on. Only I could stop my anxiety. No medication. No hospitals. No one else but me. I turned to my trusty Amazon prime. Random I know but I turned to the internet for help. In the search engine I typed “anxiety” and clicked enter. The first result was the one thing that saved my life. Dr. Bach’s emergency spray: £6.89 and it would be there tomorrow – Great. I left my dads car feeling relieved. I told someone everything, I finally let everything out that had been bubbling away inside of me fuelling everything to get worse.

The next day this spray arrived. I had no high expectation whatsoever as it was herbal and reasonably priced. So all I had to do was wait for my head to start acting up.

When it did, I used this spray and within 10 minutes I had completely calmed down. I was ecstatic but very confused. It couldn’t have been mental, as I was doubtful of it succeeding anyway. So I gave it a second go, I decided to try getting on a bus. As I started to burst into tears, I used my spray and I made it the rest of the bus journey. Small steps yes, but it slowly started giving me my freedom and sanity back.

Everyday I used this spray until my anxiety slowly disappeared. Eventually there was less need for the spray. Not long after my anxiety was taking a back seat and I started to forget about it. Anytime it came back, this spray had taught me that my anxiety was not real. It showed me how easy it was to get it to go away, so I tried getting my episodes to go away all on my own. No spray. I trained my brain to make its own defence system. My anxiety was powerless now.

Yes sometimes still, my anxiety will come at me fully loaded and I will have a bad day. But one day out of thirty is better than six days out of seven.

I encourage you to talk to someone. I would never have found my saving grace if I hadn’t spoken to my dad. I would never have spoken to him if I hadn’t gone out to his car. I would never had gone out to his car if my anxiety had convinced me I was clinically insane.

So thank you Anxiety. You saved my life.