Dealing With Anxiety

I just want to take the time to thank you for reading this piece. It’s not often I put myself out there in this way, and I debated for a while on whether to post it or not – but at the end of the day, anxiety can be a real issue for a lot of people, a serious medical condition that should have more attention and understanding from everybody. I’m still looking inwards, trying to understand it myself, and sometimes it’s a real struggle. I just hope if there’s anybody who feels the same that this might help them in some way. Once again, thanks for reading. - Will

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It's been just over three months since I've written anything new for either my Facebook page or my blog, www.saveuswp.blogspot.com. How time flies. I've sat in front of my computer for the better part of two months just staring, trying to think of anything to write about - a short fictional piece perhaps, or maybe a movie review of some kind, but no matter how hard I tried, the words simply wouldn't come.

At first I merely chalked it up to writers block, my old nemesis returning to make my life a misery once more. In an effort to inspire myself, I figured I'd go back and re-read some of my old blog entries at the end of March, see if anything clicked. I don't really make much of a habit of re-reading what I've posted, as I often write in the heat of the moment, but there was one previous entry that really, really resonated with me - This Is My Story - Opening Up (http://saveuswp.blogspot.co.uk/…/this-is-my-story-opening-u…).

In all honesty, I'd forgotten I'd even wrote that piece back in September 2015 - I was taken aback at how open and honest I was about my childhood struggles and where I was in life at the time. Honestly, I do see myself as a happy go-lucky kinda' guy most of the time, but other times I'm not, and I guess I wasn't when writing that blog entry. I attempted to cast my mind back as to what was going on at the time that could have caused me to feel such a way, but nothing really stuck out. Maybe it was angst, maybe it was frustration... maybe it was nothing?

Then I realised exactly what it was... something that has quietly plagued me for the longest time, since my teenage years that I very rarely, if ever, speak about. It was anxiety - that fear of the unknown, that struggle with not being in control of what's to come, that horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that something could go terribly wrong at any given moment.

I don't often talk about my anxiety problems, and to be honest, for a lot of people this may be the first time you're hearing about it. It's a testament to how good I am in some ways at hiding it, but also, the incorrect belief on my part that it's something to be ashamed of or embarrassed by. I look back on older blog entries out of curiosity, see if this kind of thing had been mentioned before - low and behold it had, but only briefly in a piece titled Enjoy The Silence back in October 2014 (http://saveuswp.blogspot.co.uk/…/enjoy-silence-understandin…):

"I think a lot, probably a lot more than a person usually should. I worry a lot about things out of my control, it’s a terrible trait but it’s just how I am as a person. I get very overwhelmed easy, my thoughts are sometimes a tad too much for me to handle, so sometimes I do retreat. I like my own company, because sometimes, I go off the radar – I need time to re-group and just re-focus my energies. This isn’t personal against anyone or anything like that, I am just wired in a way where sometimes I need to run away and escape from reality. Some people do this in a variety of ways, some helpful, some destructive… for me, I just stay away from people, stay away from nights out, stay away from everything basically. It doesn’t happen often, and it’s really hard for me to explain in any more real detail without dedicating an entire blog to it, but in all honesty, it’s not something I’m overly confident about discussing, at least not yet. I just wanted to explain why in future, you might not hear from me as often as usual. Just because I’m not posting blogs or statuses and tweets doesn’t mean I’m not busy. Just because I’m not smiling doesn’t mean I’m not happy. I am an energetic, happy-go-luck guy, but sometimes even I need time to relax and reset."

I guess now is as good a time as any to go into it. I'm nervous as hell talking about it openly, but hey, if this helps somebody else or maybe helps people understand it a bit more, then in my mind it’s totally worth it.

Not that it should come as much of a surprise but my anxiety issues stem from secondary school. I've gone into detail before about the bullying I had to endure at the time - there would be days where my anxiety would virtually cripple me to the point where I didn't want to get out of bed. I'd refuse to go to school entirely, because I was afraid of bumping into these kids or being subjected to more taunts or worse. That fear of not knowing how the day was going to pan out was unbearable from the age of 13-16. It was something that, as I neared the end of school and knowing most of these kids wouldn't stay on for 6th Form, I managed to start controlling - but the "damage" had already been done.

I've never really discussed this in great length before, so coming up with a prime example of how bad my anxiety is tends to be tricky... but take for example, a simple night out amongst friends. A joyous occasion right, fun and laughter and all that good stuff? Well, I know it's going to be that deep down, I'm in great company after all and it's something I've agreed to, whether it be a cinema trip or a night out to the pub... but then doubts creep in. I try to shake them off, but then I start overthinking - what if the night doesn't go to plan? What if a spanner is thrown into the works? Even the smallest of things, like potentially being late or not knowing everybody who is going to be there, becomes a really big struggle for me. It's frustrating, because I like to think I'm a sensible guy, I know that I'm overreacting, but I can't help it - and then that frustration grows, and grows.

I actually brought up an example to a work colleague of mine at the beginning of April just to get his take on it. It was a Monday morning, and I knew I had a few work cases leftover to deal with from Friday that day, but nothing too difficult or stressful... and yet as the morning went on, this feeling of dread began to come over me, which I laughed about when telling the story but at the time, I was really concerned - what if the cases weren't as straight forward as I thought? What if there were more than I remembered and I didn't have enough time? All this niggling doubts meant I started blowing the whole thing out of proportion in my head, and pretty much almost had a full-blown panic attack. I was late for work (I gave an excuse that my shower was acting up), as I needed time to compose myself.

My colleague turned and looked at me, a smile on his face as if trying to be reassuring, and said "Sounds like anxiety to me, man. You been to your GP?"

I just thought I was the worrying type, or perhaps everybody felt the way I did on occasion, but the way my colleague put it so simply opened my eyes. Sure, I was worrying over nothing and it was something I could laugh off afterwards, but I needed to figure out why I was worrying in the first place. It all seemed to click. I re-read those blog entries and it seemed to make sense. I used to think anxiety was just a brief state of mind when somebody is panicking, but my colleague again chimed in "Nah dude, people can suffer from anxiety all the time, like really badly. You should see your doctor if you think it's that bad."

I'd never even stopped to consider if it was that bad, but in hindsight... yeah, it was. Not nearly as bad as say a decade ago in secondary school, but there were times where my anxiety would just overwhelm me. Now, anybody who knows me knows I hate going to the doctors - I'll put if off till the bitter end if I have to - but on this occasion, I made the right call and visited my GP. I didn’t tell anybody, not my friends, not my family (not even my Mum), nobody – because I still didn’t understand it and truth be told, I wasn’t sure anybody else would either.

My doctor was fantastic as always - he listened to everything I had to say for a good 15/20 minutes, and I basically told him what I've told you guys this blog entry. By telling him everything, in a sense, I felt a great relief, but whilst I was sitting there, I started getting overwhelmed again. I actually broke down a little. He waited for me to compose myself, and then reassured me that I wasn't the only one who suffers from anxiety - the figure is 1 in 4 people. That floored me, I didn't realise it was so prevalent.

My GP pointed to my head and said "It's all up there.” which I knew to be true. It was own self-doubt, all my own doing in a sense, hence the frustration (which used to manifest itself into anger in my teenage years) that I felt. Everything became so much clearer, helped me understand why I sometimes acted the way I did, why I'm sometimes so closed off from people, that fear of the unknown.

This was in early April during my two weeks off of work, and since then, I feel a lot better in myself. My GP didn’t prescribe me with anything, he told me to go read up on anxiety and a few self-help courses online, and to contact him if it gets any worse. Luckily, it hasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, there are some days or evenings where I find my brain working overtime but I just try to breathe, relax and let things take its course. It's my longing and desire to ensure everything goes well that brings it about, but I'm beginning to understand that you can't control every aspect of your life. You sometimes have to roll with the punches best you can, and let life take its course.

This is especially true for the aspects of my life I previously mentioned in my Crossroads piece (http://saveuswp.blogspot.co.uk/…/crossroads-job-girlfriend-…), which I posted a mere month before the This Is My Story – Opening Up blog (looking back I don’t think it’s a coincidence) - I wanted to take action regarding my job, my living situation and my love life. In a lot of ways, I've done that, but there's only so much you have power over. My job is there as long as there's a position open and I work hard. The living situation is always going to be an open book, all about timing and what is right for me. The love life comes and goes, I just have to play my cards right and hope for the best. That fear of the unknown associated with all three is still there to some degree, but I manage it best I can, because if I don't, then it all falls apart.

I’m still learning to deal with my anxiety, but as each day passes, I feel like it’s getting better and better. Long may it continue to do so.

Will