Anxiety
- Lucy
- Jan 31, 2021
- 7 min read
I was fourteen when I had my first panic attack. I was in a McDonald's on one of the Greek islands, unable to breathe or swallow my food because I was crying so hard. I didn't know it was a panic attack at the time, but a few years later my mum told me that she knew then what it was and the only priority was to get through it. Even now, it's the first time I can recall feeling significant anxiety over nothing (at least I think nothing, there could've very easily been a trigger for it that I am now unaware of) and the moment I consider as the 'beginning' of my dealings with my own mental health.
I didn't even really understand what anxiety was for the longest time. I knew people suffered with depression, eating disorders, or PTSD, but anxiety in my eyes was just something everyone had. And it is, to an extent, but I never realised that anxiety disorders existed as they do. To talk fully about it I really have to talk about everything I've experienced because of it with complete transparency as I think that is the only way to not only explain what I have personally had to deal with, but also in the hopes that it may help someone else deal with what they are experiencing or have experienced.
I think my initial triggers came from the pressure of knowing I needed to perform well in school and, quite frankly, the fear of having to be around certain people at school. I can barely recall being the ages of 15 and 16 because I don't want to remember those years of my life; I don't share the experiences many of my peers do because my mental health got in the way so much. From the beginning of Year 10, my own anxiety began to spiral out of my control to an extent that I now find hard to believe. My days for the next two years tended to follow the same pattern- wake up for school, feel physically ill, spend the time at school 'vibrating' (that's something I'll get on to later), not eat my lunch, go home, sleep. Repeat. Every school day for two years my daily routine was exactly the same, and it was until nearly three-quarters of the way into this I realised something was seriously wrong. Here's the thing, when bad habits start to feel normal to you, it's unlikely you'll notice that they're bad habits. I never thought there was anything wrong with how I was feeling or behaving because it was just who I was at that time in my life. It's weird, looking back.
The impact of anxiety didn't end there for me, especially when it came to education. I barely got through my GCSE's and, when I did, I didn't even know whether I wanted to go to Sixth Form for my A-Levels. I was terrified. Not necessarily because of the people there or the work but existing had become an ordeal for me. I couldn't go a single day without anxiety getting in the way. I spent most of my time catastrophising even the tiniest of things and putting myself off of everything.
I think the best way I can describe it is that there were two versions of me trapped in the same head. One of those wanted to just live life and the other couldn't do anything without knowing every possible outcome or consequence. Here's one of the hardest truths I've had to learn-- people don't always want to stick around for your bad moments, and it's not their fault. I lost so many friends in the early stages of dealing with anxiety because I didn't know how to deal with what I was feeling and it wasn't their job to deal with me, and this more often than not resulted in distance and then (this might be the deepest way to put it) absolutely nothing. It's not like anxiety just exists in your own head and nobody else is touched. It radiates off of you, I think, into all parts of your life.
The effects weren't just limited to my friends either; my family had to deal with seeing me come home and cry most evenings, refuse to tell them what it was, and become frustrated with them for bothering me. I got upset when my mum told me she was speaking to school, when my dad said I needed to see a doctor and when my older brothers stopped trusting me when I said I'd already eaten. Every relationship in my life, big or small, was tainted in some way. I was convinced there was nothing 'wrong' with me. It took my mum sitting me down and being incredibly real with me- this is something that will undoubtedly come up time and time again- that encouraged me to start dealing with things properly. So I did.
Things didn't just miraculously get better. I think something people have to keep in mind is that mental health isn't something that affects you one day and doesn't the next, it's like an ebb and flow of good then bad days. Sixth Form was easier for me than the previous three years but it wasn't easy. I still had plenty of days where I felt physically ill, days where I spent most of my time out of lessons in our study area, and even periods where I considered just leaving altogether. I was 18 and I still didn't have a grasp on things because I hadn't yet learnt what worked best for me, but that's okay too. You figure things out in your own time.
It's not all just mental symptoms or mental blocks, either. Physically, my anxiety has presented in some obvious and some really strange ways. The obvious-clearly- aren't surprising; feeling physically sick, stomach aches and hives on my arms and legs. Clear symptoms of someone that is incredibly worried over... sometimes nothing, but that's anxiety. The less obvious? Being unable to focus my eyes, struggling to find the right words when speaking, and, my personal favoruite, vibrating. The number of times I've told people my nose, fingers, tongue and countless other body parts are vibrating is actually funny at this point, because explaining what I mean is next to impossible. I didn't even realise those were physical symptoms of anxiety until I was 19 years old and had been dealing with it for nearly four years. Don't ignore weird things your body does when you're stressed; it's all in the fight or flight response!!
The past year has been the best for me in terms of learning to deal with things, but also in terms of surrounding myself with the right people. I never realised how much your own environment could affect your mental health until I moved to a new city for University- away from things that used to make me incredibly anxious- and saw improvements in my overall feeling. It wasn't like I stopped feeling stressed or anxious for good, but these became things I felt less often. That's also not to say things never got bad again; they did, but it was through this I learned how to handle things better.
One of my biggest pieces of advice- although this is actually something my mum told me, I'm stealing it- is to put everything into perspective when you start to feel the anxiety building. This has consistently helped me to ground myself, especially over the past few months. A situation arises that triggers an anxious response from me, and my first port of call is to consider what are the actual possible outcomes of this? Rationality is one of the most incredible things, especially when dealing with something as irrational as anxiety. Most of the time, the actual outcomes of something that induces anxiety in me are nowhere near as terrible as my brain makes them seem- I might fumble over my words on the phone, struggle to find the right item in a shop or lose someone I considered a friend but none of these things will be the devastating outcome I preemptively expect. I stop my anxiety ruining my days just by trying to be rational and when that fails, my mum is always standing by to be rational for me.
I was always so scared to admit there was something 'wrong' with me. The idea of being, for lack of a better word, broken wasn't something I was happy with. I was incredibly insecure because I thought having an anxiety disorder would make me hard to deal with and unlovable and make everyone leave. I've realised recently that's not the case. It makes me, me. I'm attentive to my friends, incredibly empathetic, and try my hardest to make sure people's needs are being met. I am incredible at planning in advance because my brain can't handle anything different. I never miss deadlines. For all the issues anxiety may cause me, it's also bequeathed me with some beneficial traits too. People do stick around, too. I've got friends now that have been there through my absolute worst (and messiest, I'm talking crying-on-the-bathroom-floor, throwing-up-in-bins and emotionally-worn-out-mania messy) and not once made me feel like they were going to walk away. They remind me constantly that they love me and that how I feel is perfectly okay. Those are the kinds of friends you need to stick around.
Anxiety manifests in strange ways. It's different for everyone. My only hope with this post is that someone out there that's struggling themselves might read it and realise things do get easier to deal with, even if it takes time. Outside of that, if someone could read this post and begin to understand anxiety more and be more comfortable around those that deal with it. I know my words might not be the best and I'm by no means a professional, but speaking from experience can often help people more than you'd expect. To anyone that's struggling- you're heard, and if you need to talk to someone there is always someone in your life willing to listen. I wish everyone a peaceful and positive week, be kind to yourselves <3
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