Living unknowingly with generalised anxiety for many years, there were many times I wished I could have explained to my friends, doctors, boss and teachers why I got so ill. Why I fainted. Why I vomited. But I did not have the words or knowledge to explain this to them. I did not understand my reactions, my heart flutters, my hand shakes, my distorted senses, my chest tightness or my dizziness. Now I understand a little more about my own anxiety (admittedly I’m no expert), I want to share my story. I want to make even a small dent in people’s understanding of anxiety and their perception of the condition.
Last year I was in a very different place to where I am now. I had left my last two jobs as result of my anxiety, and I was struggling to leave the house. I was extremely depressed in my situation and I was grieving the lost of the future I never had. I spent my days crying, cooking and self-loathing. I wrote crappy poems that didn’t rhythm on my anxiety and depression. I had accepted that anxiety would prevent me from achieving my dreams and it crushed me. I needed an intervention to stop myself spiralling into a cesspit of angst and despair. Then therapy came and I started to unpack where my anxiety came from and what I wish people knew about my anxiety.
- Anxiety (mixed with my bi-polar disorder) Greatly Affected my Ability to Hold Down a Job
Firstly, I want people to understand how anxiety affects my day-to-day living, particularly in the workplace (my biggest cause of anxiety). Several years ago, I worked for a company where my manager was particularly cruel towards myself. She used to shout at me in front of other staff members and customers for mistakes she perceived me to make. This made me extremely anxious around her and the workplace. So, I started to throw up at work, have frequent panic attacks and become more and more withdrawn. I stopped being able to walk to work without my heart racing or feeling the urge to run. This meant I left work early more times than was feesable. Eventually, my manager emailed me saying they were not extending my contract. I sighted relief at this email. I did not know why I had become so sick in that workplace, but the illnesses subsided once I left. So I hoped I would not become sick again in my next job.
But when I went to my next job, the same issue prevailed. I worried my new manager would see me the same way. I couldn’t get out of the pattern of thinking that I was in danger. So I had heart palpitations. I had fear every time I spoke until I just stopped talking at all. This caused me problems in my professional development and I started to get negative feedback on my communication skills.
This lack of speech wasn’t helped by the second thing I want people to know about my anxiety: my negative self-beliefs fed into my anxiety. At the time of working for the second manager, I had the belief that I was awkward. I believed I didn’t know how to socialise properly, that I was socially inept. I looked for evidence all the time that I was awkward. If lost touch with friends, I thought that this must be because my conversation was so uncomfortable and unpleasant. If there was an awkward pause in a conversation, I believed that it must be my fault for being so strange. In reality, I was just very anxious and naturally quiet and it was affecting my communication skills. So at work, I couldn’t speak up. My communication was poor and I began to suffer professionally as a result of this. When faced with a scenario where I would need to speak at work or be judged on my performance, my heart would race and I’d begin to feel sick. This way of thinking didn’t resolve until I sort therapy.
I didn’t start to miss work like I had in my first job. The anxiety was just about manageable to stay in work until the end of each day. However, I could not go on in the same pattern, so I had a breakdown and left. This is when I took several months off working and remained at home an anxious and depressed wreck. However, it should be noted that this breakdown wasn’t all to do with anxiety, the depression I was experiencing meant I physically couldn’t stop crying, I felt this was inappropriate for a teacher, which also prompted my breakdown and leaving the profession.
2.Sometimes the Cause of my Anxiety is Unclear
Although it would appear my above anxiety had a trigger. Sometimes the trigger of my anxiety would be so miniscule. Shortly after finishing that job, I began to panic every time I needed to leave the house. I’d think of all the bad things that might happen. Cars hitting me. People attacking me. Being Stabbed. I was petrified for no good reason. It came to the point where I hardly left my own home. There may have been a reason I was so scared of cars. I’d only seen a car accident a few months prior. But I’d never been stabbed. I’d never seen a stabbing. So why was I anxious? This made me come to the conclusion that sometimes the trigger of anxiety is unclear and that’s ok. I am anxious person.
It would be easy to be tough on myself and tell myself that ‘I’m weak’, ‘I’m frail’. But I soon learnt that telling yourself how awful you are repeatedly can only led to depression. The only means to bring yourself out of that is to tell yourself that you are not weak, you have anxiety. You need to be empathetic with yourself. You need to tell yourself everything positive about yourself.
3.I’m Not Rude: I’m Anxious
The other day I was in a local shopping mall. I was not feeling too well and I needed to take some paracetamol. I saw a bench and decided to sit besides these two women, so I could take my paracetamol with water. One of the women needed to move up so I could sit down. Anxiety hits. I stumble over my words and speak very quietly. ‘Thank you’ i whisper. The two women erupted at me. ‘Very rude. You didn’t say thank you’. I sit silently. I wished I could have told them ‘no, you do not speak to me like that. I said thank you, you just didn’t hear me.’ But, I just froze and I decided it was better to not speak than start an argument. After all, those women weren’t worth the stress.
But this scenario is something that happens repeatedly. I speak quietly and people believe I’m rude, when really I’m just anxious. People erupt at me for poor communication when they don’t understand the inner strength needed to talk, needed to communicate. In reality, I’m really struggling. When I was working, my supervisor used to get annoyed that my communication was not 100%. I wished I could have explained to her. But I could hardly speak as it was. So I said nothing, until eventually it became too much and I had to leave.
4.My Anxiety Can Get Very Intense
Around 18 months ago, I was working on dissertation before things have started to get very bad. I decided to go for a walk to try and ease my anxiety. I stepped outside and moved towards the street. I kept walking towards the main road. I took a few steps down the estate leading up to Booths. Then, I lost control of my tongue. My tongue began moving in strange ways and I felt no means to stop it from doing this. I was petrified! I ran back towards the small field by the school. I arrive at the field. I looked down at the ground and, suddenly, it began to become brighter and brighter until it became just a blur of very bright light. My heart begins to feel as though it is out of chest and like I am having a highly spiritual experience. But I was so scared. I was scared of what is happening. I pondered “Why is this happening to me?” Eventually, the lights dimmed and I could see the floor. I walked slowly and carefully back to my home.
Turns out what I was experiencing was very intense anxiety. Anxiety can make you go blind. It can make you experience an aura. It can cause so many symptoms you’d have no idea about until you experience it. The cause of my anxiety in this scenario? Possibly completing my dissertation. This leads us back to my second point on anxiety. Sometimes the cause of my anxiety is minscule and my response is out of proportion to what occurred.
I’ve recently seen the argument that anxiety shouldn’t be diagnosed being bandied around. The premise behind the argument is that diagnosing anxiety tells a person that their normal reaction to life stressors is abnormal. This convinces a person that there is something wrong with them. I feel this argument carries the very stigma it claims to fight. I can accept that the diagnosis of anxiety is fluid and not permanent. But, generalised anxiety is real and not some made-up fairytale designed to bring people down. Yes it is influenced by environmental stimuli. But so is a broken leg. Both require diagnosis and treatment. Without diagnosis, there can be no treatment.
5.My Anxiety Got Better with Treatment and So Can Yours
Last year I was in a very different place to where I am now. Now, I work part-time and I’m managing at work. I’m no longer having panic attacks, I’m no longer having heart palpitations, faintness. But it wasn’t an easy task to get it. It required therapy, introspection and reading. It required learning about anxiety and how to cope with it. So if there’s any messages you take away from this blog it should be to be empathetic with yourselves and others, and that it can and will get better with patience.
Crescent Days
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