A is for Anxiety

It’s that time of year again, Mental Health Awareness week!

As you can guess it does what it says on the tin – the aim is to raise awareness of the different types of mental illness and to end the stigma surrounding them.

This week I want to do a series of ‘mini blogs’ (rather than my normal rambling musings) about the different aspects of my condition/s and how they affect my life and the impact they have on those around me.

Today’s letter is A for Anxiety.

My anxiety is a funny one, it mixes seamlessly with my OCD and Personality Disorder whilst also acting as its own separate entity. It’s the condition that gives me the most physical symptoms – tight chest, squirming stomach and the feeling of the breath being punched out of me along with the sudden stomach drop at the instant it’s triggered. During a bad episode I can physically shake. I’d differentiate anxiety from OCD as being more like severe worrying and fear rather than the obsessive fears and thoughts that my OCD gives me.

I get anxious about lots of things – the wellbeing of family and friends, social events and situations or sometimes I feel like I get anxious just for the sake of it. I can wake up gripped with fear for no apparent reason or suddenly have ‘the drop’ halfway through the day whilst enjoying office banter over a cuppa! I feel like Anxiety is one of the most easily-dismissed of the wide spectrum of mental disorders, people tend to brush it off by saying “well everyone worries about things”. Worrying and anxiety are two very different things; worrying about money, your job etc are completely normal. Anxiety will take over your life and constantly dance in front of you demanding your attention like a demonic two year old. I can physically feel my anxiety clinging to my shoulders when I’m going through a bad patch.  

Anxiety can be treated in a variety of ways, sometimes with CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) and occasionally with medication to take the edge of symptoms. CBT hasn’t worked for me because my other symptoms override it (more of that later this week) but I know a number of people whose lives have been changed by it. I take 20 MG of Citalopram per day to dampen down the symptoms. I try to manage it by carrying on as best as I can (it’s a pretty poor show to be late to work because you’re scared to walk past your bedroom door for fear of the outside world) whether it’s forcing myself to go to social events (I use strategies such as setting myself a specific home time when I can make my excuses if I’m struggling or messaging family/friends not at the event every so often to ‘touch base’ and stabilise myself) or taking myself off to gigs etc on my own. I don’t think there will be a time when I’m completely anxiety-free, there are too many triggers and as I mentioned before it’s too tied to my other illnesses.

Next in the alphabet is B for Borderline Personality Disorder!

Love Jen

XxxX