The Impact of Chronic Anxiety on a Young Person

Many of my more recent blogs have focused on confidence and how having years of anxiety has decimated my confidence in certain situations, particularly socially and in developing relationships.  This blog kind of continues on a similar theme, but my over-thinking of this issue lately has led me to draw more firm conclusions about why my confidence is decimated and the role anxiety has played in this.

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Ever since I was in primary school, I knew I was not 'normal,' as my child-framed perception of having a mental health problem was.  I know the statistics say that 1 in 4 people will, at some point, experience a mental health problem, but my assumption is that this is over the course of a lifetime; I don't know the stats for children.  Either way, it didn't seem that I was able to do things to quite the same extent as others my age, all the way from about the age of ten to my University years, and since.  In the very early days, I didn't even appreciate that what I had was a manageable problem and considered it something I had to put up with, until it dawned on me in late high school that this wasn't the case.  My symptoms to those closest to me were more than obvious, I'm sure, which I think goes to prove again how little support I got in dealing with my anxiety growing up, not because people didn't want or try to help, but because they didn't know what to do.  It wasn't until I was nearly 25 years old that I realised what I had to do, and even then I had to work it out for myself, with no guidance from family, friends or professionals.  

So all this anxiety - 

from OCD thoughts back way in 1997 ("please don't let me die" was a mantra I remember I kept repeating in late primary school - I'm not totally sure who the plea was aimed towards but anyway) and general fear about death, to constant panic attacks particularly in 2002-4, to Pure-O and panic in 2005-7, chronic eating problems in 2003-6 and again in 2010-11, health anxiety the entire time to varying extents, to my epic panic attack in 2012...

- has not surprisingly prevented me from enjoying the fruits of life in quite the same way as many other people.  Going back to the 1 in 4 statistic; anyone experiencing a mental health problem at any time is a terrible thing, but how many of these 1 in 4 have a chronic condition, a condition that persists for years and years?  And how many of these start in relatively early childhood and persist throughout most of their developmental years?  Less than 1 in 4, I would wager.

Of course, it's between the ages of 10 and 27, the latter of which I am now, that most people who class themselves as not being poor (which my immediate family isn't) are able to flourish and discover the world, particularly nowadays with University, gap years and the greater opportunity there seems to be to travel and delay getting a full time, 'take up all your time' job.  So I'm afraid I haven't been abroad many times (only once, if you don't count Guernsey and Ireland), I haven't joined various clubs, tried this or that sport, been so drunk that I've woken up next to my best friend's girlfriend's hamster in the back of an unknown person's sports car, or been to thirty festivals each year since I was six years old.  I haven't been able to, for large periods of that time, even contemplate doing these things, let alone actually do them.  For most of it, I wouldn't have been in the mental or, consequently, the physical space to be able to.

Since completing fifty sessions with Anxiety UK's fantastic therapy service, which I concluded over two years ago now, I have been in a stronger position to have discovered more of these experiences.  That said, for me, being able to catch the train and live away from my parents' home without major problems are still classed as huge achievements.  But, I'm certainly in more of a position to do a couple of things, no least go on holiday somewhere different or try a few different past-times.  It would be hard, initially, but doable - and doable, although not spectacular when many people take such things for granted, for me is better than I could have hoped two years or more ago.

So what's the problem?  A lack of confidence, caused twofold: 1) My confidence during these anxious years understandably made me very low on confidence generally, about most things.  Social things, doing presentations, driving and at times, just being out of the house.  But also 2) this chronic anxiety has had a long term effect on my confidence.  True, certain confidences, such as doing presentations for work, have improved dramatically through continued practice, but other confidences, especially socially, have not, because I've never had the opportunity to build it up.  Confidence through work came naturally because once I secured the jobs I've had, things like presentations were thrust upon me.  Whereas socially, it's up to me to make the first move, which is of course the most difficult thing.  

And even though my anxiety is in a stable and more manageable position today, social confidence if anything is becoming worse.  The older I get, the harder it is to justify why I haven't done this, that and the other.  Consequently, rightly or wrongly, I feel like I'm dull, feel like I'm uninteresting in other people's eyes.  This is especially true when you factor in my lack of ability to actually speak up in conversations about most topics, even if I have an interest in it or an opinion about it. As I mentioned in the last related blog, it does seem these days that there are more confident people around too - although that's probably naturally people becoming more confident with age.  If anything, in certain ways, it's reversing for me.

I've not shied away on this blog from how this may affect my long-term relationship prospects and this is a genuine concern.  I think I have an extreme perception about how I should come across, i.e. very "interesting," but even still - that feeling is very difficult to shake off.  It's little wonder that this is the case, given how anxiety has prevented my "interesting" experiences.  Even today, I still fear doing something totally out of the ordinary will trigger a nasty incident, so it's not as if I've reached that 'sod it, I'm going to do it and to hell with the consequences' stage yet.  Maybe I will at some point.

Don't get me wrong though. I am a lot happier now than I was even just a couple of years ago, and certainly at other times in my childhood, teenage years and early twenties.  I am grateful for what I now have, and indeed, what I have less of, i.e. constant, severe anxiety.  But perhaps I should be more grateful of this, rather than feeling low about what I perceive to be a lack of opportunities I have in the future due to my battered confidence.  But it's not always easy, especially when other people around you have seemingly more "interesting" lives - or are at least able to convey their lives in a more interesting away.

>> Today is World Suicide Prevention day and in relation to this I will just say one thing - I am genuinely grateful for having never felt I've needed to take my own life.  I hope WSP day and on-going action will help all of those people who have felt and do feel like this, as the frequency of incidents of suicide is becoming truly shocking and heartbreaking.

Best wishes
Al