Hi all,
I think it would be short-sighted of me to start anywhere other than
the professionals. No, I don’t mean the 70s TV series, I mean the anxiety and
mental health professionals that actually helped me turn my life from a chaotic
nonsense to something worth living for.
I had spent
several years trying to find someone who calls themselves ‘a
professional.’ I had gone to the public,
private and even university sector to try and get the help I needed and,
although maybe not realising it at the time, I didn’t get anything other delays,
dolphin noises and relaxation techniques, quite frankly. I don’t hold a huge amount of blame on the
shoulders of the therapists, as I know they must see hundreds of people every
week; everyone reading this knows it’s the system
is absolute garbage. But none of the therapists I saw helped me which I think
was rather unfortunate, given that I have since discovered that my condition
isn’t actually that rare, so to not find therapy for about 13 years after I
first started showing symptoms of anxiety, despite several attempts, was
unacceptable really.
Alas, the biggest irony of my anxiety rollercoaster is that the only
successful therapy came after I had my biggest
ever meltdown, on that train back from Cornwall in March 2011. I had no choice but to peruse Dr. Google at
that stage and it actually worked; I stumbled across Anxiety UK, a charity that actually
understood me! I read
some of their literature and I remember thinking ‘THIS IS ME, THIS IS ME!!
AFTER NIGH ON 13 YEARS I HAVE FINALLY FOUND PEOPLE WHO DON’T THINK I’M A
****ING WEIRDO!!’ It was liberating –
albeit I was probably having a panic attack at the time.
When I saw their therapy
offer…
- CBT
- Flexible number of sessions
- Via webcam if necessary
- Relatively cheap, all things considered
…I was even more excited, to the point of raising my heart rate and
having another panic attack. But I
plucked up the courage to call and within two weeks I had my first appointment
with a therapist via webcam. She was in Glasgow, I was in Stafford. According
to Dr. Google, who apparently is also good at geography, there is 262 miles between
the two locations. I couldn’t leave the
house at the time and with an absence of an Anxiety UK therapist in Stafford
this was the next best thing.
For the first time, I’d like to name this therapist who, after 50 (yes,
fifty) sessions of (actual) CBT got me back on track (I was never on track to
begin with): Veronica Macdiarmid, thank you. How on earth you managed to get that website
URL, I will never know.
I have blogged
several times about CBT and the various techniques I’ve used and will
continue to use. I learnt all of these from Veronica and Anxiety UK and I don’t
think I even realise sometimes how much they have helped me over the last five
years.
I had just finished this fifty sessions of therapy when I set up this
blog; it was this that inspired me to do so.
How can I share this with others as well as share my experience of
living with anxiety? Veronica and Anxiety UK had made me want to open up about
mental health and shout about it to the world. An added bonus of course, but
not superfluous, as this opening of doors has helped me ever since, uncovering a
world of people who have had similar experiences and feelings to me over the
years. I thought I was alone before all of this.
- To Veronica, thank you for sorting me out.
- To Anxiety UK, thank you for hooking me up with her and for opening so many doors for me.
- To all mental health charities, thank you for your continued striving to help people like me.
Thank you.
Best wishes,
Al
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