Time to Move On 4 - 10 Days On...

It is difficult to emphasise how big a step moving house is for someone with anxiety, or with any mental health problem I would wager.  I'm not saying it's easy for anyone, but it can disrupt your life so much that anxiety can come and go as quick and a fiercely as a high speed train.  All the hard work you may have put in goes out the window.

As the last blog suggested.

Graph of how the last 11 days have panned out

As it also suggested, I was very low when I wrote that blog.  The potential for the housemates to be great people didn't seem to matter, the independence likewise.  All the hard work I put in to manage my anxiety went flying into space and the depression came crashing down like a meteor.  Think of the move as like an earthquake; a disruption to what was a relatively stable tectonic plate (or in this case, stable time of my life) and a sudden shift, causing an initial crash and then several slightly less severe aftershocks, but occurring frequently.

I was in a situation where I felt I just needed time out.  I have spent pretty much all of my life, at best, on edge, at worst in an excruciating panic, but for the last 7-8 months (since I moved out of my previous house share) I was RELAXED.  OK, so not totally RELAXED; I can never claim to be that.  But comparative to the rest of my life, I was RELAXED.  Bored, at times, and frustrated but RELAXED.  It only dawned on me after I moved again how much I missed that and how important it really was to actually feel RELAXED.  RELAXED is in capitals by the way to emphasise that this is not a sensation I'm used to.

So why on earth would I do anything to disrupt this?  Well of course, at the time, I didn't realise how much I valued being RELAXED, so it wasn't until I wasn't RELAXED again that I realised how much I was enjoying it.  Tedium at times possibly, but I was... you know the next bit.

For the first few days of living here, I craved this to a point of depression.  The first few days were very hard, as the last blog will no doubt have depicted.  So what now?

Ten days on is a difficult time to judge.  It's far too early to make any significant judgements, but at the same time it's beginning to become the reality.  It's also true that the longer I stay here not RELAXED, the longer it would be for me to recover and go back to being RELAXED again.  But of course the last thing I want to do is make any rash decisions.

However, I am pleased to report that ten days on, things have markedly improved, which the rational amongst you will have predicted anyway.  I'm certainly not RELAXED, but that horrible depression has gone and the anxiety has certainly alleviated from a week or so ago.  To put it bluntly, forcing myself to stick with it has helped.  My parents have been away this week, so 'home' offered no real help or form of escape, other than the RELAXED surroundings.  My folks being away, although you could argue they chose the worst possible week, was probably, in fact, the best possible week.  I'm been made to stick at it, as the carrot of temptation wasn't dangling there 4 miles away.  

Combining this forcefulness with a mixture of familiar things has also helped.  Ensuring I look after myself by eating properly (something which has also become easier as I become more confident with people that I am crap at cooking and not caring about it), and doing all of the ablutions I did when I was elsewhere.  By keeping in touch with familiar people, and my mate who lives with me being here all the time since I moved in has also helped.  

The best thing - the people I'm living with seem great.  The three plus months of house searching appears to have been worth it.  

The big question now is - what happens next?  A period of stability hopefully, before maybe kicking on into more ambitious territory, like actual genuine enjoyment and fulfilment.  OK, let's not get carried away.  One step at a time is hugely important.

The main objective - to become as RELAXED here as I was at home, with the added benefit for having more social activity and interaction a good aim to work to.

How this weaves around anxiety is the key, and of course no doubt I will blog about this on here.  But for now, lessons to take away:

- Stick with it; short term pain and all that.  

- Don't be afraid of being yourself in front of other people.  That might not be the deepest personal stuff, but just general day to day things.

- Try and embrace the new, but keep hold of the 'old' just as tightly, and remember it is there if required.  

- People - they are the best medicine.

I'm no expert of course, this is merely me scribbling things down as I think of them, in terms of what has helped me so far.  Bigger challenges may be to come, greater tests... let's see what gets thrown my way.

At this point, I'd like to thank anyone who has helped me these past 10 days.  You know who you are.

Best wishes
Al

Time to Move On 3 - The Fall Out

So as you'll be aware, if you follow this blog, I moved out of my parents' house for only the second time on Monday, two days ago.  This was designed to test me and of course allow me to progress with my life, move forward and become more sociable. 

But I'm sorry to say that anxiety has taken over.

This apparently depicts 'flatmates'

Naturally, the morning of day 1 I was feeling anxious but controllably so; it was more of a 'nervous' feeling with a bit extra.  My parents and I arrived at the house early afternoon, and as soon as they left a wave of unbearable depression came over me.  I don't use the term 'anxiety' lightly and I wouldn't use the term 'depression' lightly either.  I'm grateful that I have never had long-term depression, and I can't begin to imagine what feeling like this long-term can be like.  But it is definitely depression; I had it when I moved to the previous house at first too, but this time I was less prepared for it, because I was meant to look forward to this move.

But I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised.  I was there, on my own, entering an unknown world which could go incredibly well or incredibly badly (because everything seems black and white in these situations).  I was on the verge of tears whilst unpacking and wondering why I was doing this to myself.  I went shopping which was a tedious exercise but at least meant I was occupied.  Not too long after I got back, I spoke to a new housemate who is very nice and good to get along with, and then my friend arrived. This improved things a bit for obvious distraction reasons, but then it was time for food.

Food and me, as I'm sure I'll have explained before, don't get along.  If I get remotely anxious, I struggle to eat.  It usually happens when I go out, but of course, living in a new place this is effectively eating out.  I ate in the communal area but struggled to eat the food; I managed about half before I decided it wasn't worth struggling any more.  I confided in my mate which also helped - I've learnt to talk about the hard times to trusted people - and I also emailed another friend, and this has helped.  Getting all the support that I can at times like this is vital.  Being open is a crucial part of getting through moments like this.

Then a night of poor sleep occurred.  The first time I woke up I was in panic mode; breathing was very difficult and if I hadn't been so emotionally exhausted it could have spiralled into something worse, but I ended up falling asleep again after a while.  I woke up 3 more times before waking up for the final time.  I expected a poor night's first sleep in a new place so this didn't bother me, but that empty, lonely feeling still hadn't gone away.

What didn't help is that I had to do a presentation for work at 9am yesterday morning - day 2.  It also involved travelling by train, but it was only 20 minutes away so I managed to get through this with few problems.  I was still exhausted so in a perverse way this may have helped.  

The presentation was 30 minutes and on my only specialist subject; it turned out that this 30 minutes was the best I'd felt all day and best I've felt since.  Presentations used to be another source of anxiety, or at best an anxiety amplifier, but this one actually seemed to help, possibly because I was focused on a subject I'm comfortable with and it atmosphere seemed quite 'relaxed.'  The rest of the day at work was fine, even better was the two hours after it which was spent catching up with a friend who I hadn't seen for ages, who was at the conference at which I did the aforementioned presentation.  

Going back to the house was tolerable at this time; the new housemate was there and we had a bit of a chat, and my mate then came back so we obviously caught up.  Dinner was still difficult though; my tolerance towards food declines as I cook it, and by the time it comes to eating it I don't feel good.  Telling my mate about it took the pressure off though, which did help.  The rest of the evening, I still felt low but it was manageable.

Day 3 - swimming, then work which was fine.  I ate lunch with work friends and perhaps unsurprisingly this went well.  I was comfortable!  I was fine in the office for the rest of the day too, but then as I approached the house, that same wave of depression came over me again, followed by another difficult teatime.  

Unhelpfully, I keep asking myself 'why should I be feeling like this?'  So far, it's been very difficult.  My anxiety and mental health problems of 16+ years is really testing me.  I've been through enough of these feelings already in my life to last me more than one full lifetime, and if nothing else I'm just fed up with it now.  I expected this to test me, actually I hoped it would, but not to the extent of this.  

I appreciate it's early days, and that's what I keep telling myself.  This could still be the best move I've ever made, and could really fulfil my life and in time, reduce my anxiety. 

But moving in with the intention of meeting more people has ironically made me feel more alone at the moment.  This is the biggest test of how far I've come for a long time.  I will no doubt update this blog with how things go.

Best wishes
Al

Time to Move On 2

I refer you to the first blog I wrote about this issue in early June, so getting on for 3 months ago:

http://theanxietytracker.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/time-to-move-on.html

I was musing over moving out of my parents' home for the second time, to a shared house.  At the time of the previous blog, I didn't think that my mate who I lived with before would be moving with me, but circumstances have changed such that this is now the case again, which is great news.

Another high quality image

I have spent the last few months searching for somewhere to live, meeting with landlords at various houses and trying desperately to meet the people who live in them, first on my own then later with my mate.  You wouldn't (or perhaps you would, if you've done this sort of thing before!) believe how difficult it was to get the landlords to get the housemates to be there when I went round.  This, as I've mentioned, is by far the most important thing for me.  If the housemates are not people I feel I could get along with, then I didn't want to live there.  So if I couldn't get to meet them, I had to assume that they came into this category, whether they did or not. 

Finally, at the eighth attempt, I went round to a house to view it, and all of the housemates were there, gathered in the lounge area. What was interesting about this viewing is that it was for three rooms with a total of five other people (I was there on behalf of me and my mate), so we were effectively in competition with each other.  Luckily, we both got two of the rooms.

I'm not going to say too much about the house at this stage, lest things go wrong and I regret it later.  But so far I feel I've been lucky to find somewhere that contains people who were very welcoming and could, could certainly fulfil the criteria that I set out in the first blog about this.  It could increase my social capacity significantly, which is excellent.  Challenging, but excellent.  A challenge that I need and that hopefully, in time, I can accept and enjoy.  

It is likely to be a totally different situation to the last house; my anxiety was tested there but that was more because it was the first time I'd left home.  There was no test from a social capacity because, when my mate wasn't there, the others were hermits in their own rooms.  Which, by all accounts, was for the best.

However this new house seems to have a completely different dynamic.  What sums it up for me is that one of the landlord's main concerns was getting the right people in there, whereas most others just seem concerned about getting the rent money and having done with it.  

So if it does turn out to be the social haven that it could be, then this will test my anxiety.  Bluntly, high amounts of social activity is one thing I've rarely had in my life; even when I was in the final year of Uni, my richest year to date back in 2007-8, I still lived at home and didn't socialise as much as those who lived away.  So to have a sudden increase in social activity with, in the outset, people I don't know, could be interesting to say the least.  

There are numerous niggles of course, some connected to the social side of things, some other more domestic things.  But they all come as a package fear, which is that of how this potential seismic shift in my general day to day life could affect me and my mental health.  It has the real potential to improve it quite quickly and certainly over time, but it also has the potential to cause mass struggle.  Then there is still the prospect that it won't work out, which, given other factors involving my existing friends, could make me very flat indeed.  

But overall I am thinking positively.  One of the biggest successes so far is that I am able to recognise the potential problems from an anxiety perspective, both short and long term, without letting them consume me.  They are there, niggling, but the positivity and excitement of what this experience could be is equally, if not more, overwhelming than the negatives.  This is an achievement for me in itself.

The move is to occur this coming Monday 2nd September.  I will no doubt update you as to how it goes.

Bring it on.

Best wishes
Al

Sharing Experiences II

To continue my sharing experiences as part of Time to Change's big push.

The One Where They Found Out At Work

I have blogged in patches about what happened to me in March 2011, which in many ways was the main defining moment in my life.  If you scroll not too far back in time, you'll see a series of 'live' blogs that I posted (which went well(!), thanks to modern technology and my lack of ability to utilise a tablet correctly) which I wrote as a consequence of that event.  I will probably conclude this Sharing Experiences flurry with this event detailed in full, which won't be a particularly pleasant experience but one that I feel that will be worth doing.

Listen to the birdy

The reason I mention it in line with this blog, is that the following experiences all stemmed from this March 2011 event, albeit occurring a couple of months later in the year.  

I'm very glad to say that my anxiety has rarely affected my work, which I count as a blessing.  I appreciate that this is not the case for many people; indeed, work is often the root cause of anxiety in the first place.  However, because of the impact that March 2011 had, my anxiety was totally consuming me during the spring and summer of that year.  Everything I did was, at best, difficult, to the point where I struggled to leave the house.  Needless to say then, that during this time it did affect work.  Simply being at my desk was hard, and what made it harder was my insistence of keeping my problems quiet, lest I was deemed temporarily unfit to work, which would make me feel like a total failure.  What's more, I was a lot more scared of people's reaction back then and indeed feared for my job if I admitted to my chronic anxiety.

The two worst moments during this 6-ish month period were as follows.  The first was me requiring to take a 1hr 15min bus journey to Lichfield from Stafford, undertake a meeting with someone I didn't know which would take a similar amount of time and then get the bus back.  I was very anxious before I even started the bus journey, such was the nature of this particular period of time, and so the bus journey there was awful.  I remember planning to eat my packed lunch on the bus there, but could barely force anything down me, which of course never helps.  Me and food have had many arguments like this in the past; knowing I should eat something but not have the breath or physical calmness to even consider it.  So this heightened my anxiety even more.

I arrived in Lichfield and I remember sitting in reception.  What didn't help is that the reception area had totally changed from last time I saw it, which, although sounding trivial, just made things even more unfamiliar and thus put me more on edge.  I was sitting there shivering and feeling very ill, physically.  Of course, this is what anxiety does, but I also have health anxiety which means I took all of these physical feelings out of all proportion too.  Which, of course, increases the anxiety even more.

The meeting itself was a nightmare.  To this day, I don't know how I managed to get out of there without having a full blown panic attack.  I think some sort of divine intervention took hold that knew that this would have been a horrendous place to have a panic attack.  I remember nearly losing it at one point, and found myself staring at the person (who wasn't overly receptive either, which didn't help), or rather, staring past them.  It took something unknown to pull me through that meeting.

The bus journey back?  I felt perfectly fine; relaxed, even.  A meeting and trip, which from a work perspective wasn't tasking in the slightest by the way, caused so much pain and exhaustion during that time that I made so many excuses thereafter so I didn't have to go to any other meetings for a fair while after.

It wasn't long after that, though, that the second main incident occurred.  I'd been to the doctor's in the morning and was put back on my beta blockers (which I'm still on now well over 2 years on, albeit a weak dosage).  In my wisdom, I decided to take the first one at lunchtime, whilst sitting at my desk at work.  Not a good idea.

Within minutes, I felt very hot and very faint.  I don't think the medication did anything to me (although I've no proof of this), but rather I was thinking of what physical effects the meds could have on me, and for some reason my brain was recounting the mechanics of what beta blockers do.  As part of my health anxiety, I am terrified of the thought of "non-natural" substances entering my body and changing things "unnaturally."  So consequently, what happens?  The thoughts about this make you feel hot and faint.  This exacerbates the health anxiety, which then in turns makes it all worse.  The problem with this situation is that it was at my desk at work, with all of my colleagues sitting at their desks around me.  Then, just as I was close to passing out, my boss comes round to my desk to ask me something.  I remember, in reply to her question, saying something like this:

"Yes ok, but first I'm going to pass out if I don't get out of here."

Which I appreciate after the event sounds quite funny...

I was only able to wheel my chair to a separate manager's office close by, who luckily wasn't there, so it meant I could shut the door and shut out the main office.  It was at this point that I blurted out to my manager that I suffered from anxiety and explained the situation with the medication.  I was very incoherent at the time so I'm not exactly sure what I said, but I told her more than I ever intended to.  Luckily (as is often the case - #TimetoTalk - ), her reaction was generally a positive one, and she said she'd had to take beta blockers in the past too as a result of anxiety.  I didn't take in the significance of this at the time, but what it meant was that at least I wasn't seen as some sort of alien.

I was then driven home by another colleague, but again felt fine not too long after.  Well, fine isn't necessarily the right word but you get the idea.

The day after, my boss's boss (at the time) took me in to a meeting room for a chat, and he also shared some of his stress experiences.  OK, not quite chronic anxiety, but again I was getting support in the best way they knew how, so I could only be grateful for that.  I was told that I would get any support that I needed, which was nice.  Don't get me wrong, they didn't (and still don't) know the full extent of my anxiety.  To them, it was limited to those few weeks (if not that one incident), but their reaction combined with my increased confidence since then would now make me less scared to open up about it at work, if required.

But at the time, this period of my life was hell, because I thought that my job was at stake.  I even remember saying to my boss(es) that "I thought I'd be told to take some time off."  Moreover, my anxiety across my whole life was plaguing me, dictating me and making me so low and upset.  It took a huge hand from my therapist and simply the course of time to get out of this, my darkest year.  Much of which I have written about in previous blogs... so feel free to take a gander!

It's #TimetoTalk.

Best wishes
Al

Sharing Experiences I

It's about time I shared some more personal experiences around anxiety and panic.  This blog covers a wide range of issues around anxiety and mental health, but as blogs are there often with the purpose of sharing personal experiences, I thought I'd boost that element of things by writing about a few of mine; some of the defining moments if you like.

#TimetoTalk

To make things even more interesting (!), I will present them in the form of a Friends episode, e.g., 'The One Where...'  

This series of blogs will hopefully add to my personal #TimetoTalk campaign about speaking out about mental health.

The One On Holiday With My First Known Panic Attack

I didn't say the titles would be catchy.

I will start with the first time I recalled that I truly was different to everyone else that I knew.  This was in 1996, when I was only 10 years old.  As we did every year, I went on holiday with my parents for a week over the summer holidays.  The location this particular year was Kingsbridge, Devon, and we stayed in an apartment literally a stone's throw from the sea.  On the day we arrived, we'd unpacked and I was sitting in my bedroom 'wondering what that noise was,' but not thinking anything of it.  I don't know what I was doing but it probably centred around reading a comic or making up a game for us to play lest it rain later in the holiday.

What happened next was ironic on all sorts of levels.  My mum popped her head round the door and said 'can you hear the thunder?'  That noise I'd been wondering about was actually thunder, and back in those days I was terrified of thunder.  Weather was one of the few subjects I knew a fair bit about and I knew that a thunderstorm could cause fire, death and destruction if it was in the mood.  Even though it was 'just God moving his furniture.'  I believed such fallacies for most things at that age, but my early interest in weather meant that I knew what thunder and lightning was, and what it did.

The irony?  Well, for a start, these days I seek out storms when they come so I can watch them.  Secondly, my job centres around preparing for severe weather.  Thirdly, that game I may have been making for a rainy day... I didn't finish it quickly enough.

Because it wasn't until my mum told me that it suddenly dawned on me that 'that noise' was thunder, the feeling of dread and fear came over me very quickly.  At least had I immediately twigged that thunder was approaching, I could have mentally prepared myself, sought out my parents and probably cried to let out the emotions so that I could cope with it if it came overhead.

Of course, not only did this suddenness cause problems, but so did the location.  I was somewhere unfamiliar; not only were we in a place I didn't know, we'd only been there a couple of hours so I'd barely had chance to breathe before the thunder came.  And boy, did it come, from what I remember.

And so a panic attack ensued.  At the time I didn't know that it was a panic attack, of course, and to my parents I probably just came across like a blubbering wimp.  But it was only after this that we probably all realised something was wrong.  I could barely function for the rest of the holiday.  I couldn't eat and was sick a couple of times.  I kept crying and feeling nervous, and not knowing why.  I think I put it down to 'what if there's another thunderstorm,' but I reality I was feeling nervous and ill because I didn't know why I was feeling nervous and ill.  I was basically fluctuating in and out of a panic state for 48 hours...

...after which we had to go home early.  The most vivid memory of mine, though, is of what happened when we arrived back to our then home.  My dad went out to buy fish and chips a couple of hours after we got back because of course no food was in the house.  I, again, struggled to eat anything, even though we were back home.  Clear as day, I remember my dad saying to my mum (thinking I was out of earshot I assume) "what's wrong with him now? We came back home didn't we?"

My first counselling took place early-ish the following year, in 1997, during my final year of primary school.  Whether this holiday was the start or the onset of requiring counselling I can't be certain, but this was definitely the first time I remember having periods of utter panic and anxiety.  And so it began.

I'm sure you're all wondering what caused this to happen?  OK so I was scared of thunderstorms, especially ones that came about suddenly in a strange location, but surely this wouldn't have caused days and possibly a lifetime of anxious suffering?  No, I don't buy that either.  Am I just unfortunate?  Am I prone?  Had a significant event, like a family death, happened not long before that was fresh in the memory?  Was I being bullied in school at that time and/or was I (without knowing it at such a young age) suffering from loneliness?  Possibly a combination thereof?  Have I mentally blocked out something horrific?  For anyone able to turn into me and go back 17 years, please let me know what you find out.  

All I do know is that this represents two things:

1) This event may have started it all off... everything that I've been through may have started from this one thunderstorm.  

2) Anxiety and panic can happen at a young age.  As this proves, I've been there.  It can also become chronic from a young age, as this also proves.  I'm 26 now and only in the last year or two have I learnt about anxiety and panic in terms of exactly what it involves and how it affects your wider mental health, and your life.  How on earth, as a 10 year old, was I to know what to do and what may happen in future?

Food for thought.  More sharing experiences to come over the next few weeks.

#TimetoTalk

Best wishes
Al

Doing my bit...

The #timetochange campaign has suddenly sprung to life, so here goes my first contribution:

Click here

Anxiety Bites II

I have a few things that I would like to squeeze into one blog, hence a perfect opportunity for another round of Anxiety Bites.

Denise Welch

I am pleased that Denise Welch, Mind's new ambassador, represents another celebrity who is 'coming out' about their mental health.  Consequently she is helping to try and remove the stigma that, as she puts it in her article written in the latest Mind magazine, "sadly still exists."  It's another

Denise appearing on my favourite show

small but useful step in getting people more open about mental health as a whole.  However, one of the paragraphs in her article is her take on anti-depressants, about which she states that "I am a huge advocate of anti-depressants."  Now, I've had no experience of anti-depressants, and as I mentioned in a previous blog, I am probably 'scared' of what they can do because of my health anxiety.  I have a fear of anything tampering with the body that doesn't seem natural.  This isn't to say that I am against them, nor that, as Denise says, they are not a good solution if they are "prescribed properly."  What is disappointing, though, is the fact that counselling or alternative talking therapies aren't mentioned at all, not even in conjunction with the anti-depressants.  She makes it sound like they are the answer to everything, but even I know that this is clearly not the case.  They will help in the right circumstances, I've no doubt, but everyone and every situation is unique, and the way that they are portrayed here should have been flagged up with some caution by an expert from Mind, in my opinion.

The day my boss nearly found out about my anxiety

Mind have recently sent me some postcards, which contain their logo and a quote from someone with a mental health problem.  One of them focuses on the workplace and states that "6 out of 10 employers say they wouldn't want to take on an employee with a mental health problem."  In my wisdom, I decided to take this postcard and pin it to my desk divide at work.  Bear in mind that no-one at work knows much about my anxiety (as far as I know, unless they have stumbled across this blog in their travels).  My boss, who I get on with very well fortunately, saw this a few days after I'd put it up and said 'interesting, do you know someone who has experienced this?'  Whether by 'this' he meant problems with their employer or a mental health problem I don't know.  Either way, this was the perfect opportunity to say something about my condition, despite not having a clue how he would react.  But I'm sorry to say that I bottled it.  I'm sorry, mainly because I had a golden opportunity to try and stand up against the stigma, but failed to take it.  I just said that I support Mind and that's how I got the postcards.  Without using this as an excuse, his asking me took me right by surprise, but surely I should have expected this eventually if I decide to put a postcard next to my desk?  I'm now thinking of elaborating.  If I get the balls, I'll let you know how it goes.  What it does prove, though, is that when a job and people's opinion of you is/are potentially at stake, talking about my mental health at work is something that I feel could still impact negatively on me, simply because of the uncertainty around how people could react.  This is wrong, because as we all know, there should be no negative reaction!

Moving on...

At this juncture, I will announce that I am moving out of my parent's house again, i.e. the place I have lived for all but 10 months of my life.  I am moving into a shared accommodation with my friend, who I lived with before, and three other people.  I looked at about eight difference places in the end to try and get the right one, and at this stage I'm really very positive about the one I've chosen.  All of the people (all girls... just a coincidence of course) seem very nice, friendly and sociable.  In all seriousness, this could dramatically change my day to day routine, something I've been craving for some time.  How this will react on my anxiety is anybody's guess.  I know I need to improve my social life and engagement with people.  I know in doing this, it requires meeting new people, which the housemates will provide.  As I mentioned, they seem sociable, and enjoy going out.  This will be a huge test of my social anxiety and consequently (as all strands of my anxiety are linked) my anxiety as a whole.  I'm nervous, but looking forward to it at the same time.  All sorts of thoughts are going round and round, such as 'what about food?'  'How will I come across?'  'Should I tell them about my anxiety?'  Yadda yadda.  I'd love to be the sort of person who could go with the flow, take things one step at a time and not over-analyse situations.  I'm going to try... but I know it won't happen.  I will obviously let you know how it all goes, but without sounding melodramatic, this could alter things like never before - hopefully for the better.  The move will happen at the start of September.

Watch this space!

Best wishes
Al

Seasonal Affective Disorder: The Polar Opposite

If you're a keen reader of this blog (then you're the only one?), then you may have picked up on my profession that involves climate and weather.  So it was interesting when I learnt about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which is a lot more than just getting annoyed about the weather in winter.  And that's what SAD is - it's being low and depressed during the winter months, largely as a consequence of the weather and light levels, but it potentially resulting in sustained depression and misery for months.

Girls flaunting their... joy

I don't have SAD, at least not to a severe extent, but I can certainly appreciate and understand why people do.  However, perhaps the odd thing for me is that any possible SAD that I get actually occurs in summer, and not winter. 

This is particularly pertinent at the moment.  If you live in this country, you may have noticed that we're currently experiencing a UK heatwave, the first since 2006 and the longest for... well, a long time.  I hate the heat.  Yes, I am one of those annoying people who complain when it gets hot.  But I hate it.  Not least because my bedroom has three outside facing walls and the sun blasts on it all day - it's 27.8C (82F) in there now, and will get hotter still before the day is out.  We also get humid heat in the UK, not dry dusty heat.  The latter may be tolerable, but our heat is always 'move an inch and you can baste yourself in your own sweat' type heat.

One could argue that this is just me being annoyed about the weather, which as I said above is not SAD.  Heat, however, also affects my health and my sleep.  I suffer from health anxiety, and heat often makes me worried that I'm going to blow up.  In cold weather, you can throw five layers on and be fine.  Once you're parading around naked, there's nothing more you can do in hot weather.  As I said, it also affects sleeping.  It's ridiculous enough that it gets light at 3am, but add to that a claustrophobic and choking heat around you it's just unpleasant.  Lack of sleep, as I've blogged about before, can easily result in greater anxiety levels and so the cycle goes on.

That terrible incident over two years ago in Cornwall occurred when I was too hot.  I blame this for one reason for it happening in the first place.  It was only late March, but it was a warm day and I admit that I wasn't dressed for low-20's temperatures, wearing a thick coat. 

The other thing about this weather is that people have the natural, but irritating habit of being happy.  They love being able to go outside and not worry about freezing their knackers off or getting soaked to the skin.  They love being able to wear next to nothing, parading their semi-nakedness and being proud about it.  (Yes, two lots of naked parading).  It's an opportunity to flaunt their non-anxious, rich social lives in front of you.  Or at least, that's how it comes across to me, who has spent years grappling with anxiety whilst at the same time trying to piece together some assemblance of a social life that hasn't been ravaged by anxiety in the past.  People seem to be without a care in the summer; I'm sure this isn't true, but their attitude outdoors in the sunshine conveys this. 

It makes me feel low to see others behaving like this, even though my natural reaction is just to see what I can see, rather than consider that many of them may be experiencing or may have experienced plenty of trauma in their lives.  Meanwhile, I stand there wilting in the heat.

It's all locked away in winter.  I love Christmas, which helps, but even in January, I feel emotionally warmer by the physical cold outside.  Maybe there's a bit here about rejoicing at other people's winter misery, but I don't think so; I think it's more about being glad that lives are more private and also that you can actually move an inch without dying of heat exhaustion.

Maybe that's why I work in the field of climate change.  I have a personal vendetta against hot weather, and an increase as such would make me more miserable.  I am on my own personal crusade to develop a huge mirror to deflect the sun back into space, thus creating another ice age and a boom in the scarf industry.

The one thing, of course, that can alleviate my reverse-SAD is to act myself.  Get out there, so I too can enjoy this weather.  I don't think I'll ever love the heat, but at least it will become tolerable if I am one of those people outside, flaunting their joy. 

For now, I'll go and turn the radiator on to cool my room down.

Best wishes
Al