8: Anxiety@ The Pub

The final of my eight part 'Anxiety @' series (blimey, this has been going on for a while eh?!*) focuses on what it is like to have social anxiety.  I refer to the pub specifically, although this could include any type of social activity involving other people. As I understand it, a social activity is not 'social' if it doesn't involve other people, so by it's very nature, this is the sort of anxiety that occurs in the presence of others.

Photo from Anxiety UK website - Google's were all crap

What a great blog this is so far.

The way I would define social anxiety is having a chronic lack of confidence when in a social situation; a fear of looking foolish; a fear of appearing uninteresting; and of course a fear of all of this resulting in a panic attack.  It's often the case that social anxiety and panic disorder collide.  In fact, panic disorder pretty much collides with everything.

The other factor to throw into the mix which is more specific to me as an individual, is the fear of eating, which, as number 4 in the 'Anxiety @' series demonstrates, has been particularly difficult for me over the years.  Often, struggling to eat can lead to social embarrassment, as various previous blogs have described. 

So for now I'm going to cut out the panic disorder and eating elements, which cloud the social anxiety problem as a whole.  I don't have social anxiety just because of the panic disorder and eating problems.  These are simply other factors that make it worse.  This is proven by the fact that even today, when both my panic disorder and eating out issues are much improved, I still experience social anxiety.  So the two questions are how and why?

This is best demonstrated via the medium of case studies.  Sorry - I appear to have gone back to work.  But in all seriousness, examples of where social anxiety has occurred where eating out hasn't been involved, and recently enough so that panic disorder was less of an issue, is the best way for me to explain what it's like.

Example 1: This was about 18 months ago, not long before I left my previous job.  There was a fairly generic work do taking place.  Work do's are generally a fuel for social anxiety, because 1) I never feel as comfortable with work colleagues anyway for obvious reasons, and 2) because no-one at work has ever known about my anxiety conditions.

Ah - and this is really interesting actually as I'm kind of finding out things about my condition as I write this.  Because of health anxiety, I have a fear of the effects of stimulants on the body.  Alcohol is included in this, and consequently I tended to only drink a little and then go soft, so to speak.  In the past, whenever I drank too much, I woke up at about 4am with my heart racing and feeling terrible, which then led to a panic attack.  So I stopped drinking.  But of course, when you're out with work colleagues, and they ask you 'why aren't you drinking much,' my reply generally won't be 'because I have an anxiety condition and it causes me to have a panic attack if I drink too much.'  Call it stigma, call it a conversation killer, what you will, but I never gave a legitimate reason.  Well OK, so I may have said 'for health reasons,' which technically is true, but you get the point.

Anyway all this drivel shows how significant the influence of alcohol has on a social situation.  Sadly, in modern society, you're often automatically seen as uninteresting if you're not drinking for no reason that is deemed acceptable by those who are drinking.  So I often go into social situations, especially with people who don't know about my condition, knowing that talks of alcohol are going to dominate the night.  And you may have noticed (or maybe not, if you too are pissed), that when people start drinking, one of the main things they talk about is around stories of other times when they have been so off their face that they had intimate relations with their friend's grandmother, or something equally as worrying.

So what this example - and many others - shows is that alcohol has a huge influence on social anxiety.  I either drink and suffer the consequences, or don't drink and get badgered all evening as to why I'm not drinking.  Call me a tiresome bore, but I generally go for the latter.  

Example 2: A house party, probably about five years ago now, at my friend's house.  This particular friend generally sits in other 'friendship circles' to me, which means apart from her and my mate who effectively came with me, the other people at the party weren't people I knew well.  Put me in a situation with new or unfamiliar people and I'm petrified.  I feel bullied by others in conversational terms - I feel I need to have seen that film or heard that band or visited that country that they are talking about.  The reality is, I rarely watch films, my music taste is so specific I have no idea what is happening in the mainstream, and my only venture outside the UK and Ireland was on a university fieldtrip.  Sadly, the materialistic fabric that makes up modern life dominates social conversations, especially with people you don't know well, and as such I'm automatically perceived as 'unusual' as someone who doesn't really treasure the same things most others do (ironically - some of these 'unusual' character traits that I have are often as a result of anxiety!)

Now this would be fine if I had confidence.  You could argue that being 'different' could provide a real social opportunity, a tonic amongst the generic nature of most social conversations.  But sadly, what social anxiety makes you do is cower under the discomfort of being 'different' rather than allowing you to express yourself.  You become wildly uninteresting rather than the most interesting.  And even if people don't see you as uninteresting, you feel uninteresting - because you have no confidence.  The reality is this:

I don't feel I have anything interesting to say.  Or rather;

I don't feel I have anything to say that other people would find interesting.

Example 3: I mentioned in my last blog about living in a shared house that social anxiety has been an issue here too.  I've been fortunate, in that this has forced them to find out more about me and in so doing make me feel more comfortable with them over time.  But it's not been without it's difficulties.  There have been other people there during my time at the shared house who have always made me uncomfortable, the sort who assume that you're uninteresting if you don't share their views or find the things they are interested in interesting yourself.  I began to appreciate that's not so much my fault, but it doesn't help my own confidence either.

But even the people I have got on with well, I still find it difficult to answer a question such as 'what have you got planned for the weekend?'  If my answer is 'watching football, chilling, walking' for example, then those feelings of uninterest come back.  I feel like the social eyes of the world are watching me, expecting me to say I'm going hang gliding or parachuting, or at least going out with 'the lads' on the piss until the early hours.  Which takes us back to example 1.

Incidentally, none of my friends, nor myself, could be classed as 'the lads' in any way, shape or form.  And that is one element of my social personality that I'm quite proud of.

Now to factor back in the aforementioned eating problem: could it be that this has caused the social anxiety to be worse, or could it be that it's the social anxiety that's caused the eating problem?  As with trying to identify the cause and effect of many anxiety problems, especially those that interrelate, it's very much a chicken and egg situation. Does health anxiety cause panic disorder?  Or the other way round?  In truth, I don't think even the most highly qualified psychologists know the answer to that.  That said, I think I'd still have social anxiety if I didn't have an eating problem, as the confidence thing can occur whether eating is involved or not.

The final question is, what has caused this social anxiety.  Is it other forms of anxiety and the effect it has had on my personality?  Is it my upbringing?  The eating problem as mentioned above?  Is it purely genetic?  Where does the lack of confidence come from?  Years of being unhappy and, for a while, bullied at school?  Years of being single?  

I would suggest all of the above have had an impact.  I don't think, after so long, it really matters now.  It's more about appreciating the people I do feel comfortable with, of which there a few - but this core group of friends has really kept me together over the years.  It's more about welcoming those few new people into my life who do accept me and value me for who I am, not who society wants me to be.  And it's about managing those occasions when I am thrusted into uncomfortable circumstances and managing them in the best way I know how - if anyone can tell me what this is, by the way, please let me know.

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* As I said at the start of this post, this is the final blog in the 'Anxiety @' series.  I also said it's been going on for a while, which it has.  Eight blog posts all around different themes in terms of how anxiety has affected and still affects me, and several sub-themes within each one.  What does this show?  Just how much anxiety and mental health conditions as a whole can affect someone's life.

I would never say that I've had a severe mental health condition.  I say that because I'm here today in a position to write this blog, and I've never been hospitalised as a result of my condition.  And yet despite this, anxiety has still affected my life, its outcomes and my future in a multitude of ways.  So how about those people who can class their condition as severe?

Which is why all the talk about cuts to mental health budgets, the stigma that still exists and the lack of awareness that is still abound in certain pockets of today's society frightens me.  This needs to change.  The time to act is now.

That's all I hope to achieve by writing these blogs.  A microscopic needle in a land full of haystacks.  But I hope, occasionally, that the right person with the right microscope picks the right haystack, and finds something amongst my ramblings that they find helpful.

Best wishes
Al

7: Anxiety@ The Shared House

The latest in my 'Anxiety@' series continues with focusing on what it has been like living in a shared house.  I didn't move out of my parents' home at all until April 2012 - nearly three years ago.  I lived at home and commuted during University and simply didn't have the mental strength to move out.  The thought of it scared me.  After the incident in 2011 (see last blog) any likelihood of this seemed even less likely, but thanks to my therapy that I started a year before I moved out, it gave me the belief that, if the right circumstances came up, I could do it.

It never quite got like this

Not that I specifically looked for it.  It just so happened that my friend, who I met at the start of GCSE years (2001) was moving back to my home town in 2012 after spending four University years and two subsequent years up north.  Needless to say he didn't want to move back with his parents, so he asked me if we wanted to share.

Now the nature of his job means that he's away quite a lot (he's a musician).  He is usually gigging at weekends, which is of course the time when I'm not at work.  I knew back then that living what would effectively be on my own was not an option.  Being alone causes the anxious thoughts to prevail, to rise to the surface and stay there, to be more profound.  If the mind has nothing to focus on, it focuses on physical pains or things to generate anxiety.  Mind clutter, if you will.  So living alone was never an option for me.  

But I also knew that living with my parents was difficult enough.  I'm an only child, and invariably I'd spend many evenings coming home from work and sitting away from them, either because I needed space from them or simply because they weren't watching the same TV programmes as me.  So home, despite being a comfort blanket in many ways, was also becoming quite lonely.

So, with the help of my friend and my therapist, I took the plunge, and we moved into a shared house with, at the time, three other people we had never met.  And to say the first few months were hard would be an understatement.

Lesson 1: Always try and meet the people you'll be living with before moving in. 

Lesson 2: Try and live with an existing friend, if you can.  Someone you're comfortable with.

For a start, my room was, environmentally, a health hazard, and not just for someone with chronic anxiety.  It contained the hot water boiler and the kitchen was below, meaning it was like the surface of the sun most of the time.  It was April when we moved in, so of course it kept getting warmer then too.  Due to the aforementioned factors and single glazing, it was also very noisy.  It was also absurdly light, due to pointless beige curtains and the sun for most of the day.  The main impact of all this was lack of sleep.  I think I must have got about no more than five hours sleep every night for about two months - and five hours would be an achievement.  It was becoming a serious problem.  

This was partially overcome by moving rooms. One of the downstairs rooms was vacant because it took the landlord so long to redecorate it after previous troublesome tenant(!), but once it became available I moved into it.  It was darker (had shutters on the window), cooler (downstairs) and generally less noisy, so this was a significant improvement.  It was a sizeable bedroom as well, so all in all this wasn't a problem (apart from a fairly frequent appearance of cat-sized house spiders, which I'm not very good with either).  

Lesson 3: Don't be scared to move rooms if the opportunity arises, if you'd like to. On a similar point, don't be scared to ask the landlord if you need something; that's what they are there for.  I went in with too much of a 'I need to wholly fend for myself' attitude.

However, this room ended up being my house, basically.  To say the other tenants, bar my friend of course, were not the sort I had in mind would be an understatement.  My mate and I laugh about it now, but at the time it was hell.  They were all messy and unclean for a start off and none of them really pulled their weight in this respect.  The bathroom wasn't much better.  The floor was carpeted for a start.  For someone who verges on obsessive when it comes to cleanliness, this was very difficult to live with.  I expanded the hand sanitiser market by 40%.  Their personalities made me very uncomfortable as well.  As with shared houses, people came and went, but they were all male (which probably stereotypically explains the mess), and all either rather uncommunicative or a lads lad, if you know what I mean.  They made me that uncomfortable that I tended to avoid making contact with them at all in the end; e.g. if one of them was in the kitchen, I'd wait until they were finished.  I was walking on egg shells all the time.  And in the last couple of months, I went back to my parents every weekend; my friend wasn't there at weekends anyway and I couldn't face two days of dealing with this.  

Generally it was a really difficult situation, with only my friend and the change of rooms early doors making me stick it out for ten months.  I finished the therapy I mentioned about a month or so after I moved into this house, which was also difficult.  That said, had I not had all the things I'd learnt from this therapy fresh in my head during this time, I'm not sure I could have coped for ten weeks, let alone ten months.  I knew it was time to leave when someone said I was looking thinner (as a six foot four inch tall slim build male who is in fear of any physical changes, this was hard to hear!), which was induced by avoiding cooking anything healthy or substantial on the hob or in the oven due to their rancid state.  

So in late January 2013, I moved back to my folks.  I needed to get out - and I remember vividly feeling so happy and relieved for the first few days back.  I left my friend at the hovel, unfortunately for him, but he understood that I had to leave.  

Of course, it didn't take too long to slip back into the lonely, isolated world of living with my parents.  I knew I could only let this be temporary.  So me and my friend looked for other shared houses, as before.  I still didn't want to live alone or just with him, due to the same reasons, but, being armed with the first experience, I was adamant I wanted to find a place with some nice people in it, people who not only I could tolerate living with, but who, if I was lucky, I'd even make some friends with.  

However, by the seventh viewing, I was becoming sceptical.  Some were hovels like the place I'd moved from; and at most, the landlords didn't make the effort to allow you meet the other housemates.  Until house number eight.

Lesson 4: Spend time looking for houses you're most comfortable with.  I found spareroom.co.uk most useful.

I was viewing the house alone because my friend was away, and I arrived at the viewing to be greeted by a middle aged woman with bright pink hair.  I thought 'hello, what have I got myself into here?'  Only to find out she was the landlord's wife.  I was then introduced to two other people who it quickly transpired were also there to view the three rooms available.  Along with the fact that I was viewing the house for me and my mate, and there was also one other person interested, there were five of us effectively competing for three rooms.  The best bit: the current housemates were all there, in the lounge, waiting for us and effectively judging us on who they wanted to live there / replace them. 

The good news - great news, in fact - here is that this meant that the landlords genuinely cared about who lived with who, and cared that the newbies were able to meet the housemates.  The bad news - I have social anxiety.

So during this whole charade, I kept trying to come across as confident, and wondering the whole time 'how am I coming across compared to the others? How am I coming across to the people I want to live with?' The most difficult were the questions they asked; I kept over-analysing my answers - too short? Too long? Too weird?  Did I look anxious?  This is a vomit of information and a lot to think about in about 20 minutes, whilst trying to secure a room. 

But I was so adamant that I needed to get that into that house.  Why?  Because it offered the biggest opportunity of my lifetime.  A chance to grow, a chance to make friends, a chance to really test myself, with the therapy armed within me.  A chance to strengthen.

Fortunately, two of the other viewers didn't come across particularly well - one barely said anything (even compared to me, which is a challenge) and the other wanted to draw up things like cleaning rotas.  Even I knew this wasn't going to go down favourably.  The landlords also saw me as favourable, because I was able to fill two rooms at once - with my mate in the other room.  So in September 2013, I embarked on my biggest social challenge ever - I (was allowed to) move(d) into this house.  

The first three-ish weeks were a living hell.  All that hard work for not just nothing, but for pain.  It was one of the few times I've ever actually suffered from depression.  I was in despair the whole time.  I was in tears just cooking dinner, which I then struggled to eat.  Sleeping had ceased again.  My dad came round a few days in for a reason I can't remember, and for an hour after he left I was crying manically.  I was close to leaving before I'd even settled in.  

The first question is, why did this happen?  Well, I always expected it to be fairly hard at first, because I have chronic anxiety and a big change like this will take it's toll, initially, just like the previous place.  But I think the key thing here is that I had put pressure on myself to make this experience go well and for it to improve my life.  Perhaps, in a way, similar to why I had my biggest ever panic attack on a train (see previous blog) after I went to visit a University about doing a masters that would 'change my life for the better.'  Combine that with pressure not to eat and do things solely in my room and to go into the communal areas and socialise.  The exact reason I moved in here was causing me utter hell.  

And, as I've said before on this website, I don't suffer from depression, but I have had short bursts of it in the past.  I cannot begin to imagine how people go through chronic depression because it is just absolutely unbearable.  

The second question is, how did I get out of it?  A trip to Wales with another good mate helped; this occurred about three-four weeks in.  I came back more relaxed and refreshed and stronger - able to hit the problems where they hurt.  I focused on my therapy techniques, which had gone out the window during this first period.  My good friend that I lived with was also around for longer than usual after I came back from Wales too, so his familiarity and advice helped.  And I'm still here to this day.

Lesson 5: Don't be scared to take some time out of the situation to freshen your mind up.  Inadvertently it worked for me.  

It took a while, but I actually started to enjoy it.  The other people we were living with were all great people, we had a laugh, and have since even socialised from time to time.  I think I've made a lifetime friend in at least one of them.  The phrase short-term pain for long-term gain was certainly applicable in this case.  I become comfortable, I felt more popular and the only things I had to concern me were the little things you'd get at any shared house.  

But these little things are now starting to get to me more and more.  One of the good housemates has already moved away, the other is doing so in the summer.  For the last six months or so, I've become happier to be on my own, and less tolerant to not being able to cook or shower when I want.  I still have social anxiety, too, and an improved social life as a result of moving here hasn't actually changed this, so I still feel uncomfortable from time to time, a feeling I'm fed up with now and want to minimise.  This combination of reasons means I feel it's time to move on again.

And alas, I've recently been successful (subject to contract) in buying my first house.  Fortunately, my good friend who has been with me throughout both of these shared housing experiences, will join me as my tenant, so I'll still have the company, but with more space than before and hopefully less discomfort.  I will reserve my thoughts and feelings about buying a house for a later blog, when I've actually moved in, but to say I'm experiencing a myriad of both positive and nervous feelings about it would be an understatement.  

But despite going through some really tough times during my shared house experience, ultimately I achieved my goals of (a) having the balls to move out of my parents' in the first place, (b) having the balls to move back temporarily when the first house didn't work out, (c) meeting some great new people and improving my social interactivity and (d) making me mentally tougher and stronger, which I believe it has done.  I think my shared house experience, both the bad and the good times, has helped me manage, test and allow me to learn more about my anxiety second only to the therapy itself.

But now it's time to move on again, to another new chapter in my life.  That will involve me being a lot poorer than before.

Best wishes
Al

6: Anxiety@ The Road and Railway

This is where calling the series 'Anxiety @' falls down again, on the basis that the title of this blog doesn't make a great deal of sense, but what I'm basically referring to is how public transport has affected my anxiety condition over the years.  

To set context, below is a timeline of the most significant transport related events that have happened in my life, non-anxiety related:

2004: Started taking driving lessons.
2005: Failed a driving test.
2005: Started commuting about 40 miles most weekdays on the train for University.
2008: Finished university, then worked in the same town I lived in until 2014, so the maximum I needed was a 20 minute bus journey twice daily.  Occasionally had to take the train for meetings / conferences.
2014-: Started new job; 50 mile total daily commute.  Have to take train sometimes for meetings / conferences.

The 09:41 to Anxietyland

To start with, I will say that I actually enjoy catching the bus.  My mum has never driven and consequently she always used to take me on the bus from when I was a baby.  Because my parents always lived in the same village when I was growing up (and still do now), we saw the same people whenever I catch the bus and consequently got to know quite a lot of nice (and annoying) people.  To this day, whenever I go up to my folks' to stay, I usually end up catching the bus to town just to see some old faces.  It's like a comfort blanket in a bizarre way.  Some good friends of our family have been made by me or my mum meeting them, initially, on the bus.  

Lesson 1: Appreciate these 'comfort blankets,' even if they may seem odd to others...

However, when I turned 17, my dad marched me down to the post office to file my application for a driving licence.  Within a couple of months, the summer between my penultimate and last year of sixth form, I was starting to take lessons.  

Sadly, the last year of sixth form was probably the best year of my schooling life.  I say sadly, because driving lessons, which persisted during most of this period (August 2004 - June 2005) were making my life a living hell.  The day before my first lesson I had a panic attack about them, and was in one of those panic-states directly prior to that lesson taking place.  I remained in this panic during the lesson and I remember afterwards feeling so emotionally drained I just broke down and cried.  Unfortunately, little did I know that I was going to go through this before every single lesson I ever undertook - if not worse.  I was even given some tablets (can't even remember what they were) that I took just before each lesson to 'calm me down,' which unsurprisingly made no difference.  The whole experience was an absolute nightmare.

So, as you can see from the timeframe above, why did I persist with it for so long?  Well, as with so many things, the first reason was because I was determined that I wouldn't let the anxiety beat me, which of course it already had, arguably even before my first lesson.  Secondly, I felt real pressure from my dad - he saw the inconvenience it put on my mum not being able to drive and thought it was a key milestone in my development as a human being.  So I would have had to encounter his wrath if I gave up (he never really got the anxiety thing - another blog in itself, I feel).  But of course, this pressure all added to the anxiety.  What didn't help either was that the instructor wasn't a nice man and it wasn't just me who said this.  Several others didn't like him, but got through it because, of course, they didn't have a chronic anxiety condition.  

Lesson 2: Being open with your parents in fundamental, even if you don't like their reaction.  I wouldn't have gone through months of pain if I'd have been!

My free periods in the last year of sixth form were on Thursday mornings, which is when I usually had lessons.  I dreaded them.  It was only the remainder of Thursday after the lessons that I could temporarily forget about them.  So I went through ten months of this, about 38 lessons I think it was, until for some reason I was booked in for a test.  I knew that I wasn't anywhere near good enough to pass a test, and even if I was, I knew that my anxiety would be so high that I couldn't function adequately in a test situation anyway.  Yet stupidly, with a lack of ability or power to stand up for myself back then, I went through with it.  I failed within the first five minutes (I think it was when I put the car into third instead of fifth gear... or it could have been when I accelerated instead of braked... take your pick) which in a way took the pressure off a bit because I knew I had failed anyway.  But the whole experience was traumatic.  

By which point I'd had enough.  I found the courage to say that I wasn't doing this any more.  I still don't think my dad truly understood how bad things were for me then or how much pain I was going through.  I think now, ten years on, he probably regrets rushing me into it, because since I took that test in June 2005, I have never stepped foot inside the driver's seat of a car again.  And frankly, I have no intention to.  If people ask why I don't drive, I have a trump excuse, which is 'I work in sustainability so it's good practice not to drive.'  Other excuses include 'cost' and 'haven't needed to,' all of which are true to varying degrees.  But they aren't the real reasons.

So not being able to drive is another reason why I still catch the local bus from time to time but also why I have been wedded to trains, especially during the periods I set out at the start.  The train experience during University was generally fine, as often I commuted with one of my Uni friends who did the same trip and it was only a 20 minute journey.  Things went wrong, I complained, but I don't recall me being particularly stressed about it, and overcrowding wasn't much of an issue back in those days (that makes me sound very old).

As I mentioned, when I finished University back in 2008 I did a job that occasionally took me to London, Birmingham or other local stations, but on these odd occasions, nothing went badly wrong from what I remember.  

That was, until 2011.  I've blogged about this numerous times before, but just to summarise, this trip - one from Cornwall (including four changes) - ended up being the worst experience of my life, led me to have what I call an 'anxiety breakdown' and was probably the biggest turning point in my entire life, anxiety related or otherwise.  The whole eight hour journey back was the worst eight hours of my life, worse than the rest of the 17 years of anxiety I've had put together.  Frightened, isolated, confused and just scared of what my future would hold.  

But as with traumatic events like this, subsequent events where there are similarities can trigger off the same feelings.  So, lo and behold, catching the train the next time after this caused a panic attack.  I cancelled a trip to see a friend up north, a trip I'd done before, simply because I was petrified of going through the same experience again.  It got so bad that even catching my comfort blanket, the local bus, became difficult and then so did leaving the house.  It was a downward spiral towards agoraphobia.  Everything was falling apart and it all started on a train.  It was around this time - summer/autumn 2011 - that I knew action had to be taken, and that's when I contacted Anxiety UK to get help, and 50 therapy sessions later... well, scroll through this website to find out the rest.

Lesson 3: Although this was the worst incident I'd ever experienced, I'd already been living with anxiety for years before. So my advice is to get help as soon as you know that things aren't right.  Don't wait for years like I did - otherwise this incident may not have happened at all.

Why was it a train journey that caused this?

Well, the trip itself was to visit a University in Cornwall because back then I was convinced that I was fed up with my job and I felt my anxiety was in check enough that I could go and do a masters degree.  In hindsight, the mother of all panic attacks that I had may have been for the best in that respect too, given that in hindsight I knew I couldn't have done a masters back then.  Anyway, I think I'd put loads of pressure on myself and combined with environmental factors (such as it being very warm for March but me wearing a winter coat) I just found it difficult to face eight hours of no company, isolation and prying eyes.  The panicky feeling started, I then became hyper-sensitive to others around me and so it spiralled out of control.  I had no mechanisms back then to stop it. 

Lesson 4: Don't put pressure on yourself, or listen to pressure from others, about doing certain things at certain times in your life - like a masters degree!

Whether it would have happened if I'd stayed in Cornwall another night, I don't know.  That said, if it hadn't have happened, maybe I wouldn't have ever got the help I really needed for my anxiety condition.  Short term pain for long term gain - albeit this pain was brutal.

Anyway, part of my therapy was to catch the train to somewhere for no reason.  Rather costly I grant you, but it helped and over time the fear became a bit easier. I still felt nervous before a train journey, but less so each time and by about 2013 I began to apply the tools I'd learnt to travelling situations and they were making a difference.  It was about winter 2013/14 when I caught the train to somewhere (don't remember where), and recalling when I had nearly completed the journey that 'I didn't even worry about this.'  So it took about two and a half years to recover.

And now I commute daily on the train.  What I get now is stress, not anxiety.  Overcrowded trains, delays, being overly-obsessed about small things annoying me, noisy people, people booting me out of a reserved seat, the extortionate costs - but these are normal stresses.  OK, maybe I'm slightly more stressed about this than your average person, but I never thought this would have been possible to achieve at all a few years ago.  

Longer journeys for social or work trips are a bit more challenging still.  What if this happens, what if that happens.  I do have to apply contingency for these sort of trips, even today.  But at least I have the contingencies to apply and can usually get through them with no more than minor discomfort.  London is my least favourite, especially where the underground is involved, but I tend these days to stand on the tube with my eyes closed and big headphones on, and try and block everything out.  Whilst trying to remain security conscious. 

Lesson 5: Prepare for train (or equivalent) journeys by taking anything with you that may help you get through it, such as music, books, newspapers, food, drink, directions... etc.

All in all, me and transport have had a rollercoaster of a relationship.  I don't intend on driving anytime soon - I can see this being something I never do.  But it doesn't really bother me at the moment.  I've had a love-hate-love-hate relationship with trains, but at the moment I'm out on the right side.  

But the reality is this: my lowest ever point happened on a train.  But it led to my biggest ever achievement in my life - being better at managing my anxiety condition.

Best wishes
Al

5: Anxiety@ Work

The next blog in my 'Anxiety @' series focuses on coping at work with anxiety.  I get the impression from people I know, people I've read about and people on Twitter that work is one of the biggest triggers, sources and persistent causes of anxiety for many people, which is hardly surprising given what work can throw at you:

1. A job you find very boring or dull.

2. Staff members who are irritating or not very nice.

3. A commute that you may have to take to get you to this place of boredom and horrible people.

4. In a time of cuts, having to cope with your job being under threat all the time.

5. In a time of cuts, having to do four people's job and being too busy.

6. Getting paid peanuts.

7. Being passionate about a job, meaning you get easily angry and irritated with yourself if things don't go right.

Insert stereotypical, patronising image here

I guarantee everyone reading this will have to deal with at least one of these when you next go into work.  For the record, mine are 3 and 7, but also 5 - not because of cuts fortunately, but because my boss decided to throw herself down her stairs at home and will be off work for 6 weeks consequently.  But you get the idea.

I've been in full-time work for over six years now and in that time I've come across many people who I either know quite well or vaguely well who have had to take a few weeks off with stress.  Now, I haven't got a dictionary in front of me, but I deem stress to be a condition that is temporary.  Yes it can be very nasty when it happens and cause you to feel weak, pathetic and can have a significant impact on your quality of life, but usually only temporarily.  This is the key word.  Anxiety and stress are words that are brandished around as meaning the same thing, where, as I'm sure everyone reading this will appreciate, anxiety is a totally different ball game.  It is something that usually lasts for a lot longer, or keeps returning on a relatively frequent basis, and affects most aspects of your life.  Taking time off work, for example, wouldn't necessarily heal an anxiety condition, as it can start to affect the rest of your life even if it started at work.  I mean, taking time off work probably wouldn't help as the rest of the time you're equally as worried about your next social occasion or that mole on your arm that you swear wasn't there yesterday.

So what this blog aims to describe is how I've managed work given that I already had an anxiety condition in the first place.  The 'Anxiety @' series has already detailed my experiences at school and University and shows that when I first started my employment in 2008, I was already well versed at being twatted on by the symptoms of anxiety.

I will emphasise that, from the outset, I have been lucky when it comes to work, for two main reasons.  Firstly, I have a job in a field that I am passionate about.  In these days of cuts, that's not a common occurrence and I have friends who are one-hundred times more intelligent than me who have struggled for the last few years to even get a job, let alone one that they enjoy.  Secondly, I've only ever had one what I would call 'proper' interview for a job in my life, and that was just over a year ago.  Had I had this a year before (or earlier), I probably wouldn't have been able to cope, especially given I had to catch the train to have the interview in the first place.  My first job was a graduate placement that I knew was only temporary and was almost like an extension of University, as I was basically researching and writing a report.  So my 'interview' was just an informal meeting with a couple of staff members at the organisation.  2008 was one of my better years for anxiety, too, between 1997 and today so that also made it easier.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't perfect.  I was obviously nervous early on, and by nervous I don't mean 'normal person nervous,' I mean 'I have an anxiety condition' nervous.  Anxious people don't get butterflies, they get flying ostriches.  Anyway, eating was a problem, as always and it soon dawned on me that the person I sat next to in the office didn't say two words to me, or anyone else for that matter.  So it made it an uncomfortable start, as someone with social anxiety who finds it difficult to converse with over and under-confident people (and, in fact, people in between).  I remember on my first day I was absolutely desperate for the loo.  I mean, they nearly had to phone up the water board due to unspecified leaks.  And yet I was so nervous about even asking whether I could leave this inception meeting I was in to go that I had to hold on.

Lesson 1: Don't be frightened to ask your manager or colleagues something, anything - particularly if it's toilet related.

Anyway it subsided and the rest of the placement was okay and didn't produce too many anxiety-producing moments.  A few months later, I started work experience at my next place of work, where I ended up staying until about a year ago (Jan 2014).  I would say that the worst time over this period was whenever I went out on a social occasion with these people.  Eating out being the main reason (see previous blog), but also the people made nights out into the worst possible trigger for social anxiety it was untrue.  But work itself was manageable, except for in 2011.

Anyone who regularly visits this blog will know that 2011 was the worst year for me, after that Cornwall incident in March of that year.  The whole year subsequently was a living hell, and that included work.  For a start, I could barely leave the house, so just travelling the (then) short distance to work raised my anxiety levels.  I had to cancel meetings that I didn't need, as my panic disorder was so severe at that point that any contact I had with others would automatically make me assume that I would have a panic attack in such a situation (which I genuinely would have, so at least the fear was rational).  I vividly remember catching the bus to a meeting (yep... because I don't drive) which was quite far away and panicking all the way there and barely being able to conduct the meeting when I arrived.  This happened a few times over this period.

I also remember a presentation I had to give in front of around 50 people.  Now, presentations for work, oddly, I'm generally okay with (for reasons I won't go into now because it'd extend the blog length too much), but this one was bad timing and in front of a particularly large audience.  It was horrific.  I was focusing purely on my heart rate, listening for anything I deemed odd, and of course it was beating fast.  I did the talk, but with literally weeks of heightened anxiety before it in anticipation.  I garbled through most of the presentation but at least I did it.  But in this case, the pain I went through outweighed the success of doing it, instead of the other way round.

Lesson 2: Don't be scared to opt out of certain things if you don't feel comfortable.  

Then there was one lunchtime that I broke down and driven home by a colleague.  I blurted out to my boss about anxiety and the fact that this was a long-term problem. The next day I was called into a meeting by my boss and team manager to be told all about 'stress.'  Going back to my earlier point, it was difficult not getting quite angry about this, although in fairness to them they were just trying their best.  I also feared that I would be 'signed off' for a while, but fortunately this did not happen.

Gradually, via my therapy, my work actually became my haven a little.  I was more comfortable there than in social situations.  I can talk to people at work about work, a subject I know a fair bit about and am comfortable with.  Social situations involved pretending to be someone I'm not, otherwise feeling insignificant.  I was getting better at my job and more independent, which made me confident, and this happened hand in hand with my therapy which was gradually helping me.  Don't get me wrong, there were still moments of discomfort, as there is with anything when you have a chronic anxiety condition. Towards the end of this job, 2013-14, I was improving generally and the work situation had improved, as I temporarily had a different, better boss, a colleague who became a good friend and some other decent people around me.  The job was my own and although I was busy I was enjoying it.  All this positivity from the people perspective was only temporary (maternity cover), but then my current job was advertised...

Lesson 3: When choosing a job, try and get to know your team and the people you'd be working with beforehand, even if it's just briefly.  This is as important as any aspect of any job, as working in a team of people you don't like can make even a job that you enjoy difficult.

Late 2013 it was: this was the first job I'd applied for where I thought I'd have a slim chance of getting it.  There was no point applying much before this as, as I mentioned before, there's no way I could have gone through with such a big change, or indeed the interview in the first place.  But the reality is, I still have an anxiety condition - so how exactly did I cope with the interview?

1) Take the train before the train before the train before I needed to, to minimise stress.

2) Take items, such as my tablet, book, phone, music, paper, food, water etc that I might need for 'comfort.'

3) Plan the route from the station to the interview venue.

4) Concentrate on breathing at all times, even when I didn't feel like it.

Notice that these tips have nothing to do with the interview itself - they are simple mechanisms that I now try and employ before anything slightly out of the ordinary - conferences, social events, travelling anywhere - it just makes it that bit easier.  I think the other thing is not to make it a big deal - I knew if I didn't get this job it wouldn't be the end of the world, which relaxed me somewhat.

I appreciate that not everyone is in this boat - some people go for interviews and they need to be successful for the sake of being able to live properly.  That takes me back to one of my first points - I am lucky, not just to have got the jobs I got prior to my current one, but also to have a comfortable background to fall back on if things do go tits up.  I do fully appreciate not everyone has this background stability which, although may have caused some of my underlying anxiety, has also helped to manage it and stopped these sort of situations from being critical.  However, that isn't to say the above tips should be ignored, as they will help a bit - at least.

Lesson 4: Practice interviews.  It's never the same as the real thing, but can help if prepare you a little.  If you have to travel for an interview, take the journey in advance, just to practice it - as daft as it sounds.

I have been in this current job for a year.  The worst bit about it is the commute which I get very irritated by, in terms of incompetence of our railway system.  The second worst bit is the amount of work, which at present is even more significant given one of our four staff members is on long term sick (not due to stress, I hasten to add).  Because I am a perfectionist and I'm passionate about my job and have a fear of letting people down, I want to make sure I please everyone and do everything, so I end up working far more hours than I'm paid for.  This, of course, can make you stressed - and when you have a chronic anxiety condition, stress doesn't really exist.  It quickly turns into something more sinister... and we go full circle.

But work for me has, at times, been a blessing rather than a cause of anxiety.  It keeps me sane, because boredom gives my mind too much time to wander into dangerous territory, and is where I'm at my most confident.  So although it has been difficult at times, overall I would say the benefits of my jobs have outweighed the negatives.

Apologies for the ramble; these 'Anxiety @' blogs are lengthy as I'm trying to go through several years' worth of experience in one go.  Some more coming up, which should be shorter affairs, are as follows (in no particular order):

Anxiety @ The Railway Station
Anxiety @ A Shared House
Anxiety @ The Pub
Anxiety @ The Doctors

Sounds like a series of children's books.

Best wishes
Al

4: Anxiety@ The Restaurant

First of all, I would like to wish all of my readers a very Happy New Year, and I hope you had an anxiety-free Christmas.  I have found that New Year is quite a difficult time, where you have a combination of people enjoying themselves (aka getting smashed) and making pie in the sky resolutions, which make people who can't even begin to consider such possibilities (i.e. if you have an anxiety, or other mental health, condition) feel low and worthless.  So I now tend to treat it as just another day.  So it is happy Thursday this year and we'll see what 2015 brings.  I considered doing a 'review of 2014,' or a 'preview of 2015' blog, but I decided against it in the end, to reinforce my belief in relieving the pressure at this time of year.

It's rarely like this...

So as such, I am going to continue with my 'Anxiety @' series and gladly, for me, 'at the restaurant' makes more sense than 'at the holiday home,' my last effort.

This may seem like an odd inclusion in this series; previous topics have been about dealing with anxiety in big scenarios that take up a significant proportion of your life.  Holidays can come around fairly frequently and last for a couple of weeks on end and can involve plenty of travelling.  University lasted non-stop for three years and school lasted for fourteen years!  Eating out in a restaurant only lasts a couple of hours and doesn't necessarily happen particularly frequently.

However, eating out has caused me so many problems in the past that I feel it is more than worthy of a separate entry. You will notice if you read the previous three 'Anxiety @' blog posts that eating out appears as a problem that has been apparent during all of school, University and holidays.  You will also notice that I have written blogs about this before back in 2012 and 2013.  So it's a persistent problem that has plagued me for many years.  I'm still waiting to find someone, among the myriad of us anxious nutters, who has struggled in particular with eating out.

In the 2012 blog that I mentioned above, I try and work out why it is that this has been a problem for me.  It took me many years to work out that it was connected to my overall anxiety condition; I went for a long time thinking it was some sort of eating disorder that I had, but for it to only usually affect eating out made this scenario unlikely.  The 2013 blog I mention above provides you with a case study of one of the many (and one of the worst) incidences I could write about in relation to eating out.  I'd recommend reading both of these before continuing reading this blog as they sum up the problem quite nicely.

Without wanting to repeat the content of these blogs, I think eating out is one of the most consistent themes I have mentioned on this website since its inception.  Look how many blogs appear when you type 'eating out' in the search box in the top right corner.  It has caused me years of social misery and at the worst times has also affected my eating in general, affecting my physical health and then consequently my health anxiety condition.  You get the picture.

In the aforementioned 2013 blog, I wrote:


"I've since learnt it's all down to some bizarre anxiety that to this day still baffles me a bit."

In other words, I don't really know why my anxiety condition particularly has a problem with eating out.  My 2012 blog does a reasonable job at working it out, and to sum it up I think it is largely down to pressure.  I'm a perfectionist, a fussy eater and someone who doesn't deal well with certain pressure situations where you are expected to behave in a certain manner.  Therefore, in simple terms, if you combine these factors and put them into a person with chronic anxiety, it's no real wonder that I've struggled with eating out.  

However, writing this particular blog now is quite timely.  Not because the eating out problem is currently making a big impact on my life - quite the opposite, in fact.  I've been on my Christmas break since 17th December and for me this is the most social time of year.  During this period, I have eaten out a total of seven times, and have two more occasions to go before I start back at work on 5th January.  Each time I have been fine and the only case of slight anxiety came when I was away in Yorkshire (see previous blog) where I did wonder a couple of times whether I'd be able to cope.  But not only have I managed to eat everything, I've done it with very few anxious thoughts at all and have even asked for dessert on a few occasions!

As such, I thought I'd focus this blog on trying to work out why this is the case.  What's going on?  How can eating out almost be impossible for years and, for now at least, be okay?  My musings are as follows - and please use some of these as the equivalent 'lessons' that I have included on the previous 'Anxiety @' blogs!

1) My anxiety as a whole has declined over the past couple of years, thanks to numerous reasons.  This, I presume, has led to a general calmness in situations that would have led me to panic in the past, such as eating out.

2) To follow on from point 1, the CBT techniques that I have learnt via my therapist that I saw in 2011-12 have helped when applied in certain situations, eating out being one of them.  These include:

+ Concentrating on breathing, particularly important when eating as the simple act of eating can make it harder to breathe in the first place.

+ Rationalising about the social occasion (difficult and I know it sounds far-fetched, but it does work quite well after plenty of practice).

+ Focus on the conversation that you are having with the person/people you're with, listen intently to what they are saying and join in - as a way of taking your mind off the eating.

+ If this fails, do some people watching for the same purpose!

There may be others, but you get the point.  

3) "You can't beat traditional English cuisine."  This is what I say whenever I'm eating out, as I usually order fish and chips, a burger or sausage and mash.  You can have a laugh about it, whilst your friend orders the quails eggs, the Thai curry or the blue venison.  My point is, order something you know you like, and don't feel pressured to order something 'fancy' just because it's the 'in' thing to do, or because someone else is.  That makes me really uncomfortable because there is then more pressure to enjoy it and thus a higher chance of experiencing food related panic.  Food needs to be kept simple in these situations.  Order what you like, not what other people want you to like.  

4) Only frequent a restaurant with comfortable people.  I may boast above about eating out seven times already this festive break, but all of these occasions have been with 'comfortable' people; by that, I largely mean people who know I have an anxiety condition and who I can trust to be open and honest with if I did struggle.  This makes the likelihood of struggling less in the first place.  Comfortable people can also include those who may not know about your condition, but are quite laid-back in social situations and don't care or pay attention to things like how much you've eaten.  To this day, I still don't eat out with a few people who, by no fault of their own, put too much pressure on me when in eating out situations.


5) There is still an element of avoidance in terms of places I choose to eat.  Pizza Express, for example, is a no go.  Usually I can control where I eat - all of the places I have eaten out at during this festive break have been pubs that do a variety of traditional food (see point 3).  Whilst pizza is usually a comfortable food for me, because of my past experiences with Pizza Express, I know that arranging a meal here would be harder to go through with, due to the natural associations the mind makes.  I'd have to eat there about ten successful times before it became comfortable, potentially.  My point is, where possible, choose to eat out where you can and where simple things like restaurant smells or sounds don't conjure up bad experiences.

6) Drink plenty of water beforehand and during the meal.  One of things I noticed when I was struggling in an eating out situation was how dry my mouth was, which of course made it even more difficult to eat.  I now always order a tap water for me or a jug for the table in addition to whatever drink I am having.  I also drink a glass of water just before heading out.  And so what if this means you need the loo whilst at the restaurant? This can also help you by taking some time out of the situation.


7) Fart.  Okay, so you might think I have left this one until last because it's a less serious one.  And granted it has quite amusing connotations.  But farting, silently and subtly of course, releases trapped gas and can make you feel more physically comfortable during eating and thus more able to stomach your meal.  However, don't let rip an explosive one that registers on the Richter scale, otherwise this may lead to other social anxiety issues.

I'm actually enjoying eating out the moment.  As nonsensical as it sounds, I've spent so much of my life either avoiding eating out or going through hell when I do so, that to be able to eat out with minimal anxiety is such a wonderful experience.  That is one great thing about anxiety: when it disappears from a certain situation, either permanently or just temporarily, it makes things that others take for granted so pleasurable and enjoyable.

And that is the one positive of anxiety: it can make you so grateful for what you have and what you can do with your life.  Embrace it whilst it lasts.

Best wishes
Al

3: Anxiety@ The Holiday Home

What I didn't appreciate is that the title 'Anxiety@' isn't necessarily appropriate in all cases - Anxiety On would have been better to complement 'Anxiety On Holiday' rather than the loosely connected @ 'The Holiday Home,' whereas in fact the actual place I stay in isn't necessarily the problem.  You see, try and be clever and look what happens.

Barca - one of the better 'holiday' experiences

Anyway,

I have blogged numerous times on this website, which is nearing two and a half years old now, about how my chronic anxiety condition has affected many things in my life that most other people who have grown up with a similar background to me take for granted - and holidays are one of these.  There aren't too many people who I know who don't go on holiday at least once a year - they manage to find a way to do it even in times of austerity.  And of course, these days, you hear all about it due to the various social networking platforms that people can shout about it - or brag - on.  This doesn't help with the pressure and the horrible sinking feeling you have that you've missed out on some incredible trips around the world to swim with dolphins, experience the Big Apple or even have a jolly to Skegness.

Lesson 1: Try and ignore this element of the social media phenomenon.  If people keep posting things about their wonderful lives, hide future posts from them.

Holidays are supposed to be adventurous, relaxing, exciting and something to look forward to.  I will start by saying that I have managed to go on a holiday in each of the last three years, each time to Welsh Coast, with a very good friend of mine.  Although I'd love to explore some other countries, I doubt there would be many places that would beat this for scenery and serenity.  The Welsh coast is an incredible place to go and stay and is one of the few places I've come across that I can actually at least partially relax for a while.

Lesson 2: Don't feel that a holiday in the country that you live is not a holiday, or feel belittled by people who negatively compare such holidays to ones abroad.  

This achievement of going to Wales - and it is an achievement, as this blog (and others) will explain - is something I certainly don't take at all for granted, and I'm grateful for the rail link for existing that far out into the sticks and for my friend for joining me.  Without him, such trips would probably not happen.  But the fact remains that there are still plenty of places that I wish I could go, or could have gone to, but that I fear that the elation of visiting such a place would be sadly outweighed by the mental strain I would have to put myself through both before, during and potentially a long time afterwards.

I mean for goodness sake, my worst panic attack in history happened following a one night trip to somewhere in the same country, so what chance would I have going abroad somewhere for a week or more?

But why do holidays in particular cause me so much distress?

Well it all started in 1996 (I've blogged about the incident before).  In summary, I was on holiday with my parents (I was 8-9 years old at the time) when I experienced my first panic attack, that I remember at least.  This kind of set a precedent, and I remember vividly the year after going somewhere else and having more panic attacks. My parents were taken aback by this occurrence the first time let alone the second, but of course they still wanted to go on holiday.  So the following year, 1998, they brought my best friend along as well, which worked.  Believe it or not, every holiday I went on, usually once a year, occasionally twice, my best friend came with me - all the way up to 2005.  Obviously it was great that my best mate came with me and we always had a great laugh and generally a relaxing time.  Anxiety made some fleeting appearances, usually in the evenings after I'd gone to bed, but rarely caused me any persistent problems.  My friend was the distraction I needed.

Lesson 3: If you can bring a 'safe' friend with you on a family holiday, do so - anything to relieve the pressure.

It did mean, however, that the first time I went away without him would be a test - and this came in 2008.  Now, this wasn't a holiday, but a fieldtrip with my University course.  For the purposes of this blog it's the same thing, as it involves a trip away to uncertain climes and with no best friend in tow this time.  And not including Ireland and Guernsey, it was the first time I'd been abroad - Barcelona awaited.  Fortunately - and I mean that as I'm not sure if I can assign the reason for this to anything in particular - I was going through a reasonable spell at this particular juncture of my life.  Apart from the past year or two, Late 2007 to March 2011 was probably the best time for me anxiety-wise.  Sure things were difficult, but the panic had become a lot less and my main problem at this point was eating out.

Consequently, Barca was tolerable.  Eating was a problem, and I didn't eat much for the 6 days we were there, but the pressure was less because other people I was with didn't agree with the food either.  I think what also helped was the fact that we were kept so busy with work that this kept my mind off ruminations.  By this point, I'd also made a few decent friends, a couple of whom were within the 'safe' category, which obviously helped me get by.  Don't get me wrong, I was on edge most of the time and the odd social occasion we did get was spoilt by a lack of confidence that I didn't suffer from as badly when discussing work matters, but still, overall it could have been a lot worse.

A quick word on flying - I don't have a fear of flying.  However, I do have anxiety, so I have a fear of most things - flying being one of them.  It's just not the same reason most people 'fear' flying.  

Sadly, trips subsequent to Barcelona have been few and far between and those that I have been on haven't gone so well.  Take a short, three night trip to the Lake District in 2009, for example.  Ironically, this trip was made with my friend who I mentioned came with us all those times between 1998 and 2005.  The main problem on this particular trip was also primarily about eating; we were staying in a B&B, and the first morning we sat down to breakfast and I had to leave the table otherwise a panic attack would have occurred.  I can't stomach much at breakfast anyway and the woman serving was one of those who felt she had to comment on what people ordered etc. So needless to say what I did order I couldn't eat and the spiralling feeling of panic just got worse as breakfast time unfolded.  And despite this, I still tried to go down and eat on each of the subsequent two mornings, because that's what anxiety does - it makes you stubborn, and think you should be able to do something that everyone else takes for granted, despite the pain you are forced to go through.

Lesson 4: Try not to worry what other people will 'think' if you go against what is seen as 'normal' practice - e.g. going down for breakfast at a B&B.

This led to an anxious break full stop, thinking of the next time I would have to eat - or not.  I vividly remember being able to eat fine when we stopped for lunch - at a service station on the way back.  It was the relief of getting out of unfamiliar circumstances and out of a pressure scenario.  But this food thing, whatever type of anxiety it really is, has more of an effect than it sounds via the written word. 

Lesson 5: In parallel with lesson 4, don't feel forced into doing things that are uncomfortable, even if it goes against what is 'expected of you' on a holiday. 

And I think this is the problem.  There is pressure on a holiday to do specific things and to enjoy yourself all the time.  There is pressure to have large breakfasts, relax on a beach, eat posh food.  Some people can switch into 'holiday mode' quite easily; for people with anxiety a holiday can merely be a path towards a week of misery.  

For me, it all came to a head of course in March 2011.  I won't go into it again, but this had all the ingredients for a disaster, in hindsight.  Alone; longest train journey ever; B&B and food pressure; potentially making a decision that affected my long-term future... etc.  Even smaller things like being too hot given the unseasonable weather (it was 22 degrees in March) didn't help.  Again, this wasn't a holiday as such, but the same pressures came about.  As it is, I probably needed that incident to turn my life around, but I still had to go through well over a year of hell subsequently.  

Going to Wales, like I have in autumn 2012, 2013 and 2014, has been a success.  I've been with a 'safe' person, been self-catering and done things I want to do, like walking.  It's not been a total relaxation-fest, but nothing is for me, so to say I got through it would be seen as a success.  I'm shortly (next week) going on a pre-Christmas trip which involves staying in a B&B, so this will be a challenge - but one I need to embrace.  I need to ensure that I can do something as straightforward as stay in a catered for accommodation and survive.  I need to do things my way and not bow to pressure.  I'll be sure to report back how it goes.  

Best wishes
Al

2: Anxiety@ School

Probably the longest blog I've ever written - apologies in advance! Fourteen years is a lot to write about in one blog...

Entrance to my high school

I think the best way that I would sum up my general state whilst at school would be like living in a glass box that contained all sorts of horrible thoughts and painful anxieties.  Occasionally this box would open, allowing me to enjoy the social aspects of growing up that school could offer, but even then these intangible objects from the box would follow me around.  And then I'd get locked back inside the box again.  It's made of glass, because I could see everything going on around me,  but just couldn't enjoy it because of how restricted and encased I felt living with anxiety whilst at school.

I won't dwell too much on primary school as I started it 23 years ago.  Wow.  1991.  Wow.  Anyway, what I think sums it up is the first memory that I remember, not just at school but practically in life.  It was day one of primary school and I needed to ask the teacher a question, and needless to say I was shy and tentative.  And I remember a fellow pupil (who turned out to be a right t**t in high school, but that's another issue entirely) saying "you're very quiet aren't you?"  We were four years old.  And yet I remember that like it was only yesterday.  How much impact those sort of memories have on someone is psychology beyond my capability, but one could argue the signs were there even from that age.

I remember primary school lunchtimes for me were often alone, standing in a quiet corner of the playground not playing with anyone else.  My best friend was - and still is - a great friend, but someone who was quite happy playing with his other friends, which is perfectly acceptable quite frankly at that age.  I was the sort of pupil who'd rather have the attention of the teachers than my fellow pupils.

Where am I with bullying?  I can't say I was bullied in primary school particularly badly, but I was always an easy target because of the way I was and because I acted 'differently' to most other kids.  Some "friends" were fine with me when I was with them alone, but took the mick when other 'cooler' kids were in their company.  My absurd sensitivity to such things may have had more of an affect on me than I realise.

Where all this sensitivity and loner-ness came from is another blog's worth of analysis, frankly.  I have my ideas, but overall I still believe it's partly conditioning and partly genetic.

All of this came to a head in 1997 when I started repeating to God - as someone who isn't religious - that I didn't want to die.  There followed a holiday around this time when we had to leave early because I was so anxious the whole time, crying constantly and feeling ill.  Not directly school-related, no, but you can tell that even back in my later days of primary school I was having problems.  In 1998 I saw a therapist.  But given I nor my parents really knew what 'condition' I had back then the therapy didn't have any effect (and I saw the same therapist again in 2007 and, well, chocolate and fireguard springs to mind).

(I remember my dad saying, the day after we came back off that aforementioned holiday - "why is he still behaving like this, we're back home now."  Sadly, none of us knew at this stage that this was the onset of a chronic condition that seventeen years later I still have to manage).

Then whilst all this was going on, it was time to go to high school...

I remember crying a lot when I first started at high school, which isn't that surprising I suppose but at the time just the change and the 'meeting new people' thing was far too overwhelming for me to deal with.  I don't remember exactly what I went through back in year seven, the first year, but I am certain that I was very much a recluse, meeting about two new friends only and beyond that just going from one lesson to another, nervous and in fear.  Examples include:

- Just sitting at the table with 'new' people in an English lesson trying my best to hold back tears.

- Doing PE (one of my favourite subjects... cough) in the gym and being bad at whatever it was we were doing compared to most, and crying as a result and having to make something up to pretend I wasn't pathetic enough to cry at something like that.

- Alienating anyone who could have potentially been my friend by either not talking to them or being angry with them for no reason.  I have no idea why.

At this point I must mention this.  In my last blog about University, I flagged up a series of lessons and tips that I'd learnt from my own experience.  Combating primary school and how to begin high school with anxiety is very difficult for me to draw lessons from, a) because it was a long time ago and b) because I don't really know what sort of advice I would give, save something pointless like "try and be more confident."  And moreover, the chances of anyone reading this under the age of 12 who is intelligent enough to know that they have an anxiety problem and deal with it, isn't remarkably high.  Lessons will come later.

My main concern in the first couple of years of high school was trying to be good at schoolwork and getting praise from teachers.  I didn't particularly like who I was back then, not that it really matters who you are when you're that young, within reason.  The key moment then, around 1999, was when my best primary school friend that I mentioned previously, moved away from my town and therefore my school, and this hit me hard. The last thing someone with anxiety needs is for their most trusted ally to move away.  The other two friends I'd made at high school I had, fortunately, made good friends with, but this move made any lessons without them difficult.

But if the first three years of high school were just about being nervous and under-confident and living mostly in isolation, it all got quite a lot worse at the start of GCSE, back in 2001. For a start, I started dreading certain lessons.  I made some strange choices of GCSE subjects.  Doing French and German was bad enough in itself, but this also meant I was put with the other half of our year for other lessons, for some unknown reason.  I didn't know anyone then, so the few friends I had made were always in different lessons from this point.  I hardly enjoyed any lessons and then there was the whole huge pressure of GCSE's.  Small fry now of course, but back then this was everything.  But there were two really key issues with GCSE years.  

1) Choosing to do Music GCSE.  For some reason I decided to do music GCSE.  Why?!  I couldn't really read music or play an instrument, but I was at an acceptable amateur level at creating tracks via computer software - something I still enjoy to this day.  I was told initially I could do this as part of my course, but no... instead for reasons I won't go into, they decided to make me play the recorder.  Possibly the only instrument that you can play and get the piss taken out of you about.  And not only that, I was crap at playing it and I had no desire to improve.  So this in itself was a confidence hit, but of course such is the nature of doing a music course, you were made to perform frequently, both in front of others and in exam conditions.  Even if I had have been a good recorder player, this would have been a nightmare... but because I was also terrible, my confidence just hit an all time low and the panic I went through prior to any sort of performance was unbearable.

Lesson 1: Choose the correct subjects.  I wish I'd chosen very differently and this could have made the difference between having a decent year or a terrible one.  Choose those subjects you enjoy and that you want to do, not what people think you should do.  This goes for GCSEs, A-Levels and even University courses.

2) The other main problem with GCSE years comes back to me being put with the other half of the year.  Not only was I not in lessons with the few friends I'd made, but I was put with a bunch of bullies - quite literally.  I mentioned bullying earlier.  I will never stand up and say 'I was bullied,' but really I should, because the piss taking and name-calling I had to endure throughout these two years was unacceptable.  I had several lessons with this bunch of low-lives - ironically, music wasn't one of them - and as a result each one was miserable, at best. 

Lesson 2: Bullying isn't acceptable.  Tell someone about it.  I know that can lead to problems in itself, but not telling someone did nothing for me so if I had the time again, I would tell someone about it.  Teacher, tutor, friend, parent, whoever.  Bullying can lead to places that are unthinkable, so tell someone, even if you think it's trivial.  

And yet all of this was unseen, as back then I managed to keep all of my anxiety bottled up.  I suffered with chronic and severe panic attacks back then.  I used to bottle everything up all day, and on average four or five evenings a week, just after I'd gone to bed, I would break into a panic attack - perhaps because no-one could see me.  It was a day's anxiety being unleashed all in one go.  This went on for all of GCSE and in the first year of sixth form.  

Lesson 3: Don't bottle your anxieties up.  This is the hardest thing to achieve, but in doing so, you are more likely to get help when you need it.

Exams for every subject were also a nightmare.  I was terrible at revising and found it difficult to concentrate, and the 24 hours leading up to any exam I would be in a heightened panic.  I swear my marks could have been higher if I wasn't in the grip of anxiety.  But panic disorder, such is the nature of it, meant that I kept thinking 'an exam hall would be one of the worst places I could have a panic attack.'  Thus, of course, preventing a panic attack became very difficult during exams, and more of my attention had to go into this rather than the exam itself. It's a wonder I passed everything in hindsight.

Lesson 4: Revise with someone who is doing the same subject, wherever possible.  Revising alone is no fun anyway, and can also allow your mind to build up with and dwell on panicky thoughts.  

I chose the wrong GCSE subjects and I also chose a wrong A-Level subject as well.  Year 12 improved as it went along - the wrong subject I chose, Physics, I knew I would drop at the end of the year, so cared less about it come the end and the other subjects were okay (although I still wish I'd chose differently), so the panic receded a little bit throughout the year.  Eating out was still a big problem; I remember a 17th birthday do towards the end of the year, 2004, that was a living hell and I barely ate anything.  But whether this was school related is another question entirely.

But all the bullying had stopped at this point and there were more coursework-based modules - which I preferred, taking the pressure off exams a little.  

Year 13 was certainly my best year at school.  I had more friends, did better subjects and had more laughs overall.  What spoilt year 13 wasn't school but driving lessons, which I have blogged about before.  Without these, year 13 could have been good, but driving lessons meant my panic outside of school was worse than ever.  Ironically, school became the one place I actually enjoyed being in year 13 and would go down as being the only year where things in school were good.  Real shame about the driving thing.

Lesson 5: Don't learn to drive unless you feel ready!

There is probably a lot more I could mention and if this blog wasn't too long already I could certainly go into more detail about certain aspects of my anxious school life.  In summary it was very difficult. About a year ago, I went back to my high school for my previous job where me and a colleague undertook an energy efficiency audit.  I thought it would be pleasantly nostalgic - instead, it made me want to forget my schooldays even more.  It brought back overwhelmingly bad memories overall.  

I will end on a positive though.  For all this blog focuses on the negatives of going to school with anxiety, as it should to make the point, I will say that my best friends today are still those people I've known since school.  One of them since 2001, a couple since 1999 and one since day one of primary school, back in 1991.  Nothing can ever take that away.

Best wishes
Al