MHAW 2014: Seven Steps to Stability

MHAW 2014

It isn't much, but for Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW), which starts tomorrow and runs up to and including Sunday 18 May, I am going to write a blog each day that I am collectively naming 'My Seven Steps to Stability.'  So called, because a) it's alliteratively pleasing, b) seven blogs in seven days hence why it's seven and c) 'stability' because the blogs will reflect the seven key things that helped me after I had my worst ever panic attack back in March 2011.  I use the term Stability, not just because of the alliteration, but also because the word 'recovery,' which is the word I started using, almost makes it sound like I have recovered completely from my anxiety.  This isn't the case, although as you'll hopefully grasp, there is an argument that without this horrific incident in 2011 my anxiety now may be worse than what it actually is.  Short term pain for long term gain and all that. 

Anyway, I have written about this incident on this website before; please check out previous blogs here and here to find out more about it to help put it into context.  In summary, a long train journey triggered a panic attack that lasted about 14 hours, which then had longer-term effects that included severe anxiety for months thereafter.

I hope that this will help just a few people (realistically) to understand the things that helped me.  Some will apply to everyone, so won't or can't, some will be harder than others to implement, depending on your own experiences.  But I suppose my message is this: hope is out there.

Are you anxiety aware?

Best wishes
Al

Ravaging our Countryside?

Cannock Chase :)

As a human race we seem to be intent on destroying our green and pleasant land.  I love walking and I've been privileged enough to have grown up near to some beautiful countryside.  Luckily much of this land is protected and development in or around it is prohibited, but this doesn't apply to all of it and moreover there are many other areas that don't have similar preservations.  Areas that aren't as 'rich' from a biodiversity perspective but that are not used for agriculture are often deemed as pointless and the first fields to be approved when it comes to building new housing or other developments.  This is often in the face of protests by local residents, usually on road congestion grounds or pressure on services.

But alongside this, my protests would be twofold: 1) I'm a bit of a tree-hugger at heart and when humans decide that they want to hack trees down or tarmac over large green areas it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  2) To bring it back to the point of my website, walking in the countryside and getting out of the chaos of towns and cities is a necessity to help to deal with anxiety.  The life of a standard MEDC-resided human, regardless of class, seems to be busier these days, whether it be work related or simply the pressure of keeping groceries on the table.  People are more stressed generally and we all suddenly wish we had more hours in the day. 

Now I emphasise - or indeed stress - that stress is not the same as anxiety.  The way I view stress by definition would be a period of your life where something(s) are causing difficulties or challenges beyond what would normally be accepted or deemed reasonable... but when this challenge is resolved, it dies down.  This isn't anxiety, as anxiety is usually more intense, lasts for longer (or indefinitely in many cases) and doesn't necessarily have to be caused by a challenge.  Anxiety can happen whenever it bloody well likes, trust me.

But stressful periods are increasing, and my vast knowledge of mental health science (cough) tells me that it makes sense that more stressful incidents in someone's life could lead to a longer-term anxiety condition, if they happen frequently enough. Moreover, cases of actual anxiety seem to be increasing, if you read most of the statistics.  People don't have time to go for a walk in the countryside or park these days, bar perhaps to drag the dog because they know they have to, and if they do, such green spaces are being increasingly threatened by our collective - but not exclusive - love of all things human. Buildings, transport links and the like. 

So to me, the likely construction of more housing on the green belt and in the countryside is bad news.  I know more housing is needed, affordable housing at that, but surely not all of this has to be of the detriment of our beautiful landscape?  When I catch the train, the amount of derelict urban land I go past where nothing is happening where they could build things is huge.  I appreciate there will be reasons why some of it is derelict; not all of this land would be suitable for construction for whatever reason, such as contamination, but much of it would be usable I'm sure.

Then there's HS2.  Without going into a political rant, I am vehemently against HS2 for numerous reasons, one of the main ones being the widespread destruction it would cause our countryside.  A whacking great railway line that in my opinion would serve no benefit to the country is to plough through not just the 'insignificant' fields I mention above, but even preserved areas aren't standing in the way of this.  And HS2 and many other developments are all about materialism.  That's another issue, wider than this blog, that really gets my goat.  

My point relating to anxiety is this.  Our countryside, where we can free ourselves, relax and take our minds away from the hustle and business of the city, is gradually being eaten up by our apparent desire to tarmac it.  We need to keep our countryside and all of our green spaces so that we can go somewhere to take ourselves away.  Walking, I've found, is one of the best things to do to help clear the mind, but NOT walking along a busy urban highway.  Walking on an isolated pathway, away from the gaze of society, is crucial to mental health healing, in my opinion.  Mind's Ecotherapy programme highlights this.

As you may have ascertained, our gradual paving over of our countryside is an issue that bugs me in more ways than one.  Helping to a better and calmer mental health is one of many issues I have with this.  But it's a very important one and, from experience, I can be certain when I say that living near to the countryside for much of my life has sometimes provided the escape I've needed from my life and myself.

Best wishes
Al

PS >> Next week is Mental Health Awareness Week.  I am going to aim to write a short blog each day that reflects my 7 days of recovery from my worst panic attack back in 2011.  As you know, I don't tend to refer to anything when I'm writing my blogs, so trying to think on my feet about this won't be easy... but worth a try!!

Drunk from Anxiety

If I ever talk in depth to someone about the anxiety I have experienced, I usually tell them about the three 'strands' of anxiety that I have dealt with over the years.  One is health anxiety, one is panic disorder and the other is social anxiety.  The latter is something I have blogged about before, from a lack of confidence with other people point of view, but there is another element that, for me, also heightens anxiety in social situations.

I don't do this too often...

Much of it is around peer pressure when it comes to alcohol.  People I know and, perhaps to stereotype, most people between mid-teens and mid-thirties today, seem to be in the mindset of 'if you don't drink when you go out, you're not having a good time' or 'you're no fun.'  Drinking is apparently the thing that makes the night out good or otherwise, whereas in my experience it's often the opposite.  

If I drink too much alcohol in one night (which I never do these days), then it has been known to cause some adverse effects on my heart rate, i.e. increase it significantly.  My usual pattern of a drunken night was:

Go to bed and fall asleep quickly at say 1am > wake up at 5am with my heart pounding really fast and nearly have a panic attack > get over this by about 7am, then fall asleep briefly again and wake up feeling horrific.

This would happen after only say three pints - I was barely drunk really, and didn't get a hangover.  It was just the effect alcohol had on me and no-one else I know has ever experienced this thing with the heart rate.  If I had even more drink than this, to the point where a hangover also set in, then the same thing would happen but I'd also be hungover in the morning, which then of course had an additional effect - triggering my health anxiety. 

It was all this that stopped me from drinking too much on a night out.  The slightly good feeling you experience when having had a few drinks wasn't worth the hours of hell I went through afterwards, which to me seems perfectly reasonable.  Of course, explaining this to someone isn't something I have done much of (it's not exactly a conversation to bring up when out drinking), meaning that I can't use this as an excuse as to why I may not be drinking much when I go out.  Many people who I've been out with several times over the past few years have kind of just accepted that I don't drink much, compared to most people.

But as I said earlier, getting drunk is compulsory for most people when they go out... if they aren't drunk, the night is crap.  In reality, if for some reason they aren't drunk, they almost automatically refuse to believe that a night can be a good one, and hence turn miserable for the rest of the night.  Because of this strange mentality that young middle-class citizens have developed (in my experience - I emphasise, I'm sure it's not like this everywhere), it then means that if their friends aren't equally as drunk as them, they are not having a good night, or they are making their night miserable because they aren't getting drunk with them.  It's crackers.

Some of the best nights out I've had have been ones where I've been stone cold sober.  I actually enjoy clubbing to an extent, mainly for the music rather than the overcrowding or state of other people around me (yes, usually from alcohol), but I love music and the euphoria I find it can bring. One night I was out in Birmingham with a couple of friends seeing some DJs that I particularly liked.  The drinks were really expensive (£5 for a bottle of lager for e.g.) and the place was so packed that getting to the bar was a task, let alone waiting for the barman to serve you.  So much so that we didn't bother and having only had a beer with a meal beforehand, I was totally sober.  And yet, because the music was great and the atmosphere was electric, it was a great night in good company and frankly alcohol may have only clouded this.  That's before the inevitable health impacts that would have subsequently set in.  

But social anxiety comes when people start badgering you to drink; in some cases, buying you drinks when you have been adamant that you don't want one.  You feel pressure initially and this intensifies if, as I do now, you stand your ground.  People start making comments about you not drinking and this makes you feel like you're a burden to the night out.  This, of course, is particularly prevalent when everyone you're with is getting increasingly rat-arsed, and the problem with being the sole sober person is you can't have a coherent conversation with anyone.  You're aware of things, no-one else is.  You're aware that people, by and large, turn into idiots when they are drunk, people you don't want to be around, and people that in their drunken state you'd only appreciate... if you too were drunk.  

So your night becomes miserable and you feel lonely and boring.  It's not good and gives you a complex.  This is where, of course, it begins to fuel the low confidence feelings too, that I experience in most social situations anyway, regardless of the presence of alcohol.  It's a downward spiral from there.

I'm pleased to say that some of my closest friends are like me in that they don't need alcohol to enjoy themselves.  Most of them drink, some of them get drunk, but they don't feel that a night is a hopeless one if they haven't.  It's merely a laugh and a comment the morning after - 'haha, you were pissed last night.'  This I don't mind, and I can appreciate the benefits of being drunk.  If I'm being blunt, I'd probably drink more if I didn't have to face the health implications a few hours later everytime I went over my rather low threshold.  

It's unlikely society will change.  More and more pressure is being heaped on young people from a social perspective from the social media phenomenon and drinking isn't likely to decline anytime soon.  The whole world of modern social behaviour is not good for someone with social anxiety and sadly, in my opinion, I don't think it's likely to get any better in the future.

Best wishes
Al

Ooh, tetchy

One flaw of my anxiety condition over the years has been the inability to deal with criticism.  This is understandable, and obtaining criticism is something that can easily cause anxiety if you don't take it well.  If I ever get criticism for something, usually work related, I often turn moody with the individual who has given me the criticism.  I'm probably worse if I know they're right because then I also feel like a failure, which is the ultimate in self-esteem crushing.

Slightly OTT but you get the idea

What I feel legitimately annoyed about, though, is when people comment on certain aspects of my life.  For example, I'm not the world's best cook (neither are any of my family before me - it's rare that the oven or microwave isn't used to cook at least part of a meal) so I keep it simple.  I vary my diet but I can't make dishes that some people themselves would call 'simple.'  Anything that involves ingredients causes me real problems.

So like I say, I keep it simple.  When people, over time, notice this (I'm obviously referring to people I live with because who else would necessarily know?!) and then make comments such as:

"I assume you need the oven" or
"Are you having that again?"

... it annoys me.  Why does it annoy me?  Especially when such comments are usually in jest and I can give it back just as much.  Well, I put this down to a chronically low self-esteem; I effectively take such comments as criticism, which is the first problem.  It isn't really criticism, and even if it was, why should I care?  Why does it bother me so much that someone has pointed out what I eat?  

The underlying answer is I HATE it when people psycho-analyse me (if this is the right phrase).  I hate it when people think they know me when they comment on these sort of things.  There are other examples too, I don't want you to think food is the only thing, for a fear of clouding the food issue with another food issue I've had in the past.  It could be anything that people observe about me.  Another example could be if I talk about something quite often, or do something often, like watch football.  I love watching football, again as a result of my family, but then people make comments as though me watching football is me wasting my life.  

Now it could be that people's observations are sometimes true.  I could do more with my life than spend all daytime weekends watching football.  I could try to cook more adventurous things.  But even if they do have a point, I let it bother me that they a) think they have a right to point it out when I could easily make likewise comments to them about some of their traits and b) that they should care about what I do when it doesn't affect them.  I know, it sounds petty and tetchy, I can hear it.

So why does this bother me so much?  Like I alluded to earlier, low self-esteem is one thing.  In most situations (especially socially), I have horrendous self-esteem issues and often find it difficult to make myself feel good about myself in front of others. I think people making what seem like derogatory comments about my life, even if they're not derogatory, just emphasises this self-esteem and further damages confidence.  This then fuels anxiety and makes me feel worse about myself, and so the spiral continues.  

As with many things, including the chicken and egg, which caused what?  Did the anxiety cause the self-esteem issues or did the self-esteem cause much of my anxiety?  Hard to say and as also with many things, I think it's a bit of both.  As a result I just hate psychoanalysis, and it makes me feel like things I do are odd, even though everyone has bizarre traits.  It's just that most people can take it when they are told about it.

Just another aspect of how anxiety has contributed towards element of my personality.

Best wishes
Al

Three years - and it didn't cross my mind

25 March 2011:

The previous day, I had travelled all the way down from Stafford to Falmouth, Cornwall, on the train.  From memory, I think there were four changes and it took over seven hours.  My mission was to visit the Falmouth campus of Exeter University, where I was interested in undertaking a Masters degree.  I had been in my employment for two and a half years at this point and felt a change was required.  

Falmouth - a beautiful place but bad memories

Even though I had some problems with anxiety, especially eating out at that time, I felt that it was a change that could help me in the long-term, by throwing me out of my comfort bubble and into a more risky, but ultimately potentially more rewarding and social situation.

I had a meeting with the lecturer, had something to eat at KFC, a walk round the town and slept overnight in a B&B, all with relative success. I was on edge, but then who wouldn't be; this was potentially my future that was at stake.

So the time came to head back.  I ended up catching a train an hour earlier than originally planned just because I'd finished doing everything I'd needed to do, and wanted to begin the slog back.  

It was within five minutes of being on that train journey that all hell broke loose.  I had my severest ever panic attack, that directly last about 14 hours in total.  Indirectly, the knock-on effect of this was six months of almost being unable to leave the house, finding it difficult to do anything, utter despair... and ultimately around fifty sessions of CBT therapy to get myself into a position of stability.

30 March 2014:

As you'll notice, we're over three years since that incident.  It feels longer than that, partly because so much has changed in that time.  Significant, influential people have come and gone from my life, I moved house - twice - and I've now changed jobs.  But the main thing that makes it feel like a lifetime ago is how much my anxiety has improved.  Back in 2011, I never thought I'd be able to get out of it.  Fourteen years of chronic anxiety had come to a peak of no return.

But actually, although this event put me through 14 hours of utter hell and six months of pain and distress thereafter, it was probably the best thing that could have happened.  Without this incident, I may never have sought the therapy I received, which not only tackled this incident in isolation, but also my longer-term chronic anxiety condition.  I wouldn't have even thought about moving house or changing jobs then, let alone actually doing them.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again... I will always have anxiety.  It's a chronic condition that has been with me long enough never to remember not having it, but I am now generally able to manage it a lot better and have been able to move forward in my life.  Beta blockers have helped, but 90+% of this success has been down to the talking therapy I received.  My advocacy towards this in favour of medication, at least in the first instance, can never be overstated.

The most encouraging thing of all - 25 March 2014, last Tuesday, passed by without me even thinking about that event.  The date will be firmly ingrained into my memory forever, but it's taken me five days since - i.e today - to think about it.  That must mean progress.

I'd love to hear any stories from you with regards to the success - or otherwise - of talking therapy. 

Best wishes
Al

The Waves

This isn't going to be a straightforward blog to write, largely because the feelings that I am about to describe are difficult to explain - so stick with it!

Waves at Harlech Bay, where I am holidaying this year.

I have had experience of (I hate using the word 'suffered') anxiety for most of my life - probably around 17 years now - and as various blogs before this have explained, it has affected my life in many different ways, mostly negatively.  Despite this, I would not say that I suffer, or have ever suffered, from depression.  Anxiety and depression often go hand in hand, perhaps unsurprisingly, with both fuelling the other.  You experience anxiety through certain things, your life becomes hard and this, over time, makes you depressed.  You become depressed for whatever reason - sometimes unexplained - and this increases your anxiety through everyday things becoming harder or due to a fear of what happens next in your life.  I simplify, but you get my point.

But certainly on a chronic scale, I would not say that I have suffered from depression.  I know this for two reasons: 1) I have spoken to and heard from a few people who have experience depression and 2) I have experienced what I can only described as 'short-burst' depression.  The last time this happened was when I moved into my new house in September 2013.  It happened previously when I moved into my previous house in April 2012.  It happened previous to that when I house-sat at my colleague's house for two weeks in August 2011.  You'll notice a pattern... It's also happened in the past at certain other integers, but has only ever lasted for a maximum of a couple of weeks.  It's basically my response to a significant change, usually involving moving from somewhere to somewhere else. 

The earliest I remember it happening, coupled with anxiety, was 1996.  I was only ten, but as this experience will tell you, it's hardly surprising I became depressed.

Anyway, the reason I can say I have not got chronic depression and only 'short-burst' depression is because, when I get these short-term waves of depression, they are very, very difficult to control and my life becomes a vortex to hell for the given period of time.  Thank goodness that the feelings I get when I get this short-term depression hits are only short-term, because I think I'd find it difficult to cope with these feelings for any greater period. 

In terms of describing it, I would say it's just a total fear of your future and utter hopelessness and despair.  You experience an actual dread about what is going to happen the next day and in your life in the long-term.  You feel useless and sick with worry.  It is truly horrible and I can imagine it to be, at best, debilitating if you felt like this for long, and writing this feels like I'm patronising people who have experienced long-term depression.  Needless to say, anxiety gets worse during these times too.

The reason I blog about this today is because I am feeling a little bit like this.  I say "a little bit like this" because I cannot say I feel as depressed as I have done in the examples I gave above, but I do feel a little bit low.  I think the explanation is easy; I've been off work today, and my mind has been less occupied than it would be with a 30-minute train journey and the subsequent day of work that lies ahead. My mind has more time to wander, which is fatal for me.  This is despite the fact that I have met up with two lots of friends for coffee and lunch today, the company of whom I enjoy.

But loneliness, if that's what this is, doesn't usually make me particularly depressed, it's usually a catalyst for increased anxiety only, with more time to focus on things like my body, leading to greater health anxiety for example.  This is happening today too, but coupled with these unpleasant thoughts in the back of my mind that my life isn't going anywhere and that things are a waste of time.  I feel low, which is perfectly acceptable for anyone to feel, but unfortunately given my mental health history, I can't help thinking* there's more to it.

* = The main problem.

I have to choose my days off work very carefully because I cannot afford to spend lots of time off on my own for fear of heightening anxiety.  That's why, bar maybe Christmas when there's more social opportunity, I only usually take a few days off here and a few there, to break up the busy-ness of work but so I can't let my mind wander for too long.  I also always try and make sure I'm doing something that involves human interaction on at least some of these days (like today).  

I'm not sure why I feel a little depressed today.  It could be because we had a new housemate join us at the weekend, and I fear that this will affect the dynamic of the house.  It's horrible to resent someone before they've even settled in, but the relationship I've got with my existing housemates here is so good now that I don't want anything to screw it up.  I've finally felt comfortable living here, which us a precious thing, and I think I'm scared that this will change for the worse.  The last thing I need after my previous house share experience is another difficult living environment.  The other factor to feeling like this could be that I stayed at my parents the last two nights.  This is always very comfortable (more so than my shared house despite what I said above) and I would even say I was chilled out.  I also saw some people (e.g. this morning's coffee) who I feel comfortable with and who I only see when I stay over with my parents, for reasons I won't go into now.  The other factor could be the long-term one of being relationship-less... something that bothers me all the time but something I often don't have enough mindspace to dwell on.  Combine all these factors with a heightened anxiety or 'nervousness' that I always get when I'm less busy may explain why I feel low today.  

My problem is, I always think that when I feel like this, it's the start of a longer-term downfall.  I'm the only one who can prevent this from being the case - well, me, and other people who I need to surround myself with when I feel low.  People are the best medicine, as I'm sure I've said before on this blog.  

My depression comes in short, infrequent waves I'm pleased to say.  As I said above, I cannot begin to imagine how people who have longer term, more severe problems cope with it.  Well, I can, because people have explained it to me, but you get my point.

I just hope going back to work tomorrow can lift my spirits, or at least, make me so busy I don't have time to be depressed!

Best wishes
Al

Perfectionism or OCD?

I am acutely aware that I am a serious perfectionist when it comes to certain things.  One example of this is work.  I always ensure that I do every piece of work to the ultimate best of my ability, even basic things like web editing and emails.  If there's a formatting mistake I get annoyed until it is all corrected.  Spreadsheets must look neat and not a scattering of thought.  Borders must be of specific densities, cells of specific shades.  This is perfectionism, and it can be a pain in the rear as things that could take five minutes often take twenty as a result of my need for everything to be just so.  

Yes, you can also get large ones

I'm not too concerned about this though; after all, striving to be 'perfect' when it comes to work must be, I assume, at least part of the reason I got this new job.  Always taking things on and taking time to respond to emails quickly, even when I'm snowed under being perfectionist with other pieces of work, could represent me as a hard worker... I like to think I am.  This is also in light of the fact that I am now starting to work evenings for this new job even though I'm not paid to do so, because I want to do a good job.  There is, of course, an argument that I need more of a social life so as to prevent this, but that's a blog for another time no doubt.

I'm also perfectionist when it comes to other things too, but to what point does it merge into OCD?  Take washing up, for example.  I have to wash up after my main meal each day and can't leave the dishes there untouched.  This isn't really a contamination thing, although that said I'm not keen on the thought of dirty dishes lying there for too long.  But overall, it's more of a 'I need to do this now' thing.  I've always had what I call 'an obsession' with doing little things like this in a certain order to a certain level of perfection.  When I've cleaned the dishes, they are clean, trust me.  So it's a combination of needing to do them in a fairly routine manner and doing them well... otherwise what's the point?

I already know that this is a minor inconvenience; it can be a pain in the backside to feel like I have to do things at certain times, but usually it never becomes more than this. 

Is this OCD?  I don't know; I would wager it's probably just a trait of personality.  Does something like this become OCD when it becomes a problem?  Where does one draw the line between being a perfectionist and having OCD?  

Going back to the cleanliness thing - a typical external manifestation of OCD and often used as the butt of jokes to describe OCD as a condition.  I have little hand gel soaps all over the place, I shower thoroughly once a day and feel dirty if I eat something without washing my hands immediately before.  But is this a problem?  I don't get sickness bugs (touch wood - note the irony) and although I am prone to colds I would take that over getting anything worse.  So maybe cleaning my hands more than the average person is simply good health and sense rather than OCD.  

Where OCD has become a problem for me is twofold; a) where doing things in a certain order or a certain way has triggered anxiety and b) the manifestation of a type of Pure-O, whereby I have a song stuck in my head that refuses to budge (I don't think this is something I've ever really written about so watch this space).  But personally, apart from things like the cleanliness being mildly irritating sometimes, I wouldn't deem it problematic.  But I would probably class it as OCD.  

This trait of mine is obviously linked to my wider anxious history.  But why in particular might I be a perfectionist or have OCD?  Firstly, regarding perfectionism, I believe it's a fear of failure.  I was rarely told off at school, but I can vividly remember most of the few occasions I was or when I got a disappointing mark for a piece of work.  Rather than seeing it as 'just one of those things,' or character building or constructive criticism, I saw it as failure and subsequent anxiety.  So avoiding this feeling has probably resulted in much of the perfectionism.  

The cleanliness thing has probably been seeded by my parents' love of cleanliness.  You could eat your dinner off the floor in my parents' house and their vacuum cleaners don't half do some miles.  Granted, my parents don't use copious amounts of hand gel, but at the same time I don't vacuum the floor in my house very often... maybe similar traits just manifest in different ways.

OCD is a serious condition; I've seen many documentaries and heard stories of people who have debilitating rituals that they have to go through.  I'm lucky not to have this and when I do things that could be classed as OCD, I reflect on the fact that actually, they're not causing me any great problems.  I'm rationalising about it - a CBT technique used to alleviate anxiety, of course.

As I mentioned before, I will have to share my Pure-O (if that's what I've had) experiences on this blog soon.  That occurred at the height of one of my most anxious periods; whether the anxiety caused the Pure-O or vise-versa is still something I debate with myself about today.  Anyway, I'll leave this for another time.  

Best wishes
Al

This blog has been cancelled

The Guardian newspaper recently posed the question 'How does commuting affect wellbeing?'  I have recently, by choice, swapped my 7 minute walk to and from home to the office to a 60 minute equivalent - two hours of commuting from door to door each day.  It consists of a 12 minute walk to the station, a 35 minute train journey and by the time you get out of the station, a 10-15 minute walk from the station to the other end to the office.  This, of course, is when there are no delays or cancellations.

It could always be worse...

Ironically, given that my job involves adapting to severe weather conditions amongst other things, trains have up until recently been delayed many times over this winter due to the frequent storms and flooding we've been getting.  This, of course, causes some stress as it would for anyone, as you end up getting home later than you'd like.  It also doesn't look good when you have a new job to be late arriving... they know and appreciate it's not my fault, but I don't want to become unreliable so early on.  But one can tolerate delays every so often, especially when it is caused by things like the weather where the blame more squarely lies with our country's frightening inability to develop or upgrade infrastructure that is resilient to the elements.  Sorry, a bit of my job anxieties coming out into the open there...

Anyway, the most annoying thing I come across is the overcrowded nature of the train.  For anyone who has ever caught the 16:57 CrossCountry service from Birmingham to Manchester, you will know what I'm talking about.  I usually get to the train about 5 minutes before departure... by this time, all seats are taken and you have a 30+ minute journey standing up.  I have learnt to strategically position myself so I am not standing by the toilet; I usually go inside the quiet zone next to the luggage rack, which means a) if someone gets off at the one stop between work and home I can potentially get a seat, b) no horrific toilet smells, c) I can sometimes perch on the luggage rack depending on its contents and d) the quiet zone is usually slightly quieter, quite literally.  Don't get me wrong, standing isn't great when I feel it could be perfectly avoided by the novelty idea of adding more carriages.  But it's tolerable.

All of this stress - notice I say stress not anxiety - is heightened by people who, despite there being hardly any room to stand, insist on moving down the carriages insistent on finding a seat.  By the time they reach the end you've gone past six stops anyway.  Then of course there's the issue of first class, where the only thing taking up the seats is the vast amounts of tumbleweed.  

The final stress, of course, is the loss of time.  My previous job involved a less than ten minute commute by foot; suddenly an extra one hour 40 minutes is taken from my life per day, at best.  My weekday evenings are often spent procrastinating, granted, and for some reason I feel compelled to stress out about getting back as quickly as possible - I think this is also routed in my upbringing, always being obsessed with time. 

OK so delays, cancellations, overcrowdedness, less time... but for any keen followers of this blog, you'll know that back in March 2011 I suffered my most anxious moment ever, which occurred on a train.  Granted it was an eight hour journey, but still.  So the fact that I can even get on a train these days with few anxious feelings I believe is testament to how far I've come in three years.  That day in March 2011 was the worst of my life, but without it I probably wouldn't have got the help that I needed to progress not only getting back onto trains, but also to get my whole life back on track (pardon the pun).  So when compared to that, these other things pail into insignificance.  It again, for me, underlines the difference between stress and anxiety.  

So how does commuting affect well being?  Short term, it's more stress.  Long term, this could mean more anxiety.  That's the biggest challenge - I need to make sure these comparatively small stresses don't build up to become anxiety.  Either way, commuting, in my experience, isn't great for well being, although this of course would probably be different if you were travelling with a friend or partner.  Commuting, for me, also means more time alone which is the worst thing for me (blog to come on loneliness (again) I feel). Either way, long term, this will test my anxiety management.

This blog terminates here.

Best wishes
Al