Anxiety Bites II

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

Denise Welch

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

Denise appearing on my favourite show

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

The day my boss nearly found out about my anxiety

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

Moving on...

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

Watch this space!

Best wishes
Al

Seasonal Affective Disorder: The Polar Opposite

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

Girls flaunting their... joy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best wishes
Al

Thank you, i

I would like to thank i newspaper for highlighting the huge issue of mental health taboo in relation to young people in Friday's edition.  I don't know whether all media are open about mental health in this manner or whether i is setting a precedent, but still, it's a start. 

I took a photo of the relevant page and have included some personal annotations.  If the image, below, is of poor quality or you can't see all of it, I apologise... Try saving it to your computer (or tablet or phone or other technological revolutionary device) and then reading it.

#Modern Technology: Anxiety @epidemic or gradual #reduction? LMAO!

There has been a reasonable amount of debate around the pressure that social networking (SN) has on mental health, and how it can be both good and bad for it.  From an anxiety point of view, social networking and modern technology as a whole is certainly having an impact.  It's transforming everyone's lives in some way or another.

It's full-time and Liverpool lose again.

I use SN sites; I use Facebook, primarily because most other people I know do and it's often the best (and cheapest) way of keeping in touch with people.  I use Twitter for no other reason other than to promote this blog and I use Linkedin for work contacts.  My standpoint of SN is that it's a great concept, but to me it seems to be replacing real-life contact.  It can also be extremely misleading, and people find it much easier to 'vent' via the textual rather than the spoken word - they say things on Facebook that they may not have said to someone face to face, or even phone to phone.  So overall, I think the rise in SN has been too meteoric and worryingly it will only get more so.

SN can also put immense pressure on people with anxiety, especially social anxiety.  The life of your friends, or indeed, 'people you vaguely knew at school and spoke to once,' is plastered all over your computer or phone on a daily, or even hourly basis.  If Caroline gets married, John gets 'falsely' arrested and Dean finally gets his dream job as a chicken farmer, you know about it immediately.  Sonograms, wedding rings, party snaps and bits of half eaten food appear as photos on the site, as a way of documenting people's lives. 

But to someone with anxiety, all of these updates can be difficult to take.  The seemingly normal act of someone's status being 'out at the pub with good mates' can put someone who struggles to go to such events, or someone who doesn't go to enough of such events because they used to struggle at such events, in a very low mood.  But without SN, that person is cut off completely from their friends... so what do you do?  Simply watching stories flick up on your screen of people getting engaged and being in relationships and having such an awesome time can generate your own feelings of failure.  To someone with anxiety, these emotions are difficult to stop.  I imagine it's even worse for people suffering from depression.  But if you sever all ties with SN, then you risk becoming isolated and lonely, as sadly some people seem to replace SN with physically meeting up these days.

Then, of course, there's the issue of popularity, something else that can mount pressure on someone with anxiety.  I have 104 friends on my Facebook page, which apparently is quite low for someone of my age.  Most of my other friends have over 150, with some having over 1,000.  I don't think I've ever seen 1,000 different people, let alone can class them as friends. 

The question to ask is, how many of these 104 people are actually friends?  The way I class friends are (1) people who you talk (actually talk) to regularly, (2) share things with, (3) trust and (4) enjoy the company of on a social basis.  I would say about ten come into at least three of these four categories.  About five come into all four.  Granted, many people my age would have more than this (indeed, this is a legacy of my anxious past), but I guarantee that those people with 1,000 friends will have no more than about 30 who are 'true' friends.  I would wager that it'd be less.  But still, someone with anxiety who has lived a life of social turmoil and difficulty will often look at statistics like this and feel failures or pressured.

Trust me, it happens.

I am in favour of SN becoming available on mobiles though, for one reason only; it means that at least people can take their SN sites with them, so that they aren't wedded to their homes on their laptops.  At least they can get some fresh air.  Fresh air and exercise are very important for people with anxiety to get, so at least now we can get the "best" of both worlds.

But then there's the issue of technology as a whole.  The Government, needless to say, are pressing ahead with the construction of more mobile phone masts to cope with increased demand and the rollout out of 4G (whatever that is).  The World Health Organisation state that "no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use."  But, (a) I am less than convinced by the research that has been done, (b) this is from mobile phone use and not the radiation from masts themselves and (c) this is in reference to physical, and not mental health.  I'm no health expert, but you're telling me that the huge increase in microwaves and wireless beams that penetrate all of our walls is having no impact?  I doubt that.  We'll never find out of course, because such statistics, if they were ever to come to light, would disappear into a fine mist, all in the name of technology. 

Perish the thought that we aren't wedded to our SN sites or mobile phones for more than a minute.

But I feel I should end on a positive note.  SN, and the Internet as a whole, can bring huge benefits to anxiety sufferers.  As I've explained on previous blogs, I found Anxiety UK purely by searching online.  I received therapy via a webcam from a counsellor who was at her home in Glasgow.  Mind and Anxiety UK's Facebook and Twitter feeds, their blogs and their websites are not only fantastic resources for anxiety sufferers (and those with other mental health problems), but they are also able to reach out to a much wider audience.  They can now find the people that need help, rather than the people needing help having to find them.  There's also Mind's own version of Facebook called Elefriends, which brings together a whole community of people who have mental health problems.

The various SN/Internet-based pages are also being markedly successful in attempting to eradicate mental health stigma, something that is much easier now more people are able to share their thoughts about mental health more openly.

There could be a scenario where more people get anxious because of SN and technology, but more people also get treated as a result.  I'll let you decide which is better. 

The message for anxiety sufferers I guess is, try and ignore social networking updates and, instead, utilise it to your advantage.  Why not create a blog about your experiences?

Oh hang on, only someone with very few Facebook friends would have the time to do that...

Best wishes
Al

Challenges

Another positive of anxiety (if you scroll back through these blogs then you might find some others!!) is that it allows you to not take certain things for granted.  When I say 'things,' I mean people, possessions, but also situations.  Many people, for example, would organise a lunch out in the pub with work colleagues, eat the lunch, have a chat and a laugh and not think about it any more.  Because eating out has been such a challenge to me in the past, when a lunch goes well, then I can celebrate it and reflect on it, both during and afterwards.  It allows me to focus on the conversations and laughs that were had, rather than let them get absorbed in the morass of pain and difficulty that eating out would often generate.



Only another 34 years to go

By and large, this positive step happened yesterday.  I organised a lunch at a pub in Stafford for my 26th birthday.  I invited 17 people and 16 actually came, which was to my surprise (I expected a turn out of about 6 or 7, given work pressures these days).  But of course, this put the pressure onto me.  One strand of CBT I learnt was that, at meals, bear in mind that the focus isn't on me.  It's often on someone else, i.e., whoever organised the meal.  But I couldn't use this excuse, or technique, this time.
The first question you may ask is why did I organise it if I knew that it could go horribly wrong?  After all, for my 23rd three years ago, a meal at Nando's in Birmingham resulted in me struggling to eat so badly that I nearly choked myself into oblivion; so bad was the situation that one of my friends had to bring fluids to the toilet where I had to go to attempt to unchoke myself.  Unfortunately he brought me a half-drunk pint of beer rather than water, which didn't really help the problem...

So why did I organise this lunch? 

• Well, mainly, because I'm fed up hiding.  I'm fed up of using an excuse for not doing something, for example 'I'm at work.'  I wanted to be a 26 year old who could do something normal, and not have to worry about the consequences. 
• I wanted to test myself and how far, or not, I've come. 
• I thought that maybe being with work colleagues meant that the expectation on me was lower.  If it's with close friends or parents, say, then the expectation is greater on me to be the focal point.  This adds to the pressure and results in a greater likelihood of difficulties.
• It was only a lunch, not a big 3 course meal, meaning again the pressure was less intense.

To set the context.  The day before, I attended a work meeting in London and got the train there and back (I didn't do a live blog after the """""success""""" of the last one; see 2,3 and 4 blogs ago...).  All was going fine; I was using my tablet to check work emails (Virgin trains' wireless Internet = bloody extortionate by the way), and I was ok until about halfway through the journey.  At this point, physically, I started to feel really poor; whether it was the 'looking down' at the tablet for too long (or maybe the conference's chocolate cake I ate not long before the end?) I don't know.  But unfortunately the health anxiety kicked in, and the rest of the journey was me trying to keep it together.  Putting music on to distract myself, breathing, trying to focus on anything but my feeling like crap.  Luckily it subsided after the journey ended, but even still, this heightened my vulnerability and made me more anxious yesterday morning, with these feelings still in mind.

I said to one of my colleagues, "I feel a bit rubbish today, not sure I'll eat much!"  That's always my 'get the excuses in early lest I screw up' line that I recycle before almost any meal out. 

But overall, the lunch was a success.  I ate 90% of it, and didn't encounter any major problems.  It wasn't easy I wouldn't say, because it was playing on the mind all morning (ruminating), and I kept over-analysing how I was feeling, which is the opposite of what one should do in such circumstances, I've learnt.  But the bullet points above and, hopefully, a more 'common sense' thought process compared to the chaotic and irrational one I used to have helped me through it.  It meant that my birthday was more challenging that I would have liked it to be - I can't relax before such an event -  but I was able to appreciate it more because of the relative success of it.  And go all warm and fuzzy at the fact that 16 people turned up!

I suppose a piece of advice that I could give to anyone reading this who has anxiety, is that don't be ashamed if you find certain events difficult that other people find easy.  For a start, there's help out there to make such events easier for you, and moreover you will begin to appreciate them more than your fellow attendees over time when one of them goes well. 

The final thing I've got to do now is stop saying to myself "I'm 26 now, and I still haven't...." or "I still do..." In other words, over analyse the success or otherwise of my life and then blaming anxiety for it. 

I'm the only one who can change that.

Best wishes
Al

Time to Move On?

I have been deliberating in the past couple of weeks as to whether to move back out of my parents house to somewhere else.  I moved back in with them late January and although this was the right move for me at the time, I know that, for my own personal development, I should be looking to move on.


The quality of my pictures are improving

After all, I have now experienced the 'living away from home' thing and from an anxiety perspective it generally went ok.  The experience at times was quite a testing one, but I managed to handle it quite well.  This may seem strange, but the fact that the four housemates that I didn't know before I moved there were either not my cup of tea or made no effort to get to know me, meant that the pressure that may have fallen on me to be sociable never really came about.  I was naively expecting communal dinners and pub visits before moving in, but such activities may have fuelled my social anxiety; I'm not good around socially confident people. 

So this time, I'd like to meet a housemate(s) who does enjoy socialising, with the aim to meet new people but also to test me.  I still get uncomfortable when I'm thrust into a social event with people who I don't know, who I class as over-confident ('normal' to most people) or who ask me lots of questions about me early on.  If this is accompanied by a more formal occasion, e.g. a sit-down meal, then I really struggle.

So it's a bit of a balancing act.  I want to meet a sociable person, but by sociable I mean sitting and watching the football together as well as going out.  Someone who enjoys company of any kind, and not someone who isn't satisfied with a night's socialising unless they have at least 14 pints. 

This time it's more daunting.  I was in the company of a long-term friend last time, which made the transition somewhat easier than it may have otherwise been.  This time I'm going it alone. 

But I've said for ages that I need to meet new people.  I don't socialise anywhere near enough now, and over the next few months or so, more people are going to be moving on, and by that I mean out of Stafford.  The one person who I really get along well with (and who's my age) at work will also be leaving later this year.  My social savannah is going to become a social desert by the end of 2013 if I don't act quickly and decisively.  So I need to be pro-active and push myself to meet new people.

How?  Well, Uni is the best option, but as regular followers of this blog will know, that didn't exactly go well when I looked into that over two years ago.  Plus, I cannot afford to give up this job; if I gain a postgraduate degree, great, but if there are physically no jobs out there, then the potential pleasure of Uni could be taken over by dark days of no work afterwards.  And to put it bluntly, the only reason I want to go back to Uni is for the socialising.

I could do some other courses, e.g. a music course.  I tried this in late 2010, and for my music hobby it went well, but I didn't really meet anyone.  Unfortunately, most of the courses are online or in London, which again is either not going to fulfil my purpose or isn't practical.

So moving in with new people is the only option left. I recognise it isn't the best one for meeting new people; for a start, there probably won't be many people who are looking for someone to rent with who are also looking for a social partner.  Most people my age have relationships/big circle of friends, or if they don't, they are happy to be hermits.

Don't get me wrong, if moving doesn't achieve my aim and my social fulfilment does decline, then at some point in a year or so, I may have to do the Uni thing anyway, lest I end up a lonely late 20 year old with so much socialising to give but no-one to give it to. I'd rather have no job than that.

But how did it come to this?  Not socialising enough when I was meant to, i.e. in sixth form and particularly at University.  It'd be easy to blame anxiety for this, but as I've said before, whilst anxiety may have caused me great pain in certain social events, I also spent too much time running away from people.  Even from things that would have almost certainly not generated much anxiety, like a drink in the Uni bar after a lecture.  But the reality remains that if I had not had social (or other) anxiety, I imagine I would be in a position of social enrichment now. 

Not least because I'd probably be in a relationship.

The concern now, of course, is twofold.  (1) If I move and the situation is not good, then I'm on my own.  I may get more lonely, because although living with my parents is lonely enough sometimes, at least they are here.  They watch football.  They talk.  Crap, maybe, but it's interaction all the same. 

And (2), if (1) happens or if I fail to act before people move on, and my social life decreases even more, that my anxiety rises again due to even more time for rumination, procrastination, worry, distress, panic. 

Whatever my next move is, it'll be a risky one.  The likelihood of walking into a place which gives me everything I want is exceptionally low.  There is a higher likelihood of utmost failure than total success; chances are it'll be somewhere in between.  But either way, this decision could be the biggest of my life in terms of determining whether my future will be lonely and anxious or sociable and confident.

I'll let you know how it goes...

Best wishes
Al

LIVE BROADCAST: On the Move 2

So I am now on the return leg of the journey. I felt nervous again at the start of it, especially when getting on at Chippenham... the 'hell' back in 2011 set in within minutes of setting off so that first bit was always going to be most difficult. I tried to compose myself, again by reading the newspaper and listenihg to music, even tough I did'nt particularly feel like it!

I even tried utilising mindfulness... i.e when my mind began to wander into dangerous territory, I focused on the words on the newspaper page... even if it was about fairly depressing topics. It's all about making the most of what's around you, and not takingbthem for granted, no matter how mundane they may seem.

Having this tablet really helps to... I've been able to email my friends and that really helps to take my mind off things. You could argue that blogging about anxiety in a situation like this is silly, but being open about it, even to the few people who may read this post, seems to help a bit.

There's still a longbway to go. The train is due in at 8, and it's currently half 6 so it's too early to be complacent. But it would be nice to get home and say that the techniques I have learnt have actually had a positive effect. Don't get me wrong, thisvhas stilvbeen a biger challenge than I would have liked, and the aura of anxiety has not helped in my quest to actually enjoy my visit. But overall I have, and hopefully I can try and enjoy more train challenges in future.

And yes, dreadful spelling. But I fear a repear of what happened last time if I try and rectify it!

Best wishes
Al

LIVE BROADCAST: On the Move 1.2

Ok, so the previous post may look incomplete... Basically my tablet would'nt let me put the cursor at the bottom of the entry andvfor some unknown reason I have an absence of arrow keys. Needless to say I couldn't do the spellcheck either. One of my common errors seems to be to put a 'v' instead of a space, which may explain some dodgy words.

Anyway a quick continuation lest I make another balls up. This irrtating episode has actually helped a little by takihg my mind off the situation. The most important thing is to get immersed in other things even if you don't feel like it, like writing a blog or reading or listening to music etc. I have bought with me items that I may need, so for example plenty of sugary foods, water and the aforementioned stuff like books etc.

Another noticeable change, along with my stomach, is the breathing. Part of the same package I assume. I'ts proving quite difficult actually but I'm trying to focus on it when I can. This is, again, something I should do whether I feel like it or not.

I actually hate not lookihg out the windows, but I'm scared of letting my mind drift or wander into potentially damaging territory. Hence me doing this.

 I know this is just the start. If this journey goes without incident, I have the stay itself - food issues in particular - and of course the return journey tomorrow. It was, of course, the return journey that resulted in the attack back in 2011.

If I can get the tech to work, I will write again tomorrow. In the meantime... excuse the spelling.