Time to Move On 2

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

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

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

Another high quality image

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bring it on.

Best wishes
Al

Sharing Experiences II

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

The One Where They Found Out At Work

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

Listen to the birdy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's #TimetoTalk.

Best wishes
Al

Sharing Experiences I

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

#TimetoTalk

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

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

The One On Holiday With My First Known Panic Attack

I didn't say the titles would be catchy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All I do know is that this represents two things:

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

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

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

#TimetoTalk

Best wishes
Al

Doing my bit...

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

Click here

Anxiety Bites II

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

Denise Welch

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

Denise appearing on my favourite show

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

The day my boss nearly found out about my anxiety

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

Moving on...

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

Watch this space!

Best wishes
Al

Seasonal Affective Disorder: The Polar Opposite

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

Girls flaunting their... joy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best wishes
Al

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