Sharing Experiences III

Eating a burger doesn't necessarily seem like a challenging prospect, but that's the problem with anxiety - it's often the most trivial situations - ones that most people take for granted - that cause the biggest problems.  In fact most people don't take such things for granted because they won't ever need to... eating a burger would never be an issue. 

May contain horse

As I've mentioned in previous blogs, eating out has always been a problem for me, and in summary the more 'pressure' I feel that there is on me, rational or not, the more difficult things turn out.  Two good examples of when eating out has been a nightmare include:

1) When I went for a series of meals out with one of my friends.  ONE being the operative word... Because there was nowhere to hide, it put more pressure on me and thus affected my eating.

2) A visit with a friend to a B&B in the Lake District.  This 3-night break was all but destroyed by the first breakfast.  The woman serving breakfast was very brash to say the least and after the third breakfast even made an observational comment about me not eating much.  The problem with B&Bs is that it feels like there is pressure to eat things, and the subsequent anxiety that I got from this ruined the rest of the holiday, as eating everywhere then caused problems.

I'll come onto the burger incident in a moment.  But what actually happens when I've eaten out - what sort of feelings do I experience?

Well, for a start, the anxious feelings can start days before the meal itself.  The thoughts about a meal could start months before if, for example, a Christmas meal has been organised in advance.  On the day of the meal, I basically feel very anxious, or 'close to a panic attack.' This, of course, makes you feel physically poor anyway and couple this with health anxiety and you have a concoction of... not wanting to eat much, or indeed, not being able to stomach much.  So when it came to the meal itself, my breathing was shallow (coupled with bad sinuses) and my stomach was churning, the LAST thing you feel like doing is eating.  Consequently, I've struggled through a fifth of the meal when the other person/people has/have finished, over-analysing every mouthful.  I get to a point when I can simply do no more and I give in, trying my best to hide what is left on my plate.

This sort of thing has happened numerous times, but one of the worst times was a night out I organised for my birthday in 2010.  Even though at the time I was struggling with eating out generally, I still decided to hold a big night out in Birmingham that started with... yes you guessed it, a meal at Nandos.  Usually, the bigger the crowd during a meal the better, because I can hide and people aren't focusing on me.  However, this was MY birthday, and what's more, it was a strange combination of friends who came for one reason or another - i.e. there were less 'safe' people there.

So, after weeks of dread and despair - yes, instead of excitement which of course it should be before a birthday do - the meal arrives and sure enough, I am panicking by the time the food arrives.  Everyone will have noticed, but the two things that stuck out in my mind was one person saying to my other friend (supposedly out of earshot) 'is he ok, he hasn't eaten anything,' and the person sitting next to me asking me why.  I think I said "I've been a bit ill recently" which, if classing anxiety as an illness, isn't far from the truth. 

But then it went from bad to worse.  The more people who noticed the worse I got, and then during about the fifth painfully slow chew on a piece of burger, I began to choke. It was so bad that I had to excuse myself to the toilet and phone my friend from there to come and assist me.  Unfortunately, rather than bring me water he brought me my half-glass of beer, which didn't really help...

Eventually, the choking dissipated, and in the end I actually used this incident as an excuse not to eat any more food!  Although in fairness, it wouldn't be easy for anyone if they too had choked.

But of course, the choking wouldn't have happened at all had I ate like a 'normal' person.  I remember my good friend saying that one of her friends who witnessed the incident asked whether I had some sort of eating disorder.  At first I always thought that's what it was, but of course I've since learnt it's all down to some bizarre anxiety that to this day still baffles me a bit.

I'm pleased to say I'm going through a better phase now, but I still don't look forward to eating out in certain situations.  Over the last year, the hardest meal was my birthday again, due to the fact that in my head, all eyes were on me and I couldn't 'escape.'

This incident in Birmingham frightened me.  Not just because I thought I might choke to death; not just because I thought my friends would think I was ill or strange, but also because I wondered where on earth I could go from here in future.

The message is this - anxiety can affect things that others just do without thinking, like eating.  The best - but most difficult - thing I think is to not let it get to you.  Accept that anxiety can do this and seek the appropriate help.  Make things as comfortable for yourself as possible in any situation; so when eating a meal out, I always order a separate glass of water, wear loose trousers, remember to breathe between bites, order the thing I prefer to eat the most and so on.  Every little helps.

And also get a friend ready who doesn't bring you half a beer to you when you're on the verge of asphyxiation.

Best wishes

Al

Sums It Up...

I wasn't sitting like this though

I am happy to report that life in my new house is going well.  There have been a couple of anxious moments around food (i.e. have a cooked things properly and if not will I die from food poisoning... i.e. health anxiety...) but beyond that so far it has been a success.  I will update in more detail soon.

However, one thing that sums up my life is that I was just in the communal area with two of my housemates, and within a minute was left alone in there after they both received phone calls from their respective partners.  Nothing wrong with that of course, but it just made me realise how isolated my troubles have made me over the years, and how a combination of anxiety causing and be caused by loneliness can just cause a spiralling downfall.

More on my house and sharing experiences to come soon...

Best wishes
Al

The Stigma Still Exists

A loaded title, but a truthful one.  And I'm specifically referring to me being frightened of telling people about my mental health problems, because I assume they will stigmatise.  How bad is this?

Speaks for itself.

Let me start my explaining what it is that I would tell someone who asked me to tell them 'about myself.'  So:

Q: Tell me about yourself.
A: "OK, well my name is Al, I have the same name as a well-known comedian, I'm 26, I'm from Stafford and I work for the council and have done so for 5 years.  I went to Uni and did Geography and my hobbies include making electronic music, football, swimming and socialising with my friends."

How many people would then bolt on the following sentence:

"I have lived with chronic anxiety for over 15 years."

Let alone the detail that would annotate this sentence if described in full.  

Now OK, I'm sure you'd argue that if you had just had cancer you probably wouldn't add on an equivalent sentence stating the fact.  But surely after you get to know someone after a few weeks, it would probably come out that you've had cancer, because you wouldn't be scared of telling someone this.  There's no stigma around cancer.  OK, you could argue that if you got lung cancer and smoked 50 a day then there's a stigma of blame, but generally its accepted as something which we'd be happy to talk about.  Even in that latter scenario, you'd probably say '... it's my fault really, because of all the cigarettes I've had in my lifetime," and people would accept that as you've acknowledged the situation. 

If this sounds like I'm trivialising cancer in some way by the way, of course I'm not.  It's purely for comparative purposes.  Replace cancer with anything else physical and the result will often be the same.  Embarrassment at worst.  And when I say 'something else physical,' I'm not referring to self-harming or any external physical symptoms that a mental illness could generate.  But there would still be a stigma around explaining these, rather than just an embarrassment (at worst).  

I think this blog so far shows how my mind is pulling one way then the other on this subject, proving how difficult I'm finding it to discuss it coherently.

The rest is just opinion and what I feel.  And for reference, when I say 'people,' I generally mean close people (friends, family etc) unless specified.

If I had a physical illness, I'd almost want to tell people so I could get help and support (and probably sympathy).  You need to do the same for anxiety or any other mental illness, but it often takes so much longer to open up to someone about a mental illness.  Why?

OK, so you could argue that it's because (a) physical illnesses can be more obvious to someone else so there's nowhere to hide and (b) your need to tell someone may appear more urgent, in the case of requiring treatment quickly.  But often this isn't the case.  I lay my cards on the table; I think I'd be more comfortable telling someone about a chronic physical illness, rather than a mental one (although I can't prove this having, luckily, not suffered from a chronic physical illness).

So, back to the original question: why?  The answer?  Stigma.

Not exactly groundbreaking.  But again, this is stigma that I may (or may not) have made up in my head... how do I know what people are going to react like when I tell them about my mental health problem?  How do I know that they will judge me, change their behaviour around me, or something else?  How do I know that they won't understand?  

My point is, these questions shouldn't be valid.  I shouldn't be frightened of opening up about the anxiety I've experienced, and neither should anyone else about their mental health problem.  OK, so I'm not proposing you introduce yourself, as per the start of this blog, by saying "I've suffered with chronic anxiety for 15 years," but no-one should be scared or reluctant to tell people about it given time.  I still am, even despite having it for so long, despite what I've learnt, despite this blog, I'm still playing into the stigma's hands.  I'm just so pleased that now, more than ever, people and charities are doing a lot of great work to try and change this.  I know I need to step up and do more, especially around the workplace, but most of all, for myself I need to be more confident of breaking through the stigma.

Anxiety has made me stronger, not weaker.

#TimetoTalk

Best wishes
Al

Social Anxiety and Confidence

So this blog links with the ones that have gone previously - this moving out lark really is testing my social anxiety and my confidence generally. 

Let me start by saying that this is a good thing; I am glad that I am being tested because this is what I need to build my confidence and develop me as a person.  It's about time; I'm 26 years old now and I need to be able to move forward with my life from a social perspective and finally break out of this anxious prison.

I sometimes wear full body lycra to hide myself

This new life that I have now found upon, thanks to lots of trying to find a suitable place to live, is now over 3 weeks old and although it is still far too soon to judge how this will pan out, I am pleased to report that the people who I'm living with are certainly making my life more sociable than it was previously.  But this, of course, is where the test comes in.  

In social situations, I have been known to change as a person.  This isn't something I do on purpose, but it is something that I do simply because my confidence flies out the window.  I agree with anything that others say.  I laugh uncomfortably.  I think a lot of it is fear of offending someone, or fear of looking boring by not really knowing or caring what someone is talking about.  I also hate under any circumstances to sound like I'm bragging, and I feel like this even if someone has asked me what achievements I have.  I talk them down as though they aren't significant just so I don't appear this way.

What doesn't help is that I just don't think I've been in enough social situations over time to have helped me learn what to do.  I often struggle to know what to say and have my own self-struggle which is to make myself sound interesting or be funny.  Why is 'being myself' so difficult?  I think it's because of my desperation to finally fit in and be accepted in a social situation, and to potentially bring things up that other people may find boring or uninteresting or strange I still deem too risky in my quest to fit in.  But how I can possibly make up in my own head what is boring or strange anyway?  Confident people tell other people, however well they know them, all about themselves, whether the recipient finds it 'interesting' or not.  So why can't I?

I've also noticed myself laughing at things other people say, usually when I don't really understand what they are talking about. This is effectively a defence mechanism so that I appear interested.  

This is in contrast to how I am with my friends... very relaxed (well, as relaxed or indeed RELAXED (see a recent blog) as I can be) and myself which is crucial.  Of course, this is the case for most people; you are naturally more relaxed and open with people you know better etc.  But I over-analyse every other contact I have with everyone else, everything said.  I dwell on anything I feel may have either offended someone else or where I feel I've looked stupid or arrogant.  It plays on my mind for such a long time afterwards.

Is this all part of social anxiety?  It would make sense if this over-analysis was part of anxiety, as it is largely irrational which, of course, is what anxiety is.  It's also true that I often walk around on eggshells if I'm with other people who I'm not comfortable with - that's what happened when I moved into the new house, and indeed still does at time.  This of course raises anxiety levels generally.

I need to learn to be comfortable and confident in myself, something very difficult after spending years struggling with anxiety and the huge negative impact it has on self-esteem and confidence in the first place.  And of course, like the chicken and the egg, it's quite feasible that a low self-esteem, whatever the reason for it manifesting, helped emphasise the anxiety in the first place.

I appreciate this is more of a ramble than a blog, but sometimes it's difficult to get thoughts down coherently.  Maybe next time there'll be less bla bla bla bla.... bla [laugh uncomfortably]

Best wishes
Al

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

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

As the last blog suggested.

Graph of how the last 11 days have panned out

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- People - they are the best medicine.

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

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

Best wishes
Al

Time to Move On 3 - The Fall Out

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

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

This apparently depicts 'flatmates'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best wishes
Al

Time to Move On 2

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

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

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

Another high quality image

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bring it on.

Best wishes
Al

Sharing Experiences II

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

The One Where They Found Out At Work

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

Listen to the birdy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's #TimetoTalk.

Best wishes
Al