Not for the faint hearted

I was lucky enough to get 3 weeks off work, which is just as well given how busy it's been getting there lately.  A much needed break.

Sorry, I meant "break."

Christmas can, for obvious reasons, put a lot of pressure on folk with anxiety, which is hardly surprising... for me, one of the main things is eating out on a more frequent basis, which, as I've explained in previous blogs, is not something I'm overly good at.  However, there have been a couple of recent eating out events, all of which have gone ok, so I was hopeful this one would be the same.

The scene: It was a colleague's (and a friend's) Birthday from the office where I work.  27 people were attending, largely due to the fact that it had slowly merged into a Christmas lunch, not just a Birthday lunch.  Anyway, even though I'm on leave, I was invited and gladly accepted.  It was held at The Sun pub in Stafford; a nice and a fairly 'safe' venue for me. 

It all started fine; I was having a good chat and a laugh with a few colleagues.  The food was served, and again, the food situation was going well, in that I was actually managing to eat it.  Many events like this that have occurred in the past ended up with me leaving hungrier than when I started, but it was all good. 

In attendance with us was an ex-colleague, who retired a couple of years ago.  He's an absolute legend; he is the sort of person that has that enviable knack of making everyone's face light up when he enters the room you're in.  He was being his usual jovial self.  Then, suddenly, another fellow colleague had to leave early, and went to say a specific goodbye to this retired chap given he's not someone we see in work everyday.  As she was saying bye, the chap was completely non-responsive, as though he didn't know she was there.  It suddenly transpired that, rather than him joking around, something was seriously wrong.  He'd just shutdown, barely able to function, and had apparently got very hot.  Within 30 seconds of the colleague saying cheerio, another colleague was phoning for an ambulance. 

Now understandably, aided by this chap's popularity, everyone went from being happy and chatty to shocked, concerned and quiet.  The problem is, no-one knew what was wrong.  He was able to speak to the ambulance service on the phone himself, but with difficulty, and his condition deteriorated and his wife, also present, took over. 

Now, for about 6 or 7 minutes of this, I had to start concentrating on myself.  I felt a little light-headed and there were slight symptoms of a panic attack fizzing around inside me.  I thought once I'd got over the initial shock I'd be fine, though, especially given how far I've come over the past year or so. 

However, after this 6 or 7 minutes, when the phone passed to his wife, I got worse, and realised I had to vacate the room; I was going to faint if I hadn't done.  Luckily the toilets were close by and the one cubicle was vacant, so I had to go in there, sit face down, breathe deeply and compose myself. 

Bearing in mind I have health anxiety, I'm sure you can appreciate what this must have been like. 

I was disappointed in myself.  I had to remove this feeling, though, and focus on the positives, mainly, that I actually removed myself from the scene.  Once upon a time, I would have pretended that I was fine, possibly resulting in me fainting on the spot.  Imagine the disaster that would have occurred had this happened, given the already materialising circumstances.

I was in the toilets for at least 20 minutes before I managed to get up, and gladly in that time the chap had been taken out of the area and put into the ambulance outside.  I then paid and left swiftly, made easier by the fact that many others had already gone.  No-one really knew where I had been in the interim and no-one has since questioned it. 

I'm pleased to say I've since heard that this chap, who I really care about, is apparently doing ok.

So why did this happen?  I've (luckily) never been in a situation before where someone has suddenly become ill like this with no apparent warning.  It has happened to people before but I've never been there to witness it.  So perhaps it came as a shock for that reason, but not everyone in this situation would faint...

So, anxiety it is then.  With health anxiety, one of my biggest fears is having a heart attack or stroke or something along these sort of lines, and even though I'm not sure what this chap had, it was clearly not good and perhaps seeing something that I attributed to my biggest fears actually happening in front of me generated that reaction. 

Perhaps, because everyone was panicking about this chap etc, my mind was doing it's 'oh boy, I'd better not have a panic attack or faint now' thing, because of the nature of the situation, making the likelihood of an attack occurring all the greater, of course.  Perhaps, as I suspect, it was a combination of the above two factors. 

Whatever the reason, I just hope this doesn't set me back in the progress I have made.  I hate how any 'event' like this always ends up with me being selfish and having to look after and think about myself, rather than concentrating on being concerned for the person to whom the 'event' has actually happened to. 

A day in the life of an anxiety sufferer. 

Best wishes and have a wonderful Christmas
Al

Loneliness II

This blog follows on from the one I wrote back in July... sadly, little has changed. 


A good, aptly named song



I've spent years isolating myself, all the way up until the final year of University when I finally started to become more confident.  I was embarrassed about who I was; pre-'realising I had chronic anxiety' because I couldn't explain some of my behaviour, and post-'realising I had chronic anxiety,' because, well, I knew I had chronic anxiety.  I always seemed to think that isolation was the best answer despite what friends and professionals used to tell me, citing that "I like my own space and time."  As Chandler said in Friends, "we could get them together and make a continuum."

And even now, where I think the opposite, I still enjoy my own space and time, but only every so often.  As it happens, I have far too much of my own space and time. 

I've only felt like this for about 4-5 years, and for the first couple of years of this, I thought that filling my own space and time with activities was OK and was an acceptable substitution for socialising.  But now I realise that even this isn't enough.  I now understand that I'm a people person, I enjoy talking to, laughing with and helping other people, it's part of my nature.

Whether it's been there all the time and I've just been suppressing it, I'm not sure.  It could be, somewhat ironically, that isolating myself so much for so long as caused me to develop into this 'people person.'  If you averaged the amount of 'alone time' I've had compared to most people in this country at my age, I would guess I'm well over double the average.  When focusing purely on non-work or non-academic time, it'd be even more. 

At the end of the day, if I had a satisfactory social calendar, I wouldn't have time to write this blog.

Of course, bouts of social anxiety and panic disorder --- yadda yadda --- haven't helped over the years, but there is a significant possibility that a lack of social activity has actually, at least in part, caused this.  Anxiety itself, in my case, may have come from isolation and, in turn, a lack of confidence in myself and in social situations.

It could be the other way round, of course, where anxiety caused my lack of confidence and social isolation... but either way, years of being 'under-sociable' has got me stuck somewhat in a hole that I'm finding very difficult to come out of.  I'm still shy on confidence when meeting new people, although much better than I was and more willing, but now that school and uni have gone, the opportunities are very limited. 

And certainly these days, being on my own does cause anxiety and depression, even if this never used to be the case.

I have thought of ways to improve my social status, in spite of the 'limited opportunities' I refer to above.  But many of them would involve quitting my job, which in this day and age would just be stupid. 

But of course, back in March 2011, I visited Exeter University in order to more closely inspect a masters course with, if I'm honest, the main objective to be improving my social calendar by going back to uni.  This trip resulted in the biggest panic attack I've ever had, and took around a year of hard work to recover from. 

No wonder I'm tentative.  No wonder big decisions frighten me.  No wonder I'm stuck in this rut...

Best wishes

Al