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. 

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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