Five Blogs of Thanks - 5th Anniversary of The Anxiety Tracker - Twitterites

Hi all,

This follows on nicely from yesterday’s first blog of thanks and also contradicts a fairly recent blog I wrote about my disdain for social media.  I was primarily focusing on Facebook and joyfully wrote about how it can lead to increasing mental health problems largely through addiction, a lack of escape from being able to compare yourself (negatively) to others and trolling and how all of this can lead to anxiety and depression.  I vehemently believe this to be the case and stand by everything I said in that blog; I deleted my Facebook account in the back end of summer last year and I have not regretted a moment; it’s been wonderful not being exposed to endless drivel.

Yes, yes, I know, not unlike this blog.

So it seems somewhat hypocritical to write a blog thanking people I have engaged with on Twitter over the years.  Let me explain the difference.

I set up Twitter in 2014 to engage with other people who have experienced mental health problems and/or who are campaigning for better mental health services.  I wanted a platform to share this blog site with others to help them and gain feedback, primarily, but also to learn from other people’s experiences of living with a mental health problem and how they have dealt with it. I wanted to gain more intelligence around how I could help myself and how people who have experienced chronic anxiety (or equivalent) are facing later life. I also wanted to connect with like-minded people.  I did not set up Twitter to engage with ‘friends;’ the fact that a few of my friends are followers is irrelevant.  Twitter allows you to follow who you like without feeling guilty about not following others back.

Okay, so it’s certainly is not without its faults, but if used properly, it can be of real benefit for people looking for peer-to-peer and professional learning about mental health (people may tell me that Facebook can be too, which is fair enough – I appreciate I am in the minority when it comes to this view)!

Along with useful and interesting tweets from various mental health charities and organisations that support/run mental health services (see yesterday’s blog), I have connected with numerous individuals over the years who have inspired or influenced me in some way.

Leaders in the field

This list of Twitterites range from people who I perceive as leaders in the field, who have taken their compassion for others and passion for raising awareness of mental health and reducing stigma to an incredible level largely off their own backs. And who I probably wouldn’t know existed without being on Twitter. The list below is given in Twitter handle alphabetical order.

@ClaireyLove – who during my time on Twitter has risen to stardom with her fabulous book ‘We’re all MAD here.’ It has been fascinating and awe inspiring to watch this lady who must be of similar age to me express her experiences of social anxiety (and wider anxiety) with the world.  Check out this website if you haven’t yet.

@DoodleChronicle – a brilliant way of depicting how art and, specifically, doodles can be used to communicate what mental illness really feels like.  This Twitter site is more than just doodles, though, and contains incredibly candid accounts of what it is really like to live with a mental illness.

@enhughesiasm – someone who has turned to comedy to express what it feels like to live with anxiety, expressed in no small part by his TEDx talk last year which was brilliant. And made me hungry.

@FionaArt – her Twitter account states that she is an ‘individual trying to change the world’ and frankly who could argue? She has also contributed significantly to live mental health chats on Twitter recently – off her own back – so that people can tweet their live questions and experiences. Check out #mhchat.

@matthaig1 – a very talented man doing his utmost to make changes to our mental health system and influence those who need to be influenced. He has also written several books which draw on his expertise and depicts it in an empathetic, inspiring and vivid manner.

@MelJN17 / @MelNaray2nd – it’s not often you can tell someone is a beautiful person without physically meeting them, but Melanie comes into this category. Check out her two Twitter accounts to see what I mean – and her poems.

@MrJonnyBenjamin – The MBE for his services to mental health and suicide prevention pretty much says it all. His support to improve mental health services and raise awareness of the impact it can have on people’s lives knows no bounds. The powers that be would do well to listen to him more often.

@TheSarahFader‏ – and from across the pond, Sarah Fader is CEO of Stigma Fighters, another charity doing its bit to show that mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of.  The success of the charity is down to Sarah’s palpable enthusiasm for the subject and she has even created her own hashtag: #ThisIsWhatAnxietyFeelsLike.

Thank you all for doing an incredible job at changing people’s perceptions of mental illness to such an extent that it is genuinely influencing national policy and activity – and ultimately, helping those people in greatest need.

Then there are all the brilliant people I have connected with on Twitter in the past three years who are going about their daily lives but in the process trying to make things better for other people by sharing their experiences and helping others through difficult periods. They act as sounding boards, trusted virtual entities that understand and can empathise with what ‘difficult’ really means. They are an army of compassion individuals, all vastly different but with one common goal: to help others. A special mention to those who have particularly affected me:

@Allinthehead19 – check out https://allinthehead2016.wordpress.com/.

@AnxietySunshine

@anxiwarrior – check out https://anxiwarrior.wordpress.com/

@DanAnxietyBlog

@DawnPriestland

@Jinthelife – check out http://www.ajayinthelife.com/

@jonnyward21

@katyfrank18 – check out http://katyfrank21.tumblr.com/

@ktanx1

@lesleylyness

@lisaeva77

@mandy166

@Miss_Horan7

@RoseWiltshire

@SimbaTalks

@shazzaph

@Syrupie

@vikyjane

Thank you all for being brilliant.

Before you ask, yes it did take ages to go through all of my followers to try and ensure I didn’t miss anyone (which I probably have failed to do – in which case apologies).

Then of course, as mentioned previously, there are the Twitter accounts of the various charities, such as Anxiety UK, Anxiety United (in particular, given their lack of resource), Mind (local and national) and the Time to Change initiative, Tasha Foundation, SANE and the Samaritans, along with recent dementia orientated charities which have also been increasingly useful for me over the past few months.  Thank you all for sharing your wisdom and resources on this platform and reaching out.

I think I am using Twitter in the right way; the amount I’ve learnt from this group of people and others is testament to this I think.  And moreover, when compassion seems scarce during the day to day grind of life, one log-in to Twitter can totally change that perception.

• To the Twitterites who are suffering, thank you for sharing and reaching out. I hope it helps.
• To the Twitterites for sharing your wisdom, thank you; I have learnt so much.
• To the charities Twittering, thank you for allowing easy dissemination of your information.

Thank you.

Best wishes,

Al

Five Blogs of Thanks - 5th Anniversary of The Anxiety Tracker - The Professionals

Hi all,

I think it would be short-sighted of me to start anywhere other than the professionals. No, I don’t mean the 70s TV series, I mean the anxiety and mental health professionals that actually helped me turn my life from a chaotic nonsense to something worth living for.

I had spent several years trying to find someone who calls themselves ‘a professional.’  I had gone to the public, private and even university sector to try and get the help I needed and, although maybe not realising it at the time, I didn’t get anything other delays, dolphin noises and relaxation techniques, quite frankly.  I don’t hold a huge amount of blame on the shoulders of the therapists, as I know they must see hundreds of people every week; everyone reading this knows it’s the system is absolute garbage. But none of the therapists I saw helped me which I think was rather unfortunate, given that I have since discovered that my condition isn’t actually that rare, so to not find therapy for about 13 years after I first started showing symptoms of anxiety, despite several attempts, was unacceptable really.

Alas, the biggest irony of my anxiety rollercoaster is that the only successful therapy came after I had my biggest ever meltdown, on that train back from Cornwall in March 2011.  I had no choice but to peruse Dr. Google at that stage and it actually worked; I stumbled across Anxiety UK, a charity that actually understood me!  I read some of their literature and I remember thinking ‘THIS IS ME, THIS IS ME!! AFTER NIGH ON 13 YEARS I HAVE FINALLY FOUND PEOPLE WHO DON’T THINK I’M A ****ING WEIRDO!!’  It was liberating – albeit I was probably having a panic attack at the time.

When I saw their therapy offer…

• CBT
• Flexible number of sessions
• Via webcam if necessary
• Relatively cheap, all things considered

…I was even more excited, to the point of raising my heart rate and having another panic attack.  But I plucked up the courage to call and within two weeks I had my first appointment with a therapist via webcam. She was in Glasgow, I was in Stafford. According to Dr. Google, who apparently is also good at geography, there is 262 miles between the two locations.  I couldn’t leave the house at the time and with an absence of an Anxiety UK therapist in Stafford this was the next best thing.

For the first time, I’d like to name this therapist who, after 50 (yes, fifty) sessions of (actual) CBT got me back on track (I was never on track to begin with): Veronica Macdiarmid, thank you.  How on earth you managed to get that website URL, I will never know.

I have blogged several times about CBT and the various techniques I’ve used and will continue to use. I learnt all of these from Veronica and Anxiety UK and I don’t think I even realise sometimes how much they have helped me over the last five years.

I had just finished this fifty sessions of therapy when I set up this blog; it was this that inspired me to do so.  How can I share this with others as well as share my experience of living with anxiety? Veronica and Anxiety UK had made me want to open up about mental health and shout about it to the world. An added bonus of course, but not superfluous, as this opening of doors has helped me ever since, uncovering a world of people who have had similar experiences and feelings to me over the years. I thought I was alone before all of this.

• To Veronica, thank you for sorting me out.
• To Anxiety UK, thank you for hooking me up with her and for opening so many doors for me.
• To all mental health charities, thank you for your continued striving to help people like me.

Thank you.

Best wishes,

Al

Five Blogs of Thanks - 5th Anniversary of The Anxiety Tracker - Introduction

Hi all,

If you had said to me five years ago that I would set up a blog and still be writing posts in five years’ time, I would not have believed you.  Mainly because things like blogs often don’t have longevity without gaining financial incentive but also because there was a significant chance that I could have had a nervous breakdown at some point during that five years rendering me unable to write blogs or anything else for that matter.

So I feel it is an occasion to mark and I am going to do this in the form of five blogs starting tomorrow and posted each day until the anniversary on 15 June.  They will each thank five different ‘groups’ of people, people without whom I wouldn’t be able to write this today, people to whom I owe a huge amount of debt and gratitude for what they have given me, knowingly or unknowingly over the years.  Each of the five categories has been deliberately and carefully chosen so to encompass as many of the people I can that have contributed to my stability from crippling anxiety. This hadn’t long left me back on 15 June 2012, but now it is buried much deeper, allowing me to live a more fulfilling life, albeit not without its anxiety and non-anxiety related challenges.

The fact is, without the influence of these other people, I dread to think where I would be.

This blog is the introduction to this series and to set the scene.  Where was I five years ago and where am I now?

Date	15 June 2012	15 June 2017
Age	3 days away from my 25th birthday	3 days away from my 30th birthday
Living situation	One month into my first ever house-share situation; only just moved out of my parents’ home	Two years owning a home having shared two different houses for about 2.5 years previously
Job	Four years into my job at a local authority	Three and a half years into my job with a charity
Education	Four years since graduating	Nine years since graduating
Relationship status	Single	Single
Therapy	Days after finishing fifty sessions of CBT	None since the aforementioned CBT concluding five years prior
Friends	Several still living in Stafford	As aforementioned, with friendships even stronger if anything
Family	Not close with any except parents	As aforementioned; mum has recently been diagnosed with dementia
No. blog posts	0	134 (assuming I post these six as planned!)
Anxiety level (/10)	6, ranging from 5 to 9	3, ranging from 2 to 6
Overall happiness (/10)	3, ranging from 1 to 5	6, ranging from 5 to 8

I appreciate that I am writing this five days in advance of the comparison, but unless I suddenly find the girl of my dreams, get sacked and as a consequence my home becomes repossessed this side of Thursday, I can be fairly confident that what I have put here will still be the case.  What this shows is some definite improvements which, okay, may come naturally with age. But aside perhaps from the relationship status, everything else that has changed has come as a surprise in the past, as indeed has not requiring any more therapy. I never thought after finishing those CBT sessions that ‘that would be it’ – of course, it may yet not be.

You can read through my blogs for more context but at that I will leave it for now.  All it remains for me to write by way of an introduction is twofold:

What are my top five most read blogs in the past five years?

1.       Moving on… again (22 May 2015)

2.       The New Job (19 January 2014)

3.       Zzzzzz… (5 July 2015)

4.       Anxiety@ The Shared House (8 March 2015)

5.       The Confidence Issue (27 July 2014)

I wish to also draw your attention to some of my favourite blogs and series:

The Seven Steps to Stability series (May 2014)

Guest blog about arachnophobia (July 2014)

The Anxiety@ series (starting with this one) (November 2014 – March 2015)

My (constructive) rant about social media (November 2016)

My plea to government about mental health in schools (January 2017)

And finally, as I’ve said, the next five blogs, one to be posted each day up to and including Thursday, the fifth anniversary of this blog, will thank those people that made me jump from a 3 to a 6 out of 10 for happiness and fall from a 6 to a 3 in terms of anxiety in those five years. 

Thank you ALL!

Best wishes,

Al

Going it alone II

Hi all,

For those of you following my relentless self-absorption on Twitter lately, you may have noticed that I have recently been on my holidays. However, rather than this being the sort of Facebook 'photos of hot-dog legs' 'look how amazing my holiday is' self-absorption, this self-absorption has been an attempt to show how someone who has lived with chronic anxiety for several years can, indeed, accomplish an achievement that until recently wasn't even in the horizon of reality.

The beautiful gardens of Muckross House, near Killarney

It is no secret that I have wanted to travel to a few more places, having only ever been to Barcelona and twice to Ireland outside of the UK.  On each previous occasion, I was with other people (my parents and good friend in the Ireland cases and with my university in Barcelona) and the rigidity of the itinerary meant not only that I couldn't always do what I wanted but that it also put more pressure on me to 'perform' in social/academic scenarios.  As people with anxiety know, putting an actual or perceived pressure on someone can lead to panic.  So the trip I have just taken, although also to Ireland, was on my own and, despite it being a country both close by and one I'd been to before, it was still different.  I went to Dublin for four nights, a city I'd never stayed in, and then Killarney for four nights, a town I'd visited but never stayed in either.

So picture the scenario. About six years ago from now, I could barely leave my own house (I was living with my parents at the time).  I was under the cosh from crippling anxiety having had a massive panic attack on a train, the immediate legacy of which lasted for months after. I had been living generally with anxiety since I was 11 and saw no way out. So the mere thought of travelling somewhere, anywhere, on my own was panic-inducing and the legacy of this still existed until not too long ago.  But I know how much I've improved in this six year period and as I said before, I want nothing more than to explore some of the world and do it on my own terms. Could I cope with the travelling, the uncertainty, the unknowing, the naivety? Remember, most people from relatively privileged backgrounds as I have, have been all over the world by the time they nearly reach 30 (I'm not quite there yet...) and so social pressure forces you to believe that you're being left behind if you haven't been to many places by this age.  It becomes another embarrassing string to the anxiety bow: "So where's your favourite place in the world you've been?" I usually say Ireland; they don't have to know that the only place I've been further afield was due to a geography field trip.

So although the temptation was there to go somewhere totally different, I knew I couldn't go into this first solo trip* too deep - going to other places in Europe or Canada, a country I've always wanted to see, would potentially be too much for a first week-long trip I have ever taken alone.  So Ireland was the choice; enough to test me, to challenge me, but not an absurd distance for it to blow my mind.  The halfway split in places (Dublin for four nights, Killarney for four nights) I thought would also make it a richer and a more challenging experience still than just staying in the same place for eight days.

I booked the trip last August and as the turn of the year came I thought to myself 'this may be too much to cope with having never been away on my own.' *So that is the main reason why I dipped my toe in the water by going to Edinburgh in February; although only two nights and involving no aeroplane travel it was still a useful benchmark: if I couldn't cope with this, how could I cope with eight days in Ireland? As it turned out, it went quite well.

So I went as scheduled, 8 May to 16 May. Here follows a breakdown of successes, challenges and solutions. Let's start with the difficult bits and end more positively!

CHALLENGES

1) Travelling
Not surprising to anyone who reads my stuff. I had to catch a train from my town to the airport, fly to Dublin, get on a bus to the city centre, then halfway through the trip catch a train to Killarney, then do the same journey in reverse on the last day before catching another bus from the station in Dublin to the airport, fly back and get the train back home from the airport. Clear?

I hadn't been on a plane since 2009, for a start, and had no idea how the logistics worked (baggage, processes, boarding, security, yadda yadda). The rigmarole (all very necessary, I appreciate) doesn't allow for a stress-free start when you have no idea what you're doing. So the journey down was possibly the most difficult part of the trip. I had to work very hard to keep it together and although generally succeeded, my thought was 'if this is what the whole trip is going to be like, it's not going to be remotely enjoyable.' The anxiety came in waves; one minute I was okay and felt comfortable, the next I was fighting hard to keep it together. Flashbacks of the 2011 train debacle kept coming into my mind, as did thoughts such as 'what if I fail at the first hurdle?' 'What if I have a panic attack on the plane?' 'What will other people think?' etc etc.

2) Eating
Also not surprising to anyone who reads my stuff. There were two main problems with this I found. The first one was the usual 'pressure of eating' thing that I've had for years and the fact that when you're eating you find it more difficult to breathe which can lead to panicking as well.  Combine the two and it can make it quite difficult and as a result it always takes me a while to eat whatever it is.

The second issue was that in both Dublin and Killarney, eating alone was not a common thing. Edinburgh was very different in this respect. I can only recall seeing two people in what must have been around 15 different cafes and restaurants (lunch and dinner) that were also eating alone and in one case you could tell that the person was a regular to that location. There was also a modicum of hostility to me as a sole-eater, taking up space in (what was usually) a busy restaurant. This just added to the pressure.

Something else I should mention in relation to eating is people's relentlessness with breakfast. I stayed in an apartment in Dublin so this wasn't an issue, but I was in a hotel in Killarney. I had purposely booked a room that didn't include breakfast, but because I booked so early I got an early-bird breakfast-thrown-in-for-free offer. Hotel receptionists, as lovely as they were, were relentless with emphasising that I should go for breakfast; I never did, except on the last day where they insisted they open the breakfast bar early to accommodate my early train back to Dublin to catch my flight home. I've never enjoyed breakfast; I can't stomach anything substantial until mid-late morning and moreover I don't like most breakfast related food, such as cereal, anyway. Plus I used to be forced to eat breakfast when going through terrible anxiety and throwing it up on many occasions. But, I didn't have the heart to decline it on this last day (see point 5).

3) Being alone
Following on from the above point about lone-eating, doing this trip solo had already raised a few eyebrows. I don't care about people's reactions, frankly, as they probably haven't been where I have emotionally. But it did lead to an element of stark reality checking again: I'm alone doing this. I don't have the privilege of a relationship borne largely out of a chronic lack of confidence that years of anxiety has given me so if I want to travel, I will have to do it alone. Relationships and happiness are all around you and naturally that makes me fearful of my future when all of my friends finally move on.

4) Length of time
Linking with point 3, I think eight days was slightly too long from a 'getting fed up of my own company' perspective. The way I handle being alone has hugely improved in recent years and my buying of my own house in 2015 emphasises this, but normally I am at work and seeing friends/family when I'm not on holiday so I'm not alone all the time. Despite always being somewhere in the presence of other people, by the end of the trip I was getting annoyed with myself!

5) Confidence
This is something I don't have much of in specific situations. I think what it boils down to is a fear of looking stupid, being embarrassed or being laughed at, which makes me tentative in many situations (and is, again, the reason I am alone in the first place).  There were several times when I had to converse with other people that I said yes to something that I didn't really want (see point 2 re breakfast) or went along with something I wasn't comfortable with. Okay so they weren't big deals but this fear of looking stupid or whatever it is always blocks me from saying or doing what I actually prefer.  There were also times when I was uncertain about something and felt that I needed to ask to gain clarity, but knew that it was something that 99% of other people would know the answer to (e.g. airport, hotel, restaurant protocol) and again I felt stupid if I did ask. Ironically, of course, in the end it was not asking and thus ending up doing something wrong that made me look more stupid than if I'd just asked in the first place.

6) Dublin is utter carnage
A minor point, but I found Dublin to be total (organised) chaos all of the time. I didn't find Edinburgh like this to the same extent. It is an incredible city, but I found it a bit too 'in your face' for a sole traveller with a history of anxiety!

7) The wrong restaurant
This is more of a anecdote, but one evening in Killarney I ended up in the wrong restaurant. Don't ask me how. I had my suspicions when I walked in and saw one of the staff pouring wine into a glass with the other hand behind his back.  I don't go to such places (pressure of eating would go through the roof at a place like this) and I prefer to stick with places where I can interpret the menu and where there is a more relaxed, pub-like atmosphere (understandably - see point 2). Moreover, there is the cost issue. So I sat down and obtained a menu and a glass of bottled water without even being asked (suspicions raised even more) and then I looked at the menu and saw that the cheapest option was €28. I then realised I couldn't work out what most of the meals were.

What do you do? Stay and suck it up and eat something pretentious and pay a fortunate for the privilege and in my case risk a nervous breakdown in the process? Or do you speak to a member of staff explaining your awkward situation, or at least make something up and pretend you have to leave? Or do you wait for none of the staff members to be around and literally run out of the restaurant? I took one of these options and I'm going to let you decide which it was.

With all this chaos going on, bearing in mind anxiety here, the main question is how did I cope with being away in a foreign country for eight days on my own? I hope the below is helpful for anyone reading this who may want to try going away for themselves sometime, but who is fearful to do so.

SOLUTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

1) Breathing (properly)
I cannot overstate enough how much this helped, especially when travelling. As soon as I felt a prang of anxiety, I focused on breathing properly. Usually, initially, it doesn't feel like it's helping and the natural reaction is to breathe quicker. But trust me, it does help. Breathe slowly and deeply in the through the nose and out through the mouth. Therapists have suggested to me in the past that I do this all the time, which is absurd from both a practical and necessary perspective, but applying it in situations when anxiety is lurking or emitting does help.

2) Advanced preparation
It took time, but I had planned my itinerary, both in terms of the logistical stuff (maps, trains and flights to catch etc) and my daytime plans. I actually went slightly overboard with the evening plans (eating and drinking etc) but as long as one can apply flexibility to any itinerary one should be fine, shouldn't one? All I know is that knowing what I was planning to do one day to the next minimised the stress significantly and meant I didn't have the added pressure of worrying about what to do and how to get there. In terms of travelling, I did plan everything I could but there is an element (especially with aeroplane travel) of until you've done it, you can't know everything. So again, building in that flexibility and ability to react is still important.

3) Being alone
Yes, I did state this as a challenge (see point 3 of challenges). But it was also a positive in that I could do what I liked, where I liked, for how long I liked and when I liked. That reduces the pressure. It is also a case of knowing that if things did go tits up from an anxiety perspective, at least I could 'escape' and do what I need to do to deal with it and not feel I'm letting someone I'm with down. This hugely reduces the pressure.

4) Being sensible with food
Yes eating out so often was a challenge, but choosing the right place was fundamental (see points 2 and 3); I knew there were options at each place I was going to that I could eat and (as much as anxiety allows) enjoy. It was also important to have plenty of fluids (a dry mouth whilst eating never helps) and so I usually ordered a tap water with whatever other drink I chose. Indeed, if you go into posh restaurants you get a bottle of water anyway (ahem). Also snacking during the day is useful to keep up energy and sugar levels and is important even if you don't feel like eating much. Something like a cereal bar or piece of fruit can work wonders and doesn't usually take too much effort to eat.

5) People watching and listening
Irish people are great, so why not keep an eye and/or ear on them? It took my mind off internal, unhelpful thoughts and you get added value, such as: "this weather is fecking shite even for our standards."

6) Understanding what is required and when
I always assumed that when I was feeling anxious when travelling, for example, that reading would help. Actually, it doesn't always. Sometimes having a look around you (and linking with point 5) can actually help more; playing off people's reactions that the plane is not about to nosedive into the sea or tuning into something other than your thoughts. Other people can help you do this better than a book or newspaper, quite often. The point is, just because reading is something I've always done in the past when feeling anxious on a train or plane, doesn't mean to say it's the best option every time. Again, flexibility is key.

7) Rationalisation
I don't have a fear of flying, but I do have anxiety. Therefore put me in any slightly uncomfortable situation, like in an aeroplane, and you bring that anxiety to the surface. I did find, to my surprise, that thinking of things people have said in the past about planes being the safest form of travel actually helped. This wouldn't help people with an extreme fear of flying, but it helped me rationalise the situation from an anxiety perspective. So did considering other things, such as 'it's only an hour long flight' and 'there are plenty of nice staff on board' etc. Being rational goes against the grain when you have anxiety and when you first try rationalising situations it doesn't help, but persistence pays off. Eventually you realise death isn't necessarily going to result from every activity.

8) WhatsApp
As you know, I'm a huge fan of social media, and sarcasm. However, I don't count WhatsApp as a form a social media, more an up to date version of MSN Messenger (if you're around my age, you'll have been a part of the fairly short but intensive MSN Messenger era whilst at school).  In essence what WhatsApp allowed me to do is stay connected with close friends without having to worry about paying ridiculous charges for using my phone abroad. I'm fortunate that I have close friends who know my situation, who know how significant this trip for me was and who I can send messages to whilst I'm away to maintain a certain level of acceptable normality and support, if necessary. 

9) Ireland
I am 25% Irish as my grandfather was Irish and I think there is some of it in my blood too; I love the place, the atmosphere and above all the scenery, which helps when you love hiking and cycling.  As we know these sorts of things are hugely beneficial to a healthy mind and I made sure that, despite the weather, I undertook some of these activities. I also visited some wonderful places; some highlights would probably be Killiney Hill near Dublin, Muckross House and the Gap of Dunloe (Google them).

Many of the above things are of course forms of CBT techniques; see my last-but-one post.

I think all of this pales into insignificance when I set out the results in simple terms:

-- I HAVE JUST COMPLETED AN 8 DAY HOLIDAY ON MY OWN IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY WITHOUT HAVING A MAJOR ANXIETY EPISODE --

If you'd have said that I would be able to achieve this even a couple of years ago, I would have laughed in your face. But it isn't me that has achieved this; it is my support network (people and material) that has enabled me to get this far.

As this blog nears five years old, you will be able to see how far things have developed in my life in just this amount of time, let alone in 1997 when I first sat in a counsellors office not really knowing what was going on. So what's the next adventure? Canada in September...

Best wishes,
Al

New challenges II

Hi all,

I wrote a blog a few weeks ago about how my mum has got early onset Alzheimer's disease. Today this was officially confirmed by those in the know, which quite honestly is a good thing because it means we can move forward and get on with official next steps.

I said challenges, not impossibilities...

This, clearly, is a difficult time and one of the main challenges for me is to ensure anxiety does not start dominating again. It feels horribly selfish to be thinking about looking after myself at a time like this but I know that I am no use if I am an anxious mess.

Yesterday I spent around a hour staving off a panic attack on a train - I was back in 2011 again for a minute. Fortunately, CBT techniques and breathing just about allowed me to succeed, but this was clearly a sign of my mind telling me "too much is going on."

I am also going to Ireland on my own for eight days next Monday. This, on its own, is a huge challenge for me and the good old 'panic disorder brain' is kicking in - thinking 'what if I have a panic attack whilst away,' triggering a panic attack in the present.  

I have also been invited by a friend to visit Canada for nigh on two weeks in September. This is incredibly exciting and somewhere I want to go - so I can use this as a goal and an incentive to be 'mentally ready.'

I can say with no uncertainty that these next few months - probably years - are going to be a fight and a half. I am up for it, just about, but let me tell you I need all the support I can get folks.

So stick with me :)

Best wishes,
Al

An insight into CBT

Hi all

I obtained 50 sessions of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) in the years 2012-13 and ultimately this set me on the road to alleviating the worst of anxiety that had frankly crippled for most of my life prior.  Yes, CBT isn't the answer to everything but for me it put my life on track to a point where today I can say that I am able to manage anxiety and do things with my life that I couldn't do previously.  I have blogged numerous times before about how I obtained this therapy and the other less successful therapy attempts I had before this.  It's a minefield, sadly, even today when a lot more is being done to tackle mental health stigma and to try and get mental health on a level playing field with physical.  Of course, we're still miles off.

I never said these images would be interesting

Naturally, the effectiveness of CBT or any other sort of therapy does become maximised by the therapist themselves.  Yes they will (hopefully) say insightful things that strike chords and that help you to get out of whatever pit you're in.  But ultimately it is down to you as the person with anxiety, depression, bipolar or any other mental health condition to do a lot of the work.  I understand that sometimes this can be difficult at best and other interventions are required for people to even begin to work at getting help, but once you're in that position, the best way to help you is to help yourself. If that makes sense.

One of the main things that my therapist advised that I did was create a toolbox of things that I could open in times of need.  This toolbox contains a series of things that I learnt from my mammoth run of CBT sessions that remind me what I need to do and how I need to act to ensure tasks I undertake do not cause anxiety to spiral out of control.  Now I'm in a much better state, it would be tempting to lock the toolbox shut and even get rid of it, but instead I routinely open it every couple of months and remind myself where I was and where and I am now and most importantly, how I got here.  The toolbox contains a series of prompts that help me to get through challenges as they get bigger now I'm nearing 30.  I talked in my last blog about my mum's early-stages of dementia, the blog before about my travels - all new challenges.  I need this toolbox to get me through it.

When I say toolbox, by the way, I mean Excel spreadsheet.  Such is the modern way of things.

The first things on this spreadsheet are things I can do to help me before and/or during an event (a trip, meal out, work conference or whatever) to prevent a major anxiety meltdown. I then 'score' them informally on how often I actively trigger this technique when required and how effective it is in helping me get through and even enjoy a situation.  Examples include:

• Planning my time when I'm alone
• Do some people watching in busy places if things feel overwhelming
• Focus on my breathing if things start to become anxious
• Plan out the logistics of events meticulously; maps, literature, materials etc.

Sound daft? Yes probably, but you have no idea how much, especially when combined, these things all help you to get through a situation. There is also a big focus on people - who can you call if things go pear shaped? Who is the first aider at the place you're visiting? Who looks friendly to you (because you're not always with your own friends!) Using people is, of course, a risk when you don't know them, but it is always better to use someone than to use no-one in times of strife, in my experience. I would put my life against this statement.

Then I have another list that is more general to life than to specific events, such as:

• Make a strong effort with my friends
• Try not compare myself with other people, positively or negatively
• Enjoy and take in the feelings of happiness and compassion
• Take criticism well by using it constructively.

This is all about putting a positive or a neutral spin on things; not always easy and probably impossible to get right all of the time. There is a danger that you strive for perfection, of course, which is not helpful either ("love your imperfections" as a multi-national online dating agency says), but this list is about recognising how to feel better and more confident about yourself and with yourself, which is hugely important when you have a mental health condition. Incidentally, I have a heck of a long way to go before my scores are anywhere near where I'd like them to be, especially in the ones more general in life. My strongest points are probably planning and organising things, focusing on my friends and others and work related goals. My weaknesses usually come from the analysis around not being in a relationship, surprise surprise. 

Talking of which, I also have a list that is called 'valued directions' which sets out where I'd like to take my future, including things like:

• I would like to be more tolerant with other people
• I would like to help young people through the job market
• I would like to travel to certain places
• I would like to help in the local community
• I would like to eat well and healthily 

I'm not into all of this "life enrichment, positive thought, you can find yourself" wishy washy bollocks that a lot of people on Twitter seem to be about.  Some of the above may sound like this, but it is not at all; these lists and techniques were brought together through grit and hard work and I'm by no means achieving them all. They are just ideas and concepts to try and model myself against so that I don't spiral back where I was five or more years ago. Having anxiety for nigh on 20 years has made me unable to do a lot of things and this is more about a list of achievements if I can do them. So to provide some annotation around the above list:

• I would like to be more tolerant with other people - I need people around me so that I feel like I'm wanted and in case I do spiral again I have people there who can help. So I don't want to piss people off.
• I would like to help young people through the job market - I know what it was like trying to get a job and work my way through university with anxiety...
• I would like to travel to certain places - I've never been able to go anywhere due to crippling anxiety!
• I would like to help in the local community - this makes me feel good and I also know how important interaction is to the elderly and lonely.
• I would like to eat well and healthily  - being physically healthy is always a good thing for your mental health.

You get the idea. 

As I said earlier, I revisit this Excel based toolbox every couple of months or so, so that I never forget it, and re-score where I need to improve or where I've done well. Overall the scores are glacially going up as I get older and I strive for this to continue. To think where I am now compared to, say, 2011 is just extraordinary and thanks in no small part to these sort of CBT techniques. 

And of course thanks to the therapist who introduced these sorts of practices to me in the first place. To her, I am forever indebted. 

Best wishes,
Al

PS - I go to Ireland for eight days on 8th May; four nights in Dublin, four in Killarney, on my own. This is possibly the biggest self-inflicted challenge I have ever presented myself with. Edinburgh went well in February, but Ireland is on a much greater scale. This trip could, ultimately, make a break the next several years in terms of what I can achieve and my general mental wellbeing. I will report back, but for now, please wish me luck.

PPS - June 15th will be the fifth anniversary of my blog. More to follow...

New challenges

Hi all

My mum has got early onset Alzheimers.

The first me and my dad noticed that something unusual was happening was about a year ago; little things were not right, mainly around her becoming easily confused about things that someone without a condition would not confuse, like not being able to process what time a bus departs a stop. There was then a further decline during November and December, a fairly sudden one, where further confusion occurred along with incidents which really started causing concern.  I think the one incident that particularly affected me was when she sent me a text saying that she didn't know where she was and that she wished she was in her own home.  Of course, she was at home at the time.

Another charity leading the way

We haven't yet got to the stage where she is forgetting people close to her, but I fear that it is only a matter of time.  The latter symptoms of Alzheimers are frightening, frankly, and I hope it takes as long as time allows before we have to see my mum deteriorate to these levels.  At present, she's still the warm and friendly person she always has been, but with added haze and confusion. This horrible condition almost strips out all personality as it gets worse and so I want it to take as long as possible before this happens.  

People always talk about Alzheimers and other dementias are a condition that 'progresses.'  I'm sorry, this is too upbeat a term for me to get on board with.

My dad, of course, has to live with her all of the time.  He sees it day in and day out and has had to suddenly learn how to live with a person who is changing and who cannot undertake many of the tasks she used to do.  I admire how he is handling it so far.  My dad is not without flaws (we agree to disagree sort of knowingly on a lot of issues) and one of the biggest challenges is getting him to plan in advance.  I've been doing a lot of research on Alzheimers since it started to look likely that my mum had that, by reading literature, talking to people who have had experience of family members with the condition and looking at the various charity websites and NHS support pages.  My dad, on the other hand, has not and I'm concerned he is not helping the situation in some ways by, for example, taking every single job out of my mum's hands, even things that she can get wrong and it wouldn't matter, like feeding the garden birds.  I've read that ensuring that people with Alzheimers are made to feel useful is very important. 

That said, my dad is having to watch the woman he has loved for 32 years gradually change into someone unrecognisable and, moreover, watch it everyday. I can't imagine the emotional impact it is likely to be having.

My parents went to the doctors on 19 January and sadly it took until 10 March - last Friday - to get the first appointment with a specialist.  People with experience of this will probably tell me that's normal, but it is frustrating. I am also acutely aware of the situation of our NHS but naturally you feel that your case (or your family's) is the most important of all. But at least progress (I use this term more accurately here) is being made it terms of obtaining support.  The appointment on Friday was a memory test followed by a general discussion; the next stages involve a scan and another appointment with a more senior person.  Then one can look to developing a 'care plan' which involves both the carers and the professionals, which sets out exactly what support my mum will get and in what form.  This is where we need to get to.

One of my many concerns in terms of being the best carer I can be is that there are only two people who can look after my mum during this time. Me and my dad. You might ask, what about wider family? Well, I'm an only child for a start and there are four - yes, count them, four - people on my mum's side of the family.  Two are disabled (one has William's Syndrome and the other was starved of oxygen at birth and needs full time care), one is the full time carer for the latter and hasn't spoken to my mum for ten years (my Aunt) and one is my nan who is 83 and is not in a physical condition to contribute. Plus, they all live 65 miles away. Yes, there are also friends, but I believe that they should only be there for some emotional support in terms of the carer chatting things through with them from time to time. Fortunately both me and my dad have some good friends to lean on, which will still be invaluable.

But aside from that, it's just us. How on earth am I supposed to transform myself into a carer? How do I need to behave? How can I help my mum the most? What should I say? Do? What should I do with my mum when I see her? All questions racing around my head like a F1 circuit. Frequent blog viewers will know that I am not even 30 yet, so I am quite young in experiencing a parent become a victim of this condition. Most people are in their 40s and 50s from what I understand, which makes sense. But my mum is only 67, so she's quite early getting the condition and she had me when she was quite late, i.e. 37, hence why we are where we are. How can I be qualified to do this job?

At the moment, I am spending a few hours every weekend at my parents' house with my mum, so my dad can leave her and know she'll be okay. I usually go for a walk with her, but just me being around seems to help.  I haven't had to dramatically change the way I am with her, although I have been involving her in more things where possible and trying to keep her occupied. But this is doable; I am scared of what will happen when the mid-later stage symptoms start to kick in. Scared of seeing my mum go through her horrible changes. Scared of whether I am going to support her in the right way. Scared of how I might deal with it.

For of course, as is the purpose of maintaining this blog for the past nearly five years, you may have noticed that I grew up with anxiety. I am in so much better a place now, but I know that huge emotional changes could trigger something. Anxiety doesn't leave, it just lurks hidden in a box in a dark corner, waiting for a moment to materialise again. Fortunately, my box has been locked for the past couple of years or so, but it's still there and the key remains in tact and I don't necessarily have full control over when it's reopened. The problem I have is this - the emotional and logistical impact of my mum changing because of Alzheimers is going to change my life. This heightens the risk of anxiety, minimising the likelihood of me being a good carer. Knowing this is a possibility puts more pressure on me in the first place, further maximising the likelihood of this scenario playing out. If I become an anxious mess again, I will not be able to adequately support my mum.  The thoughts of both becoming an anxious mess again and not being able to support my mum frightens me. So the question is, how do I keep it together?

Then, don't forget, there is being strong for my dad, who will still have to bear the brunt of all this and who will need me to help him emotionally and logistically. So it's not just my mum who is at stake here.

This brings me back to the point I made earlier about planning.  Knowing all of the above is, in some ways, helpful.  I am aware of what may happen. Without having had anxiety, I perhaps wouldn't be aware and, therefore, able to prepare. So I have to use this knowledge to my advantage and do whatever I need to do so that I don't become an anxious mess again and, most importantly, so that I can be the best person I can be for my parents. 

One example is ensuring that I still have some time in my life to myself. I am likely to be required to support my mum more and more and if it gets to the point where all I'm doing in my life is working full-time and supporting my mum, this will just increase the likelihood of me becoming anxious. So I am fully prepared that in however many months/years time, I will probably have to drop my working hours.

Ultimately, as selfish as this may sound, I also want to live some of my life in my 30s; I spent most of my teens and 20s suffering from anxiety and being unable to do the things that people in my social bracket generally do during those years (the so-called "best years of your life") so I was hoping that my 30s at least make me able to do more of these things, like my recent trip to Edinburgh and forthcoming trip to Ireland. The implications of forming relationships with all this is obviously a negative one, but this is not important anymore. Fitting my life around what is needed to support my mum is all that matters.

But I still have to look after myself. Otherwise I'm useless and, probably overall, a hindrance. So this next however-many months/years will be a constant battle of learning, adapting and handling stuff. Something that, actually, I have gained many years' experience of thanks to anxiety - so my anxious past may just help me, if I get it right.

Ultimately, though, it is one of those situations where adapting is the only way. I love my mum and I want to do the best for her, whatever it takes. So analysing the 'what ifs' is just getting in the way. 

This is a new challenge in my life and one that I am just grateful I can even consider being able to handle.

Best wishes,
Al