The Bad comes with the Good

I feel like I should write what it’s like when my Anxiety is bad. I’ve suffered Anxiety badly for the last year and a half and I wouldn’t feel I was filling in all the gaps honestly if I didn’t share how I feel when it gets bad, rather than just the distanced, slightly one-sided view that I have up to this point. It’s not realistic to only write joyful peace filled posts. It’s not like that all the time, that’s the truth of it. And that’s just life, it’s OK.

So the last two weeks I have crashed, reeeeeally crashed. I could feel stress creeping in during the first week, but I pushed it away and pushed it away, kept ignoring it. I became detached very slowly and started to notice I was feeling dreamy but again I thought ‘Nah this isn’t happening to me again’ and ignored it. Then a week of late nights, social things most evenings, one or two glasses of alcohol, no exercise, some stressful family events and the balance was just tipped. THWACK. I fell into a bit of a frenzy by the end of the week and my mind was churning up every possible thing it could. It feels like you’re back to ‘Square One’ whatever that is and for me I feel like a total failure, like I am doing something wrong, I feel inferior, all those things. The worst bit is that I know those thoughts make me feel worse but there’s nothing I can do about that either. It just happens.

My appetite dropped and I had to go back to the basics of pasta, tomato sauce, nuts, crisps, anything that can allow me to graze without overwhelming my taste buds / stomach. I tend to get lightheaded and dizzy, my focus goes, I can’t see straight and looking at a computer exacerbates it, but I have to go to work, being at home generally doesn’t help as I feel overcome with guilt at missing work. Hmmm, what else? I wake up in a frenzy and sometimes in the middle of the night I get up and wander round the house like a moron checking the front door and the oven. I overthink things, like, REALLY overthink things. I get REALLY sensitive to what people say, I snapped at my Mum about a dinner venue during the weekend which should have been a huge sign that something was wrong because there was no need for that at all. Then I got a sore throat and blocked nose which also often happens when I’m low, this adds to the fuzziness in my head, which adds to the negative thoughts…I get BEYOND exhausted. I get restless. I make silly mistakes. I blush a lot in social situations. I get obsessive over my phone, checking it for nothing. I feel like everyone is against me.

Gosh the list goes on.

I think everyone has different ways of dealing with this, but for me Anxiety is a reaction I experience when I push myself too far in some way, try to over control life, force things, set expectations. Some people get a rash, some people get headaches, I get Anxiety. It’s just what happens. So all of the above sounds bad, but in fact I’ve realised that the reason it comes back so strong each time, is because I try to deny it in some way, try to say that I am on some kind of recovery schedule where one day it will be ‘cured’. I don’t agree. I think Anxiety is something that will always happen to me when I’m under stress, when I push myself too hard, whether mentally or physically.

It’s just who I am. And that’s OK 🙂

I feel if I am going to share my Anxiety journey then it is only fair to share the WHOLE journey honestly. This is today. Tomorrow will be tomorrow and everything could be different. The day after that will be different again, but that’s how life goes.

Never beat yourself up, or let your ego dictate how you should feel. The potential to admit vulnerability is one of the greatest gifts you possess.