Tuesday 19 August 2014

Anxiety.

This post has been a long time coming. I feel I can't write a blog about my life for almost five years and miss out a huge part of it. Granted it's only something I've suffered from for about a year, but it's still a huge part of my life nonetheless. I don't hugely know what's making me write this post, or even if I'll ever publish it. But I'm kind of hoping it will reach out to a couple of people, or even one person and help them see that they're not alone. 
I might babble, I've only spoken about this a few times in my life, only a handful of people know. It's difficult to explain, but alas, here goes.

I suffer from Generalised Anxiety Disorder

I have now for around 2 years, it's gradually gotten worse. 

The google definition: "Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a neurological anxiety disorder that is characterized by excessive, uncontrollable and often irrational worry."

Of course there are so many different types of anxiety, and so many people suffer from it. I'm completely aware of that, but my type of anxiety in particular isn't so common in the UK.

I moved to London just under 3 years ago, that's kind of when it all began. I've always been a worrier, but I found myself worrying much more than normal, over stupid things! If I got a headache I would convince myself that it was a brain tumour, if my boyfriend would take longer than normal going to the shop I would panic incase he had been ran over. Stupid and irrational thoughts would go through my head more often than not and I knew it wasn't normal.

I told Chris (my boyfriend) about it in March last year, at this point I had no idea about anxiety, I just told him I was having thoughts and it wasn't normal for me to constantly think like this. 

It remained the same for a while, I found myself touching wood constantly due to crazy thoughts popping into my head. In August my sister was randomly attacked. She was stabbed by a complete stranger in broad daylight, she survived but that incident put me on edge a lot more. I became more scared of going outside, weary of people. I found myself constantly looking behind me when walking down the street, if somebody would get to close to me on the pavement I would panic.

I eventually did my research. The first thing that came up was Generalised Anxiety Disorder. the more I read the more I could relate. 

In December a family problem (which I don't feel comfortable talking about on here), made everything worse. I had to move away from the area I was living in, I was even more on edge, my head was all over the place. I was scared of people. I moved across London to a safer area and pretty much got cabs everywhere. Things have gotten a lot worse since. 

This year my anxiety is at it's all time worst. I'm scared of going outside a lot of the time, I have to take taxis at night, I get restless, certain people can trigger it even more as well as being in different situations. These days its a huge deal for me to go out on my own. I don't know what has made it worse lately as ultimately I'm in a much safer area surrounded in people I know, but I'm still constantly thinking of irrational thoughts and worrying about everything. 

I can't turn it off.

It is constantly in my head.

One of the worst things about it is that people don't understand. The people that don't know, don't understand the extent of it. Then the people that don't know can sometimes perceive it to be rudeness or moodiness. 
I can sometimes be feeling anxious in an area or around certain people and I don't know how to tell people that aren't aware of my anxiety that I want to leave. 

Its difficult to explain and I don't think I'll ever be able to fully.
I've researched it plenty.
I know that the next step is to speak to a doctor. Which sounds easy, but I've always been scared of doctors. Ironic no?
I'm hoping to one day overcome this, but for now, it is what it is. 

I hope if you are going through this or anything similar, that you can be much braver than me and seek help. Or if not message me, it would be amazing to speak to somebody who could actually relate. You can find my personal email in one of the links on my page. 

If you got this far, thank you for reading.
If I make any progress I may make a follow up post.
Until then, we shall see.


2 comments:

  1. This must of been really difficult to write i know i never could, it gives the rest of us hope. Thank you. <3

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