Just one thing before I start.

 The title is not clickbait. However, as I have sat down to type this I have a flutter of anxiety in my stomach. I’m not worried about it. It’s naturally going to be hard to put out into the world your innermost thoughts and feelings. Let alone a lifelong struggle with a mental illness (Wow, that was really hard to type!) Well it’s either that or the 3 coffee’s I have drunk on an empty stomach (I should know better!)…

An educated guess would tell me that if you are here you are struggling right now or have struggled with anxiety in the past.

I wanted to write this post to sit alongside the many others that are (thankfully!) out there nowadays.

As everybody has a different story, I wanted to tell mine. In the hopes that anybody who is or has gone through a similar thing will relate and feel better by reading it.

I don’t really want to write a long rambly post. So I am going to try and break it down.

My Backstory…

The earliest memory of anxiety that I have is from when I was around 5/6 years old~ I was in the car with my parents and as My Dad turned the car into our street I noticed that the man in the car behind us was looking at where we were going. In reality, my Dad could have been driving like a prick or something along those lines. But in my mind, the man was checking out where we were going. And he was going to come to our house that night and kill us all! I remember lying in bed, terrified, that night waiting for the “killer” to bust down our door and murder my family. Mental right?

Obviously, that bought of anxiety stems from my overactive imagination and there’s probably no cure for that. 🙂 

So that was the most extreme childhood memory of anxiety I have. I have a couple of other quite crazy ones. Looking back though, they do all stem from having an overactive imagination #babydramaqueen. As I grew up I remained a worrier but I don’t recall having any major anxiety. I was probably too busy focusing on makeup and boys.

When I was 21 I had my first panic attack. Like before, I remember it very vividly. It was fathers day and I was lying on the settee watching “My Father the Hero” and I also had a terrible hangover (the worst trigger for anxiety, I now know.)

All of a sudden I had an overwhelming sense that I was about to drop dead. I had never experienced such a terrifying feeling in my life. If you have ever had a panic attack you will know the drill. Cold sweats, dizziness, heart racing, breathlessness. Horrendous. And when you have never even heard of a panic attack like I hadn’t at the time, the fear is off the scale.

After that first panic attack, I spiralled into anxiety. My Mum who had experienced anxiety/panic attacks herself when she was younger, was a fantastic support. But even her 24/7 advice and help couldn’t stop what was happening to me.

I would have attacks pretty randomly. In the supermarket, in the street, at work and I felt like I had no warning when they were coming. Looking back I can pinpoint why and how each one came about. I can even laugh at a lot of them.

I know it’s no laughing matter on the grand scale!! But listen to this corker….

I was going on holiday with my ex-partner and our son. On the way to the airport, I was sat in the back of the car (why am I always anxious in the back of a car??) when I felt a very small pain in my leg. “Overactive Annie” here thinks she has a blood clot and that she can’t go on holiday because the flight will kill her.

On arrival at Manchester airport, I announced to my then partner that our fortnight in Greece was not going to happen, I couldn’t go, I had a blood clot, therefore, I would die on the plane!!

After I was talked approx 25% down from the ledge, I decided that the only way I could fly would be if I had a support stocking (for my “clot”) so I purchased one from Boots, adorned my right leg with its glamorous new accessory, and was ready to go.

Or so I thought. Upon take off, my stomach duly flipped and my anxious mind took that to mean that part of “the clot” had dislodged and was travelling to my lung.

Long story short, I spent the remainder of the flight (where 75% of the passengers were guests at our hotel for the next 2 weeks) at the front of the plane breathing into a paper bag. I then asked the air hostess if she could find out whether there was a doctor on board the flight. (Which she did, over the tannoy!) “Luckily” there was a doctor, who checked my leg out and assured me that I did not have a blood clot. The end. Sort of…I panicked about everything on that holiday and spent half of it on the phone to my Mum and ex-Mother-in-law.

That holiday was, weirdly, also one of the best I’ve ever had~ So fuck you anxiety!

So my non-rambly post isn’t really working out. I’m going to try and cut to the chase now.

Over the 11 years that I have suffered,  I have seen 3 private therapists, also a hypnotherapist, and I have been prescribed all kinds of medication, only some of which I have taken (I now take nothing.) In their own way, they, plus hearing friends and family’s stories, as well as being able to access other’s experiences online (now that the stigma thankfully seems to be reducing more and more) have all helped me out. I suppose it’s like anything in life, the more experience you have of something, the better you are at dealing with it.

So to get back to the point, the title of this post and the reason 99 percent of you have scrolled past my ridiculous stories.

About 4-5 months ago anxiety started creeping back up on me again. So I went to the doctor and was referred for counselling on the NHS.

I think a lot of overcoming anxiety through therapy is the connection you have with your therapist. As I mentioned above I also had some private treatment (which did help) but looking back I don’t feel that those therapists “got me.” The therapist I saw recently did! She didn’t delve into my past and blame my (perfectly normal, happy) childhood for my “problems.” She just let me talk. And she listened, and most importantly, I felt she really understood what I was saying at all times. I actually think she understood me better than I understood myself.

After only 4 sessions with her, I can honestly say I have never felt better and more in control of my life. Before, I was beating myself up on a daily basis about every tiny detail of my day to day life. I was never (fortunately) suicidal but I had a constant narrative in my head telling me how useless I was at everything I did. If I spoke in a group that voice was there telling me to shut up and that no one cared what I had to say. Facing each day was my biggest chore! I can’t believe that I lived like that for such a long time.

The 3 simple techniques that I firmly believe put an end to that are…

1.”The parrot.”

My therapist told me that as soon as I heard that berating voice, I should imagine that it was a parrot in a cage, and to simply throw a towel over its cage to shut it up.

This sounds incredibly simple and it is! I believe its simplicity is what makes it great. And for me, it was powerfully effective immediately. If you have the same irritating problem of beating yourself up over everything then please try this technique. It quickly becomes second nature. Amazing!!

2.”The Department Store.”

 This is another technique involving using the imagination and envisioning yourself in a multi-level dept store. Imagine you have visited the ground level previously and every time that you return to the store you head straight for that same level. You look around but you have obviously seen everything and it’s all boring. Why wouldn’t you go up and explore the other levels? I’m not sure I’m explaining this one too well. I hope you get what I mean.

The point is that there is no sense repeating the same thing over and expecting a different result (Einstein knew!)

Like I said before, she definitely got me, she had my love of shopping sussed!! I just imagine that the “ground floor” is full of crappy clearance makeup. And the “top floor” is floor to ceiling Tom Ford (with 75% off!)

3.”Do what makes you happy.”

This is a phrase that is thrown around a lot (Alfie Deyes anyone? I know I’m 32!! 🙈)

But sometimes doing what makes you happy doesn’t come easy. For me, doing what made me happy, in my mind, also made me selfish. It is not selfish to be happy!! You have every right!! And everyone around you will benefit from you being a happy person who enjoys their life. So quite the opposite of selfish. Go and do something for yourself today. And keep doing it.

So that’s it. It’s been around 2-3 months since I stopped seeing my therapist now. She has assured me that I can go and see her if ever I need to. Which is very comforting! She also told me that she believes I won’t have to, which is even better. I believe that too. But who know’s? For now, I feel fantastic! And I am very grateful for the NHS!

I really hope above all that this post will help anybody that is having a hard time with anxiety or low self-esteem. And that it can put a light at the end of the tunnel.

Please feel free to comment your own experiences/tips in the comments!