BACKGROUND ON MY MENTAL HEALTH

Hello all! 

As some of you may already know, I have had anxiety for almost 7 years now. Despite starting almost a decade ago, I can remember very vividly why and when my first panic attack was. On the 15^th August 2011, my family and I moved to a new house. Moving house is stressful at the best of times, but the fact that my sisters and I could not help (because we were so young), made the move all the more difficult for our parents. 

The tense atmosphere adding onto the new and unfamiliar environment made me feel very uncomfortable, and as such resulted in a panic attack lasting about 7 hours. I had never experienced a panic attack before. I felt dizzy. I felt sick. I felt frightened. It was horrible, and they continued daily for the next month. Of course, as time went on I knew how to handle them, and they became less scary, but they have always been something I dread, and I am very lucky to not have had one in over a year and a half.

I began to realise that my panic attacks were triggered by my worry about other people, in particular, my family. If there was ever a time when someone in my family was ill, I found myself fixated on the idea that nothing would be okay until they were okay. It wasn’t long before my anxiety turned into extreme paranoia. My paranoia honestly drove me insane. There were often times when one of my sisters would be late coming home from school, and instead of just realising that they were in traffic or another perfectly reasonable explanation, my mind would automatically jump to the worst possible conclusions as to why they were not home. I still have extreme paranoia today, but I am much better at controlling it, ignoring it and beating it. I have my own methods that I use to distract myself from my own thoughts and they have proved successful thus far!

However, I used to be useless at calming myself down. All I would do was frantically pace in my room, refuse to eat or sleep, and be a very unpleasant person to converse with. The paranoia would lead to panic attacks which would leave me physically and mentally drained. It was a never-ending cycle of feeling demotivated and distressed. 

Since talking to friends, family, doctors and counsellors, my mental health has improved immensely. In the first few years of my anxiety, I ignored the advice to talk to people about it. I honestly couldn’t stress enough how much talking to people has helped me. I would not be as strong or as confident as I am without opening up about the problems I have had with my mental health. This is also now one of the reasons why I am so open about my mental health– you never know who you could be helping!

I’m just going to sign off this post by thanking anyone who has ever helped me begin to overcome my anxiety. I know if I ever fall into a dark place, I have a huge number of people to turn to who have helped me time and time again. I love you all! 

B x