My Anxiety Story - Two Years Later
Or did it really go away? But now… It’s hit me like a tidal wave.
Two years ago I opened up about my life so far, suffering with anxiety – everything from how it built, to the diagnosis, to how it made me feel. Then I wrote a second post, one year on, I thought I had come out of the other side but maybe I hadn’t. I hadn’t learnt to cope, I’d learnt to avoid.
So, two years on. How much has changed? I will lay it out the same, include a similar photo 2 years on, write it off the top of my head, not go back and edit anything.
Exactly how I have the past two years.
A kind of response, I never expected to write but I am. As life isn’t always as rosy as it looks on social media.
‘I fell apart and no one even noticed.’
2018 was the best year of my life, so who would of thought 2019 would have spiralled out of control so quickly and so suddenly. I’d advise reading the previous post HERE so you get some slight background. January lasted forever and every day felt like Groundhog Day. The same things to do, the same repetitive thoughts and overthinking became something I couldn’t stop doing.
So what happened after that blog post?
I’m not going into the exact details of the events that happened but they knocked every ounce of confidence out of me that I had gained over the last 12 months. I felt a shell of myself. I couldn’t even create a proper conversation with anyone as I was consumed with thoughts, everything was a negative. However, it had been so long since I had felt like this I’d forgot what it was like. So every time I started to shake, feel like the world was passing me without me really being there and I felt ill with no reason at all. It all felt familiar but I refused to admit my anxiety had come back.
The hardest part of it all was I had no one to turn to, I felt like no one cared and everyone seemed all too busy to talk to me when I needed it most. I now know that it was because I never bought it up. How were they supposed to know that every night I had tears in my eyes, that through the smile I was breathing ever so deep to stop my body going into sheer panic.
There was a moment I realised it had come back. I was sitting in the car with a friend, the radio was on and we were just having a general chit chat then out of nowhere. Tears rolled down my face. I’m not sure whether it even got noticed as it was dark and I just carried on the conversation but everything I had been holding in and everything that happened all seemed to just become an enormous wave of emotion. When I got back home I felt terrible. It was also the moment that I decided to turn things around.
Instead of having no motivation, spending my days thinking about things that might not even matter in a years’ time. I made a list. Everything I needed to do. Everything I wanted to do and I worked through that. My days had a purpose again, other than the normal routine and this helped a lot.
I still don’t feel 100% and I don’t want people to suddenly pity me. The whole reason I decided to write this is because I also sat back and looked at my social media. I was portraying a perfect life. I looked as if I had everything I could possibly want, I was still having amazing experiences. When I wasn’t. I had cherry picked the best parts and how is that going to help anyone struggling because surely they will feel like they are the only ones struggling when other people are too.
People can have the world and still be struggling – and that’s important to remember.
♥︎
Comments
Post a Comment