Living my best life, with anxiety
According to mental health charity MIND, one in six people in England report experiencing ‘common mental health problems’ every week, with one in four people experiencing mental health problems each year. Anxiety falls into the common mental health problem box, and I feel fairly confident in saying that number is vastly under-inflated. Perhaps the word ‘anxiety’ is thrown around too flippantly, perhaps more people are indeed feeling more anxious in these uncertain times, or perhaps, *drumroll*, people are talking about mental health problems more; ‘common’ or not. We can live to dream.
Personally I have suffered with anxiety my whole life, and on talking more openly about it I have learnt that most of my family have also felt moments of panic or underlying anxiety. It wasn’t until a few (honestly very scary) events happened simultaneously in my life that I began to feel that the rate of escalation in my anxiety and panic attacks was out of control and lead me to seek help in the form of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). It was roughly three years ago that I was diagnosed with Panic Disorder and as diagnosis go, things could be worse, but by definition from Anxiety UK panic disorder is classified as such when panic attacks are experienced out of the blue and without an apparent trigger. So, not ideal.
It had got to a point in my life where I was running at a level of fight or flight adrenaline that was coursing through my veins at a disproportionate rate to my surroundings but it meant that any moment something that was a 3/10 scary became a 8/10 scary because I was walking through my life at a constant 5/10. The real clincher being that I wasn’t a total ball of nerves from the outside, in fact most people had no idea. It was pretty exhausting I can tell you. Now I have learnt coping mechanisms that make my day-to-day a lot easier to roll on by I can look back and feel proud of myself for achieving all that I have achieved all the while riding a wave of uncertainty, desperately trying to suppress the feelings of impending doom and almost certain death when getting the tube, sitting in a board room, going down flights of stairs, carrying hot tea, crossing roads and my personal favourite printing. Why printing was so terrifying to me I will never know and calls for much more therapy I’m sure.
I did it though. I qualified as a Chartered Surveyor, I got to work every day by tube (with the occasional subterranean freak-out and emergency tearful Uber), I walked up and down stairs, carried tea like a champ and printed like a pro; even in A3. I met my now fiancé at work and while a cliché actually turned out to be most useful during this time as he helped talk me off a ledge more than once (obviously that’s a metaphor, ledges are very scary). When it came to telling my then boss about what was going on there was a level of sympathy and there were people I could talk to- HR, really? But when it was time for my weekly CBT session I still lied about where I was going and made a false PRIVATE APPOINTMENT in my diary. The truth being that you don’t want to appear broken or less-able to the people at work you are frantically trying to prove to that you are what a corporate world measures as a ‘success’.
As you may be able to tell I have learnt to see the funny side in all that has happened and in actual fact talking openly about panic disorder does make for some amusing anecdotes. A coping mechanism I learnt to use when I genuinely feel panicky is to tell someone that is the case. Casually dropping into conversation while the Central line train pulls into the platform at Bond Street station ‘Ah, I hate the tube, I get panic attacks you know?’, while making me feel slightly better, the flicker of subtle alarm and caution in their eyes is always awkward. Not as awkward as if I’m chugging rescue remedy and shaking like a leaf trying to breathe, mind.
We are all flawed, we all have something. The working world is a harsh place that you enter into very young and you move and learn and grow every day. With work comes an element of competition which is manifested from the measures of success built into ‘the ladder’. Ultimately human nature is to think of oneself first in this scenario and I’m afraid little old you won’t be in the forefront of someone’s mind for very long throughout the day. For me it was surrounding myself with two really solid confidants who I felt did have my back at all times if I needed a rant or a cuddle- we all do at some point lets get real. Being open about mental health issues, however big or small, is not something to shy away from. Health is more important than ever right now and like the trusty iceberg analogy its not just what is on the surface for the world to see but what is lurking underneath. Oatly or Almond milk? Psycle or Barry’s? G&T or Vodka, soda, lime? Anxiety or low self-esteem? Talk about it.
