Give me a … massive anxiety attack 📣
It has been a while since I last sat down to write a wee mental health blog, but as with so many things sometimes you lose yourself in the business of life. Writing is actually one of my biggest saviours in my life as it helps me release what is stuck in my head, just all muddled up. In addition, it is how I get out my creative energies - as someone who is not a musician, singer, poet or artist I find I get my release by putting pen to paper - and yes, I still do my first draft old school 90% of the time.
But today I sit here writing from my laptop, in the back of Trash Vanda #1 overlooking the beautiful surroundings of the small village of Killin, realising this past week has been a mental hell to survive and yet here I am. Somedays dragged through but I am… tired, emotionally fragile but here with a genuine smile on my face.
This week has been a real challenge as the title might suggest but there is a reason why I struggled so much. You see, I have depression, but she is now like an old friend, ok friend isn’t the right word but for nearly two decades we have got to know each other intimately well. I know her signs when she starts to appear, I know her signals when she wants to take control but most importantly, I know the steps I have to take to ensure she only makes a brief visit. It will change as time goes on but as it stands me and her have a pretty good working relationship.
Yet when you enter from stage left, this newish attribute of anxiety - well that's a very different story. I never really got the anxiety thing, I had friends around me who were crippled by it but for some reason my brain just never got that. I never fretted over the past, or worried about the future… I just kind of had this wonderful magical bubble that kept me safe from it. That is until recent years when I reached a point in my 30’s and that bubble just popped. Maybe it was taking on a business (or two) or maybe it was just getting older and life not being as straightforward as I’d hoped. Whatever it was, it brought me to an anxious reality very fucking quickly.
It had been mild, well that is until last Friday. Last Friday when I woke up I thought I was just ill, a cold or lurgy taking its toll on my body. But something felt worse than your average, something was wrapped around my chest and squeezing tighter and tighter. Something was restricting the already limited oxygen from my congested body. Something was making me feel like I was going to pass out and my mind was telling me if I did I was never waking up. I took the day off and assumed over the weekend I’d drug up and it would pass.
As my weekend was quiet with Adrian being away touring I took the time to rest and being new to this, I naively thought job done, but Monday morning I woke up in a cold sweat, the oxygen thinning around me and feeling like a weight was holding me down. The lurgy had gotten worse so I was sleep deprived, coughing and spluttering but it wasn’t that that was doing this. I knew at that moment this was something else and as it turns out it was the worst anxiety attack I have had, and the fourth attack ever in less than a week. I will stress I put my first attack down to a decaf coffee being fully caffeinated (have been aff it for a couple months now) but in retrospect - probably was just the kick start to something already building.
I have never felt so lost in my life as I have this past week and I have had to spend long hours facing up to some big things that are causing this. As much as I love what I do, I also wasn’t mentally or physically capable of supporting people. I was worn out, potentially that dreaded burn out. I am lucky in that Adrian understands what I need in these times so I benefited from feeling safe and secure at home while I rested, tried to get rid of the lurgy and work through these mental blocks.
What causes it? Well it’s different for each person but I have found my anxiety now lies in what is to come in our future. There’s a lot to list, some small, some big and I think one day soon I might enlighten you on some of it. But from trying to start a family to trying to predict how much money vans and cars will cost us “IF” something goes wrong - the unknowns, the challenges, the things that go wrong and even those that go right all seem to have weighed me down and I snapped.
I sit here in this van, surrounded by the beautiful hills in a village that makes me even more determined to fulfil my dream and buy a highland home to escape to. I sit here happy, knowing despite being sleep deprived and covered in bruises from moving sound and light equipment, I am where I am meant to be. I sit here happy because today, unlike last Friday, I have addressed a huge list of things that began weighing on me a long time ago. I sit here happy, because I took time to look after my mental and physical health.
I’d love to say that, that’s a wrap on anxiety and tie up the blog nicely, but like depression I know she is probably going to become a visitor. I am unsure how frequent yet, but I know the work I need to do and I will with counselling and just by having open and honest conversations about how I feel.
On paper this may sound like I am a bit of a mess of a human being, and who am I to argue with logic. But the reality is I tell you all this not just for me, to have that release from my mind but to help make these honest and frank discussions around mental health normal. I’m not going to film myself crying for the ‘gram… but I will sit here and tell you how the bad can happen but when you take the right steps you can find the good again.
If you want to talk about your own journey that you are struggling with or even share it here, please get in touch! Let’s not stop the conversations here. Just drop us an email at info@trashpandahq.com
