For the past week or so I’ve been having a lot of problems with anxiety (as you can see from my lack of posts). I’ve always been a worrier, over thinking situations I guess so I can feel prepared for any outcome. However recently a number of things have happened with uni work piling up and ‘friends’ showing their true colours which just pushed me over the edge. I broke down. About everything and nothing at the same time. I didn’t know why I was so upset, but I felt like I was sinking into the ground for no reason at all. I was terrified with no monster I could pinpoint that I was afraid of. I didn’t want to leave my bedroom to go to the toilet/get a drink/make dinner let alone even think about leaving the house. I guess I didn’t want people to ask me what was wrong when I didn’t really know the reason myself.
Luckily my boyfriend is the most understanding and calm person I’ve ever met. He let me attempt to explain how I felt without pressurising me into giving a specific reason, understanding even though he’d never felt like that before. We ended up talking for over an hour, him calming me down and finding solutions to some of the ‘problems’ that could have caused my breakdown. A couple of hours later I felt miraculously better, even going downstairs and socialising with my housemates (which was a big step as I’d avoided them as much as possible for the past few days).
That evening I spoke to my mum about what had happened and she did what any mum would do and told me she wanted me to come home so she could look after me. I explained how much better I felt and she just told me to take it easy the next couple days. The next evening my dad rang to see how I was and all the previous day’s feelings came rushing back to smack me in the face. This time though as my dad has also been through this, it didnt seem as bad. He explained how he felt when it had happened to him and it matched how I felt. Again, he calmed me down but I still felt low. I textedy boyfriend and he immediately came over with crisps, dip, sausage rolls and cake as he knew I didn’t want to make dinner because that would mean seeing people. This was the point in time I realised something was probably wrong. My anxiety was affecting my sleep as well as my day to day life and then being tired caused me to be emotional and anxious which then affected my sleep. I was in a vicious cycle and didn’t know how to get out.
The following day I forced myself out the house to go have lunch in town with my boyfriend. I felt great, like I was back to the old me again. My mum also came to visit that day for the evening and we had a lovely time bowling and eating out for dinner.
Once she had left, the next day I felt like a new person. I decided then that what had happened before must have been because I was homesick. As soon as I had spent some time with my mum I felt completely better so I was all set to go to an archery competition that weekend.
We were travelling up to Birmingham Friday night, staying in a hotel (I asked for my own room just in case I got upset again), doing the competition on the Saturday and travelling back on the Sunday. All was fine until that Friday night. I got into bed at 11 as we had arrived very late and then I started to worry. This time it was the competition that caused it but I started worrying about stupid things like the noises in my room were making me panic. So even though it was 3 in the morning, I rang my boyfriend and he eventually calmed me down a bit. It was enough to get me to go to sleep but I woke up so many times that night I couldn’t have gotten more than about three hours sleep.
The following morning I felt sick due to this lack of sleep, but I still managed to complete the competition with a good score and so was happy. My dad had previously said that he would pick me up at any time if I felt anxious again so I asked him to come get me so I didn’t have to sleep in that horrible room again. I eventually got home around half 12 that night and stayed by myself in my room. Despite having a very bad cough I managed to sleep until half 11 this morning, and only woke up once in the night! This brings us to right now. I hadn’t slept that well in around two weeks and I’m planning on booking a doctors appointment for next week just to check there isn’t anything physically wrong.
There are a few morals to this story, especially if you ever feel like this in the future.
1. Do not be afraid to tell people you think you are anxious/depressed. The people who love you will not judge you and will help you in any and every way they can.
2. Do not be afraid to ask for help. Whether that means asking someone to come give you a hug or even make you food, do it.
3. Book a doctors appointment in case something is physically wrong.
4. Plan at least one thing a week to do that makes you happy. It could be eating out, having a movie night in with friends, going and buying a book, whatever you like! That way you have something to look forward to every week.
5. Do not think for a second that you are alone. So many people today have been through things like this or are currently. Do not think it is just you, it is so much more common than you think
That’s everything I believe. Apologies for this essay of a post but if this can help anyone or even just put someone’s mind at ease, then I will be over the moon.
H x
student-baker-candlestickmaker 