My personal experience and view (long)

Here's a little (long) story about anxiety.

I was never and anxious child. I was confident and happy go lucky upto being about 20. Then the fun started. One day I was worried about something, something not really worth worrying about, but I just didn't 'feel right'. Then later that night I woke in the middle of sleep. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't stay in the room. My heart was beating so fast I thought it was going to explode. I had to get out of the room. I ran to the bathroom in a blind panic, my mind was racing, I splashed my face with water. Within minutes I felt better but I was still shocked and shaking at what had happened. Id just had a heart attack??

No. I didn't. Though unbeknown to me at the time, id had my first panic attack. In the weeks/days after I was on edge. Constantly assessing myself for various signs and symptoms, obsessing over my heart and my health. Any ache or pain became a huge thing. My second home was the doctors. In the past two year since I've been though CBT twice, the first time it helped, I was back to my old self which was great. But it faded and I was back to square one. I one again was in the cycle of aching shoulders, arm pain, jaw pain, sore back and sore everything. Then the reflux started. I became breathless all of the time, I had a constant (and I mean constant) pain in the centre of my chest like something was stuck there. Medication helped but during high anxiety, nothing helped. The strangest things made me go off into a week of anxiety. An advert about heart attack on tv, aimed at me I thought. It's silly, but it's real to people like me in this state of mind. The anxiety developed and with it so did symptoms and thoughts. Overthinking everything. I've been rushed to a&e three times and found nothing yet I STILL Didn't believe my heart was fine. I think the longest time between my doctors appointments in the past two years has been about 3 weeks. Another thing is weight gain, Ive put 5 stone on in two years due to not moving through fear of my heart stopping. The thing is, with this, it can happen to anyone. People laugh. Tell me I'm over dramatic. Tell me to stop thinking about it (winds me up so so much) but they don't understand and that's ok. But it's hard thinking you're gravely sick, and nobodys listening. My whole outlook on life has changed. It affected my personal life, my relationships with people. My whole life. The point I'm trying to get across is that my view on mental health has changed and a lot of people need to look deeper into things like this. My reason for change is because it's got me. Its got me so good I didn't even know what it was. Mental health creeps up on you and takes over without you even knowing it's happening. And people who talk about mental health (hypochondria in my

Case) can't even begin to fathom what's going through people minds. The only thing we need is support, Help to know people care, help to understand what exactly is going on. We don't want to sit and read leaflets, we need people who know what to do. The scariest thing about anxiety (for me) is not understanding it. Not knowing why you feel the way you do, not knowing if today will be the day you finally go crazy. Hopefully people (myself included) will break free of this. But one thing I've learned so far. Your mind is SO powerful. There's no limit to how much it can terrify you. But, it's not real. None of it. It's anxiety. It's a thought pattern. And it CAN be reversed. It might take years. But you will win. Don't give up. Don't let it get the Better of you. Cliche but, it's ok not to be ok sometimes, and it's ALWAYS ok to ask for help. We'll only move forward together. I hope people reading this will think next time they make comment and people going through this will know they're not alone. Help is available. Just keep nagging. You'll find something that works for you eventually, it's all trial and error! Keep smiling!!

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Hello Mrheap

Glad you came and had a look on here , I did a post and no one has answered my call on here if there was anyone about but maybe if just a few start talking it could encourage others to

Somehow and I think it was because of your user name been a Mr , I thought you were a lot older than what you seem to come across in your posts but reading your post ( and I was never any good at maths ) am I right in thinking you are about 22 or 23 ?

Not that it really matters as anxiety takes prisoners of any age unfortunately even though now if you are younger there is more support out there than there was years ago and it is always the best plan if you think you have any kind of mental health problem to go and see your Doctor and get the help that is out there as the sooner you catch it the better

It is good to have people that will listen , people that do not suffer with anxiety sometimes will listen but I think it is very hard for them to understand as this is something that you cannot physically see but only the person that has had anxiety or suffering with anxiety can feel how it can affect your everyday life , in these Communities though that is where we can all relate as we have either suffered or going through what can feel like the torment of anxiety

I think though some not all anxiety sufferers want to talk because we want reassuring and it works but only to a certain degree because there is never someone there 24/7 and we cannot expect someone to be there 24/7 to listen to us so what we have to do especially if we are having some kind of therapy is take the advise we are given and work on it and if we get stuck ask for some support and reminders what we need to do and along with that it really helps if people give us some praise for trying as we have no self confidence and every bit or encouragement and praise we get helps to build that back up as well as helps us keep trying to over come our anxiety issues till finally we get to a better place

I think most can look back and see there was a trigger point when our anxiety started , why it did we can try and look for the answer but may never find it so I think accepting it and stopping questioning it can be the way to go

Small steps however small they may be will get you eventually anxiety free and I am sure you will get there , take all the support you can get as well as the advise you are given and life will become better

Take Care x