Faye’s worry blog 08.09.19
Hi,
My name is Faye - I am new here so just a little intro, I am 29 years old. I am a wife and mother to two beautiful children, who are 6 and 1. I have recently been told I have GAD (Generalised Anxiety Disorder) and over the past few months it has taken over my life. I have always been one to dwell on things, from a young age but since becoming a mother I worry excessively over ridiculous future situations that are very very unlikely to happen (although I could s*** myself in public that can’t be ruled out) I have decided this morning to start a blog, I don’t even know where to start with where I will post this blog, or who will read it if people can actually be a**** to listen to my droning on, but I just thought it would really help me to get my feelings out in writing, and maybe there are many people out there who are in the same boat as me? I think talking is the best medication, although I am on that too, alongside running and meditation I am hoping that after my CBT is finished in 8 weeks I will be a lot less anxious and back to being a crazy, loving life mofo I used to be. I was voted the funniest girl in my school back in 2006 when I left, and I often hold on to that thought that my sense of humour, along with my beautiful family should be able to get me through this.
Today is Sunday and I am sat in the living room of my new house. We have only lived here 6 weeks, but it is slowly and surely becoming a home. We spent so many tireless hours fighting to get this house, in fact I think the stress of it all was what tipped me over the edge, the seller was so difficult and since moving in we have hit many bumps along the road however we have managed to ride them together and we are slowly starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. Michael (my husband) has been working a lot recently, doing 12 hour shifts 7-7 and this has really impacted my stress and worrying. I have felt like there is so much to deal with that I can’t deal with it. And on Friday I had numerous ups and downs throughout the day, one of them thoughts was I can’t deal with this, it would just be easier to not be here than deal with this worrying and stress? But what could I possibly gain from that thought? The negative thoughts that annoyingly just pop into our brain at any moment and the worry cycle starts where we can’t stop thinking about what we have thought. This isn’t the first time I have had this thought recently though and I seem to have become obsessed with it. Why did I think that? Should I be here? Then the overwhelming guilt I feel for even thinking that. I am absolutely the luckiest woman in the world we live in our dream house, with two beautiful happy healthy children and I have a husband who would walk the earth for us. I have parents, who are happily married after 40 years of being together (it’s sickening how loved up they are still after all that time.) I have a 32 year old brother who is married to a lovely woman and I have some really great friends who all love and care for me and I love and care for them so much too. But it doesn’t matter what or who you have, it’s just sometimes a bit of a s*** patch in our lives.
This anxiety has probably always been within me as we are all human and it is a human emotion to have, however last year I had a routine smear test and received a letter 3 weeks later to say that I had high risk pre-cancerous cells. The worry and anxiety rushed through me instantly I phoned Michael to tell him and broke down. My first thought was ‘what will the kids do without me?? I am their world!’ I can’t even take a piss without one of them stood in the bathroom (mam life) and so the whole worry just boosted out of proportion. I guess that was the main trigger to why I ended up so panicky and anxious every single day. I remember it was sports day in June 2019 and I went to the doctors from work, and told him how I was feeling. He prescribed me 50mg sertraline, I had been on these devil tablets before and knew exactly how they would make me feel for a few weeks if I started taking them. But it was getting to a point where I wouldn’t drive anywhere without having a panic attack, or be able to stand in a que in a shop for fearing my anxiety would make me be physically sick in front of the public and how embarrassing would that be??? It had taken over and I knew I had to do something about it. I self-referred myself to a company called Insight healthcare and after an initial assessment the wonderfully lovely lady on the phone told me she thinks I have GAD. However the waiting list was 12 weeks for CBT, so I knew I had to start the tablets. The first 2/3 weeks were hell, I had to put a sick note in to work and be off just to deal with side effects of never being off the toilet, dry mouth, dizziness, headaches, and my mind continually racing. But I did start to settle around 4/5 weeks and went back to work, but that anxious feeling has never really left me.
So how did I get from worrying about what was going to happen to my kids if I crashed the car? Or the pre-cancerous cells had grown into cervical cancer and I was going to die, to thinking it would be easier to just not be here??? How backwards!!
My sister in law is currently battling depression, and yesterday we had a good chat. When I last seen her she was very very low, and I thought being around her wasn’t a good idea for me as it made me feel so much worse, but after seeing her yesterday she had picked up so much and seemed 95% back to her normal self. This gave me so much hope that I can do this. I think the sertraline have taken the panicky edge off for me, but I do think they’ve made me depressed or maybe the anxiety and panic attacks were masking the depression? I really don’t understand mental health I think it is something that should be taught in schools, how to deal with your thoughts as we all have thousands of thoughts a day. And the fact that worrying is a human emotion/feeling that every single one of us has to deal with.
Kids, drive me insane but keep me sane. I look at them and feel overwhelmed with pride, happiness and love. I recently started meditation, something I used to think was a pile of s***, but since starting it I realised how easy it is to do, and it really does help settle the mind. I also started running again recently, me and the cocker spaniel we have ‘Toby’ and that half an hour of exercise gets us out of the house for some ‘me’ time and really helps me. When I have finished I feel so much better for doing it, the endorphins are running inside of me and I feel happier.
Poor mental health doesn’t care about who you are, what you have material wise or in the bank, it doesn’t care what you look like or what support network you have, when it hits, it hits and I’m hoping me starting writing these blogs helps me, and hopefully helps others out there who feel the same and don’t feel like they can talk about it or do have someone to talk about but the others who don’t truly understand us. I thankfully have a fantastic support network who I can speak to any time of any day, and I wanted to put myself out there to anyone else struggling, if you need to talk, laugh, cry, or just offload let’s do it together?
I am on module 5/6 of my CBT, so every Sunday when I sit down to do my modules I am going to write a little blog about my week and how I’ve been that week. I know life isn’t all sunshine and flowers but here’s hoping we have a great week, after all our life is what we make of it!
Speak soon lots of love, and remember to always be kind to yourself.
Faye xx
TO ALL MEMBERS JUST SOME PRACTICAL SENSIBLE GUIDANCE.
Childless/Child free?
New Category for "Action on Depression"? Positives? Happy things? What do you think?
Made a deal with myself
