My Anxiety

There is a lot of information out there about anxiety but its not enough. Just because there’s information about it doesn’t mean it makes it any easier to understand it. There are still a lot of people out there that believe mental health issues are all controllable, but they don’t realise just how crippling it can be. There are so many different levels of anxiety and I think that’s one of the reasons why it’s hard to understand, it can be so minor for so long but you also have people who take advantage and fake the whole thing or fake how serious it is.

I have always struggled with anxiety, a lot of the time accompanied by depression. I didn’t have the worst upbringing, my mother did everything in her power to keep me safe, healthy, and happy. She struggled at times she really did but she never once gave up, she was always so strong. But even with the best role model anxiety still took over my mind. At first it was just normal small things, being shy, not fitting in at school, being too nervous to speak to my mind.

Most of this started duran my early school years, I couldn’t get up in front of the whole class and speak, I wasn’t that great at making friends I was always scared of saying the wrong thing and being made fun of. In my first primary school if you were ever late to school which I was quite a lot the teacher would force you to stand at the front of the class and apologise the whole class, which I never understood because yes I was interrupting the class and taking time away from their learning but two minutes to slip in to class and into my seat rather than five to ten minutes for an apology.

One day it really got to me, we were running late, and I had tried to say I wasn’t well enough to go to school but my mum didn’t believe me. When we got to school she told me to walk across to the main building where my lessons were while she took my brother into the nursery building. But I couldn’t force my legs to walk over there, my palms got sweaty, my heart began to race. I knew if I didn’t go my mum was going to be angry with me, but I also knew if I did go over there I would be forced to apologise to a whole class, which was really embarrassing.

I sat on the steps of the nursery building, holding my knees to my chest and was sobbing into my arms. A teacher who came out from the nursery spotted me, she asked me if I was okay and I made up a lie about feeling too sick to go to school. It wasn’t completely a lie due to the nerves I was feeling quite sick. The teacher sat with me until my mum came out, while the teacher was with us my mum was nice and caring. As soon as we left the school gates my mum knew I was lying and that there was another reason she was very annoyed, but I was too scared to tell her the real reason in case she wasn’t on my side.

Once we reached the house my mother made me sit outside and think about what I had done, when she finally came out to get me she asked me once more for the truth I could see she had calmed down and wasn’t angry at me anymore but once I tod her the truth she got very angry at the school because I was only a child it wasn’t my fault I was late.

Anxiety can affect people in many different ages, at any given time in their life. there is no good time for it to hit, anxiety doesn’t care if you finally starting to become successful or weather you’ve already hit rock bottom. It can affect you for a short period of time or for years, it can be with you every second of everyday or it can just rear its ugly head every now and then. It’s not an exact science, you can try and figure out your trigger for it but you might never know. There is medication but no guarantee it will help, you can talk to a stranger about your feelings but no guarantee it will help or they will be able to help figure out your trigger.

Anxiety can be as little as being shy not too outgoing or always scratching your skin, picking at your face, chewing the inside of your cheek, at its worst it can stop you from being able to leave your home. There’s much more too it but this is the order in which I was mostly affected. When I think about it it’s been with me my entire life. I’ve always been shy, never wanting my photo to be taken, being too shy to make friends. Now it’s a whole lot worse, I can’t go anywhere unless I am in the car, but I can’t leave the car until I’m in a safe place. Sometimes I go for the car ride to the shops, doctors but I never go inside or get out of the car until I am back home.

It feel rough because yes I’ve always been affected by mental health issues, but I’ve always been able to live with them and deal with them in my own ways. But before covid-19 hit and lockdown happened I was doing so well, me and my fiancé had just moved into our first place, the day before we picked up our keys I got a promotion at work. I felt amazing, I was really starting to feel successful, I was really happy with everything in my life.

I was starting to feel so grown up and like I had my life together. Relationships between myself and my family were getting better, I was starting to feel more and more confident in myself, especially in my work. It’s horrible that everything you have worked so hard to achieve can come crashing down so hard, destroying everything you’ve done. And there’s not a lot of help out there.

So, this is where I am now scared of everything, financially unstable, struggling day to day. I hardly ever leave bed, let alone the house. Unable to go back to work a place I love with people I love working with. My heart breaks more everyday never knowing if or when I’ll be okay again. it gets harder and harder to ask for help because every time I do I feel like I’m being pushed and forced into thing I don’t feel like I can do. I know everyone is trying to help but I don’t think they understand how hard it is, I don’t know if they’ll ever understand.