I've wanted to write this post for such a long time but I'm not sure how to word it, I want it to sound eloquent and perfect but I know it probably won't. I've never written anything this personal before and I don't want this to be to deep or anything but I think this is a really important topic.
So, today I'm going to share my anxiety 'story'. I feel like mental health is such an important topic that needs to be talked about. Even though I do feel like it's becoming less taboo, I still don't think the stigma of mental health is completely broken.
I guess I'll start at the beginning. I've always been a really nervous person. As a child I was really emotional and I'd get extremely upset about unimportant things. I'd have these hysterical crying fits and I didn't know why. All I knew was that once it started I couldn't stop it. This carried on throughout my whole childhood and even though it obviously bothered me, I never put much thought into it, because that was just me, I was just emotional.
As I got older and went to high school I started to become really aware of my thoughts. I became super quiet, I talked to my friends, and had no problem doing so, but talking to teachers, people I didn't know or even raising my hand to answer a question was terrifying to me.
It wasn't until I was 16 that I finally realised I was suffering from anxiety and panic attacks. I came across a video on youtube (of who I can't remember) where someone was explaining their anxiety and I related to it SO much. So I carried on researching it myself and everything just matched up perfectly.
I spent a while sat on the information that I thought I had anxiety until finally I told my mum. I was so nervous because even though I love my mum, we aren't extremely close and we argued a lot (which often brought on panic attacks). Anyway, I told her and while she didn't understand completely she was so supportive and helped me make the decision to go to the doctors. I can never thank her enough for being there for me.
I made an appointment and told the doctor everything. Honestly, I was so nervous that I didn't stop crying the whole time. She diagnosed me with generalised anxiety and panic disorder that day. She gave me two medications. One that I was supposed to take every day and one to take when I was having a panic attack. To cut the story short I stopped taking the daily tablets pretty soon after that. I didn't like the way they made me feel, like I wasn't quite myself. I still have the other one's though and try to take them when a panic attack starts. I'm not sure if they really work or if it's like a placebo affect, but I take them anyway.
The past few years kind of blended together in terms of my anxiety. I can't pick out my worse moments because honestly, it was all pretty bad. I was having panic attacks almost daily and my general anxiety was at an all time high. The one thing that I was grateful for was my boyfriend. He was there with me through all of it and he never made me feel bad for it. He just helped me in the best way he could.
So I dealt with all the panic attacks and gradually it started to improve. I'm 20 now and last September I moved out of home, and out of my hometown, to go to university. Luckily for me my boyfriend was also going to the same university as me because, without him I don't think I could of done it. We got a flat together and even though I was expecting my anxiety to get worse, it actually improved...Don't get me wrong, I'm still extremely anxious. I very rarely go to the shop on my own because for some reason this is something that terrifies me, but the amount of panic attacks I have now has reduced to virtually none. I think I've had about 5 proper panic attacks since September, and saying that makes me unbelievably happy.
Anxiety isn't something you get over in a day. You'll have terrible days, and you'll have great days. I'll probably struggle with it for the rest of my life, but I've accepted that and I'm doing my best not to let it get the better of me. I wrote this post because I thought back to that youtube video I watched and how much it helped me understand what was going on inside my head. Even though this is the scariest thing I've done in a long time, I want to help someone like that. Maybe this post won't at all, but if there's even a chance that it will then it's worth it. I just want people to know that anxiety isn't something you ever need to be ashamed of and you should never feel bad for having it.That goes for all mental health. You are you, and you is perfect.
I'm sorry that this post is so long but I couldn't describe it in a shorter way. I just want to say that if anyone ever needs to talk, about anything not just anxiety, that my twitter is @kirstychronicle. I don't want anyone to feel like they can't talk about their feelings. Thank you for reading this, it means the world to me honestly.
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