Anxiety And Panic Attacks Effecting My Daily Life
I recently became unwell in a different way to usual. I suffer from Adrenal Insufficiency and hypopituitarism which results in a host of physical conditions but a few months ago, about 8 weeks ago in fact I began to suffer from severe anxiety and panic attacks.
I’m still trying to get to the bottom of things, of what triggered this response in my body and mind and why I am struggling with anxiety and suffering from panic attacks at night and looking back to when it began I am starting to work things out.
I think the number one issue has been my daughter and her friendships. Whilst I won’t be going into lots of detail I will say that now my daughter is ten, there is a lot more girly nonsense that goes on at school and out of school between friends. There has been some bullying and nasty experiences which have left my little girl crying in tears and me feeling quite worried working out how to deal with it, the best things to say and the best way to react and deal with the situations.
It’s been ten years since I left my own abusive relationship. I was mistreated and abused in a past marriage and I honestly think seeing my daughter going through tough times with kids her age really must have triggered the feelings I had back then.
There has also been a lot of other things going on, family in hospital, big decisions to make, applications for medical funding being declined and the list goes on. In fact I found myself feeling overwhelmed and feeling like life was spiralling out of control.
Irrationally I thought to myself, we need to move and we need to move now. That’s the protective mother in me wanting to take my daughter away from the not so nice situations. I worried, what if these things go on in high school next year. What if bullying becomes the norm for my child. More thoughts and more thoughts began to impact on my behaviour.
I began to think about our future and where we want to live in a few years. I began to stress over the fact that my home was cluttered and if we needed to move in future it would be incredibly difficult. I started a serious declutter of the home based on my fear of not being ready to move if we needed to and this burnt me out.
I know it was irrational (and I’m actually really pleased the home is now decluttered). It was therapeutic and really feels fabulous but on the other hand, I was in an anxious state and felt unable to cope until the whole home was decluttered and clean and in order and that has taken 8 weeks.
I know that my anxious thoughts lead to anxious actions and the whole state of mind and stress it has caused has resulted in exhaustion and panic at night times.
Another irrational or anxiety based action I’ve been doing is stressing over money. It is all rooted in my daughter’s bullying and my fears and thoughts about moving back to Yorkshire where we have more friends, family and better support.
I started to worry, how will we ever move, how would we find a rental property, we would need help to shift our belongings, a bond, money for carpets. I then anxiously stressed over finding more income and again began to worry that my blog needed to do better in terms of bringing in a better income. I doubled my efforts on social media and did all I could to try and increase ad revenue and look for opportunities and this again contributed to burning myself out even more.
I think at the end of the day, the triggers from my past effected my today and the anxiety I began to feel and suffer (which is very real) impacted upon my actions and at times irrational thoughts which were overtaking my mind.
I still would like to move back to Yorkshire one day. However now I have really sat down, thought about things and written it down I can see this is not something that needs to happen immediately and who knows, maybe not for years.
I got to a point where I was panicking every night and last week I decided enough was enough. I could not keep on going like this. I stopped blogging for the week. You might be like what? You haven’t stopped blogging but what I mean is I did not write any posts, instead I just allowed prewritten and scheduled content to come out.
I checked my social media daily and dealt with emails but skipped Instagram, I skipped twitter, Facebook and Pinterest and just left it. On Monday and Tuesday night I took a calms tablet to help me sleep and it worked. I slept through the night rather than lay awake till 3 or 4am and I was able to rest.
I did not go online and work, I simply rested up and instead of working, I watched TV and rested. It felt great and I am starting to recover. I decided that for the next two months I will become a part time blogger. I need more rest, I need to take time out to work through the triggers which spun me out of control. I need time to get through this episode as it’s still early days.
I did not want to share this as I am always scared of what people might say but at the end of the day this is who I am and the experience I have had and it may just help someone else to recognise that they are going through the same thing.
It’s easy for some people to say stop worrying, get over it, everything will be fine but when your suffering from real anxiety it’s never that simple. I need to work through my triggers and the things which are causing me to feel so unwell and I think it will take quite a few months.
This blog will continue, luckily I have plenty of scheduled content for Summer and I will simply have to be super picky about how much work I do take on but this Summer I am going to try and relax and get well in my mind. It’s a tough journey I’m going through and I have a long way to go but I can do this. I can get through this and get back on track and then when I feel well enough continue on the road where I left off.
Goals can wait, plans can be postponed and for now I am going to work on me and myself, take time out for self care and relaxing and of course my number one priority looking after my daughter.
Angela
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