I thought I would do a blog on anxiety as it is an issue
that is affecting me a lot recently, so much so that at times I do not want to
go out or don’t feel myself.
I have suffered from anxiety since I was 15. I can remember
my first panic attack like it was yesterday; I woke up suddenly in the night
and felt like my heart was racing. I felt scared and I remember feeling like I
was going to die. For some strange reason I didn’t wake my parents, instead I
went outside my house and started pacing up and down my road. To this day I
don’t know why I did this, if I had to guess I would say that I thought if I
kept moving then I would settle down and I would not die. My neighbour came out
of the house and I suppose thought I was on drugs. She came and tried to calm
me down and when I told her what had happened she said she thought I was having
a panic attack. She sat with me and told
me that she had suffered from panic attacks and that I was not going to die, it
was just the bodies’ way of dealing with stress.
I spoke to my mum about this on the day and she told me she
suffered from anxiety and so did her twin sister. She suggested that I should
go to the doctors and speak to them, I did this and to be honest I didn’t
really find them very useful. I carried
on having panic attacks a few times a year but learnt how to cope with them and
as I wasn’t experiencing them regularly they didn’t really bother me; but in
April that all changed.
I was on the underground to work when I suddenly felt extremely
scared and was getting bad palpitations and chest pain. I felt like I just
needed to get off the train and when I eventually got off I just ran like I had
never had before. I had never felt like this before, to me this was a much
different type of panic attack, actually at the time I actually felt like I was
having a heart attack. So I got home and my sister and I went to the hospital
where they confirmed that I was not having a heart attack but a panic attack.
To me it didn’t feel like it was just a panic it felt much
worse, this feeling carried on non-stop. I had been into hospital 10 times in a
month and was not getting any better. In June after taking my children to
school I came home and just collapsed. I went to a different hospital and that
is when the diagnoses process started. This eventually led to me being
diagnosed with AF and POTS.
I was beginning to get treated for my Atrial Fibrillation
and POTS but I was still having panic attacks and always anxious. I felt like
feeling anxious was only making my AF and pots worse so I went to my GP and
basically begged for help, I was lucky my doctor understood and refereed me to
have cognitive therapy while also prescribing me anti depressives at a low dose,
to help with the anxiety. I didn’t really want to go on anti-depressives and I
feel that there is a stigma attached to taking them, but after discussing it
with my doctor I felt I should give it a try.
So two months on and I still feel anxious a lot of the time.
I really do believe that being anxious makes my POTS much worse as I feel trapped
and am scared to go out, always worrying that I will collapse or feel too dizzy
to walk, or even not be able to socialise with my friends because of the
anxiety. Another aspect of my anxiety is that I always feel like something bad
is going to happen to me or that I am going to die and this is what generally
will set me in to a panic. Since I have been doing cognitive therapy though I
have learnt that it is my own negative thoughts that cause me to panic, and
that the more you feel negative, the more you panic. For example, I don’t want
to go out because I feel that I will collapse, this will then cause me to get
even more anxious and then my heart rate will go up even more, making me panic
more; the cycle is complete and never ends.
Although I do know that really it’s just my negative
thoughts that are stopping me. I need to realise that yes I have POTS and AF
and they have changed my life and yes I have really bad POTS days and if I go
out there is a chance I could collapse, but if I don’t try then I will never
know how strong I am. I am actually laughing while I write this as while I can
write what I should be doing, doing it is another story altogether
It is really hard to not think negatively but I don’t want
to be like this anymore I want to attempt to be able to watch TV without think
of bad things. I am only two weeks into my cognitive therapy and I am determined
to give it my all, I want to beat this as yes I have POTS and AF and I probably
always will, but I will not feel anxious
any more.
I would really like to know about anyone else who suffers
badly from anxiety and how you deal with it.
Also I will keep you guys up dated and do a blog on how my
cognitive therapy is going and from now on it is all about positive thoughts.