That's Just The Way It Is! (My Experience of Anxiety and Panic Attacks)

Member Name: zoe-e

Product:	My Experience of Anxiety and Panic Attacks
Date:	03/06/09 (110 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: are there any? I'll get back to you if I think of one

Disadvantages: I'm going to be worrying about what people will think when they read this!

I've been wondering for ages whether or not I should write about my experience here.
1. Because as anyone who has experienced such problems will know, talking about it is usually something you would rather not do. And,
2. It will be a really long review!
But I thought I may as well just go for it, I have nothing to lose and maybe some people can relate.

Anxitey has been a huge part of my life since I was 14 (I'm now 18). There were a lot of things that contributed to the triggering of 'my problem' as I call it. It started off with my grandparents dying within a short space of time when I was around 11-13, I obviously knew this would happen one day but I guess I wasn't expecting it to be that soon. I know everyone has to deal with death at some point in their lives but I wasn't really mentally prepared and I didn't cope very well. After this happend I was okay for a few years but I bottled everything up so I thought I was coping but in reality, I wasn't. When my Gran died it was two days before my 13th birthday, I remember then just having no reaction at all for some reason. Anyway, fastworward a year. I started smoking Cannabis regularly, almost daily, getting drunk quite often and generally hanging around with the wrong sort of people, most of them were a lot older than me so you can imagine my parents views on this! I'll go into more detail later on in the 'review' but for now I'll say this. I have an Anxiety Disorder and it's not fun!!!

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When It All Started
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As I said above, it started when I was 14. I remember the first panic attack, it was horrific and I'm not exaggerating! I came home from a bit of a 'session' of smoking Cannabis, I'd been smoking for 4-5 months by this time. I think it was my mum's birthday. I came home and laid down to watch TV (I didn't want to go downstairs because I knew my parents would find out I'd been smoking because of the state of me!). My mum came into my room and I started shaking from head to toe, ran out of the room and started crying hysterically! When she asked what was wrong all I could get out was "I don't know!". Fastforward a few weeks and the trouble really started. I had another panic attack and from then on I was light-headed 24/7. I kept thinking I was going to pass out or something. I didn't tell my parents that this was happening because I had a feeling that it had something to do with smoking so much. Now I can see that that's not strictly true but it definitely didn't help that's for sure. I started to not go out. Not with my friends, not with my family and certainly not to school. When I did go to school I would only go to the lessons where I knew that I would be able to sit by a door so that I could get out. My friends didn't understand what was happening to me, not that I did either, so they pretty much abandoned me and didn't want anything to do with me. I was bullied in school before it even started and was bullied even more when it began. I would get called crazy on a daily basis which really didn't help as I actually convinced myself that I was crazy at one point. Anyway, after I told my mum what was happening she took me to the doctor who knew that I had an anxiety problem before I even opened my mouth (I guess I wasn't as good at hiding it back then!). He referred me to the children's mental health team where I had counselling and saw a psychiatrist. For a 14 year old girl who didn't have a clue what was happening to her, psychiatrist was a bloody scary word!!! I'm not going to go into the details of the mental health team as it wouldn't be fair to slate them on here so I'll just save that until I'm feeling particularly evil lol!

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Hypochondria (Health Anxiety)
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Oh the joys. lol. Okay, with my disorder I have symptoms of several different disorders so it's simpler to call it Generalised Anxiety Disorder, but I'll go into a bit of detail of what I have or am experincing. As I said before, when this all started I kept thinking I was going to pass out. Hypochondriacs are often the butt of doctor doctor jokes but believe me it is NOT a nice place to be. It's hell. You're scared of dying but you're not actually living a proper life. I missed out on so much through this and still do if I'm honest. It's not as simple as just thinking that you have a certain disease. Hypochondriacs will actually convince themselves that they are ill and they will even give themselves horrible symptoms (not intentionally of course). I can laugh at myself and some of the things that I've come up with over the years but I know from experience that it is a really horrible disorder to be stuck with. To give you an idea, over the past four years I've thought I've had: Throat cancer, tonsil cancer, brain tumour (gave myself migraines every day!), heart disease, heart attack, stroke, MS, basically anything you can think of, Ive probably thought I've had it at some point (don't post diseases please, I'll freak out LOL). Like I said, I can laugh now but for a teenagers that's a horrible way to live.

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Agoraphobia
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It's hard to decide whether this is worse than Health Anxiety. I guess it actually links in with the HA anyway so there's not really much of a difference. Although, it completely wrecked my confidence. And my social life come to that, I mean I lost ALL my friends. Well nearly all. I can't use public transport, I even walked for 4 hours to get home one day last year to avoid getting on a bus. Yes, you have permission to laugh, it's insane I know lol. It pretty much messed up my education although I managed to get some GCSE's. I can't go to really crowded places. You can probably imagine the rest. I know now that avoidance makes it worse so I force myself to get out of the house. I've actually forced myself into college! lol

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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
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Luckily, I haven't had too much experince with this but I went through a phase where I washed my hands after touching anything! It came back again with the whole Swine Flu thing but I broke out of it again thakfully.

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Depression
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Depression usually goes hand in hand with anxiety unfortunately. I get bouts now and agin, sometimes really bad and sometimes not so overwhelming. It's not a nice place to be but I get through it by distracting myself until I start to feel better. I know for a fact that there are so many people in the world that are so much worse off than I am, so I try to think about that instead of feeling sorry for myself so to speak. Another thing to mention, people always say that they think I'm older than 18. I think I had to grow up pretty quick with all this going on when I was younger so it's not really a case of being mature, more that I didn't really have the oppertunity to act like a teen because I did it all too soon and then this happened so I think I just had to grow up!

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What If?
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I think I should have this tattooed on myself lol. The current 'what if?' is what if I throw up?! Which in turn makes me feel physically sick obviously! Ah it's a lovely cycle lol. What if the car crashes? What if I offend someone? What if someone thinks such and such about me? What if I did that wrong? BLAHBLAHBLAH, I could go on for hours. I think the trick too this one is.......SO WHAT!!!! (I'm still a rockstar!!), sorry had to do that. Seriously, just so what.

Everyone gets anxious at some point. People who say they are scared of nothing are just lying to themselves and everyone else. I always try to think that I'm not that hard done by, I mean there are worse mental health problems than an anxiety disorder. Panic attacks won't kill you, trust me I've had enough of them and I'm still here lol. It's not a nice thing to have to deal with, especially at this age but I always say to people that I don't want sympathy, I just want to be treated like any other teenager. Sorry, that should be adult now really lol. I used to envy 'normal' people but I just treat it as a part of me now and that's the way it is. Anyway, I'm going to be quiet now before I bore everyone lol!

Thanks For Reading!!

P.S. I had to give it a star!!! :(

Summary: Fun Times! NOT!