Living with Anxiety: My Story and Strategies

This is the post I’ve postponed several times since I started sharing my blog. But this week someone who I admire had the courage to share something which felt uncomfortable for them and they’ve inspired me to do some sharing of my own.

Anxiety and Me

If I could banish one thing from my life forever, it would be anxiety. Only those closest to me are aware of the extent to which anxiety has impacted and, at times, dominated my life.

I've thankfully never felt suicidal. However, I remember one morning at the height of one of my worst spells, sitting on the edge of my bed and thinking that I could absolutely understand why someone feeling so overwhelmed by such feelings of fear and dread could come to the conclusion that life was not worth living. 

I’m so fortunate to have a wonderful family who mean the world to me. Much of my anxiety stems from fear of something happening to them or something happening to take me away from them so I would never consider leaving them. Which means that at points I have been trapped in the clutches of anxiety, unable to see a way out.

In the past I’ve felt that I was a failure. My anxiety was what stopped me from being able to cope with work, with health concerns and sometimes with daily life. Over the past few years I've met others whose experience of anxiety mirrors my own. Anxiety is much more commonly spoken about publicly and more people seem to be open about their experience of it. In fact mental health, including anxiety, now seems to be a hot discussion topic.

While I can now say that I suffer with anxiety, I still don’t feel comfortably to divulge the intimate details of my experience. Suffice to say, it has ruined some periods of my life. In this blog post, I want to share some of the strategies which have helped me. I’ll also share some of the strategies I’ve tried which are not advisable.

What a Feeling!

Even as a child, I regularly felt worried. I worried about really innocuous things and sometimes I couldn't even put my finger on what I felt worried about. I used to refer to this as my “worried feeling”. It was a horrible, sickly, lingering sensation. In my adult years I’ve been treated to further physical symptoms of anxiety - hot flushes, pain from jaw clenching, sleep problems and nausea, to name just a few.

I heard the feeling of anxiety described as “a knot in my stomach that won’t loosen” and “feeling dizzy and lightheaded, unable to focus on what people around me are saying’. I’ve experienced both and hated both.

Family Impact

Although I've always been one of life’s worriers, my battle with anxiety really ramped up as I entered adulthood, reaching a crescendo when I became a mum. It undeniably affected how I parented and I’ve had to work really hard to try not to allow my anxiety to impact my family.

When working on my first draft of this article, I originally wrote that my battle with anxiety had spanned 12 years. I then went on to write the following section and realised that “12 years” is utter nonsense! Twelve years ago was the first time it became debilitating and I had to seek help. I had a husband and young children who needed me to be well. However, I’m now acknowledging the impact my anxiety has had on my behaviours since young adulthood. Some of the following examples I can now laugh about but at the time, gut wrenching fear of losing people I loved compelled me to take some perhaps unusual actions.

It sounds crazy but...

Anxiety has driven me to extreme measures to reassure myself. In university, if my parents were late to visit, I’d call hospitals to check if they’d been in an accident. During our engagement, I’d wait 20 minutes after James left to cycle to work then drive the route to ensure he wasn’t lying in a ditch. Later, when I had babies, I’d check on them every few minutes just to confirm they were breathing.

The worry extended to their school years, where I always volunteered for school trips so that I could make sure they didn’t get left behind at a zoo or museum. And if I happened to hear a fire engine in the vicinity of their school, I admit I took a walk to ascertain the sirens were not heading for the school.

When James joined the fire service and took up mountaineering, I tracked his safety through WhatsApp online status or local news, especially if he was late. My final admission is that it suited me quite well when we only had one car. Although it was inconvenient at times, the upside was that while I was at work with the car my family couldn’t be out in it without me. They were stuck at home - nice and safe!

I could go on, but that’s probably enough of my anxiety-driven antics.

Why am I like this?

A bit of counselling has given me some of the answers and has helped me to understand the link between past trauma and present anxiety. I don’t know why I was such a worrier as a child. I had a lovely childhood and if my parents were susceptible to anxiety they certainly hid it well. However, it’s been pointed out to me that much of the more extreme anxiety I’ve experienced as an adult could be attributed to losing my dad when he was only 57. This apparently made me acutely aware of my own mortality and of the mortality of those I hold dear. 

Even before this, I had never been one of those people who go through life thinking that bad things don’t happen to them. After a freak accident involving my mum, I realised that these things can and do happen to people like us. 

Further consolidation of this came while I was in Mallorca trying to phone home on the day James and I got engaged. There was no answer. Despite James trying to reassure me, I spent that day with an overwhelming feeling of dread and when I got home discovered that my worry had been justified as my dad had been taken into hospital. This experience only backed up future fears that my worst case scenarios could and would play out.

The Helpful Bit (I hope!)

I’m currently in a place where it feels mostly under control and that’s why I’m able to write 

about it. Anxiety is, unfortunately, a common affliction and I hope that by sharing some of my coping strategies I can offer some solace and even hope. Below are some of the things I’ve tried, including successful strategies, to manage my anxiety. Of course, your experience of anxiety will differ from mine and the same strategies will not work for everyone. This is what I have learned in my attempts to take back control.

Don’t

Comfort eat. My comfort eating is not just when I feel a bit fed up. It’s when my anxiety is just simmering and it feels like by eating something I can push it back down for a while. However, it’s only a very temporary fix, and not a healthy one.

Google! I know everyone tells us not to but there were times when I couldn’t help myself. I promise you, even if you ask Google for reassuring articles, you will find something on that screen to get your pulse racing and the feeling of dread rising up through your whole body.

Keep it to yourself. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say, “ A problem shared is a problem halved”, I have found that it does help to voice my anxiety to someone I feel safe with. Sometimes saying it out loud makes it feel a bit less like it’s so all consuming. I know it’s not recommended to constantly seek reassurance about our worries but sometimes it’s just what’s needed.

DO

Get out! I’ve never been suited to being stuck inside too much, so getting outside and seeing different places is important to me. I think that a change of scenery, whether it’s favourite locations or exploring somewhere new, is one of the activities that releases the endorphins I need to fight off my anxiety.

Exercise. Walking is one of my best therapies. A long walk with Toby dog and a podcast in my ear helps me to feel calm and in control again. As we all know, exercise is also another way of releasing positive endorphins. The combination of fresh air and physical movement often helps me to break the cycle of overthinking.

Seek professional help. If, like me, you find that anxiety is preventing you from living your day to day life, it’s probably time to seek professional help. I’ve worked with professionals who have helped me to examine the root cause of my anxiety and explore strategies to cope with it. None of this has “cured” me but I have learned more about myself and picked up some helpful strategies.

Consider medication. It’s not the answer for everyone and I resisted it for years. But when I got to the stage that I was unable to work because of my anxiety, I knew it was an option I had to explore. I have absolutely NO medical training so I’m loath to enter into the merits or demerits of any medication but can share that after a couple of attempts to find the best type for me, it’s something that can turn the volume down on my feelings of anxiety…most of the time. 

Prioritise sleep. I’ve got a cheek writing this as I couldn’t tell you the last time I had a good night’s sleep. But I do know that lack of sleep always makes my anxiety feel worse or more likely to creep up on me. I’ll keep trying to work on my sleep and advise any other anxiety sufferers to prioritise this too. 

Sharing

It’s hard to explain why I’ve been so hesitant to publish this post. I don’t think I’m ashamed of my anxiety anymore - discovering how many others also suffer has helped with that. I do worry about people I know reading about how low it’s made me feel at times, especially as I know I would be upset to read that someone I loved had felt as desperate as I have at times.

The one positive I can think of in relation to my experience of anxiety is that it allows me to fully understand how my son feels, as a fellow sufferer. He has been brave and kind enough to allow me to share some of his story and I know that it has helped others so maybe now it’s my turn to be brave in the hope that I can help even one person who has felt that anxiety is ruining their life. 

Sadly, there are no magic cures for anxiety. However, while accepting that it’s part of who I am, I’m determined that it will never again dominate my life. If you are struggling with anxiety, know that you are not alone. It may be part of who we are, but it doesn’t have to define us.

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