Living with Anxiety

This one is a hard post to write and honestly have been avoiding posting it for a while now. I work very hard to try and keep my anxiety and depression under wraps so that no one knows, but finally I feel it is time to come forward and talk about it.

But, I must post it in honor of World Mental Health Day. It seems fitting. It is something that affects me every day. For me, anxiety always starts with the tightening of my chest. It kind of feels like someone is sitting on it. This makes my heart race faster. As my heart beat increases in frequency, now I realize that I have been holding my breath. As I try to breathe, it seems harder and my brain doesn’t seem to get the oxygen it needs. So, I try to breathe again, but still feels hard, so as I increase my breathing, my heart is still racing, and my chest is tight, so now I start getting hot and my palms start sweating. I am just starting to get lightheaded and then I sit down and a few minutes later it’s over. I can breathe again. My heart rate slows down, and the pressure is released from my chest.

This happens to me about 10 times a day. It happens if I am running late for something. For some reason I can not stand being late. Even 5 minutes early is enough to put me in a tailspin. I must be 15 minutes early for everywhere I go, otherwise I experience the above. I also get this way about roundabouts, waiting in lines, being in crowded places, having to talk to people I don’t know, going somewhere I don’t know, fear of the unknown, and oh so many more. These are my daily struggles with anxiety.

My anxiety has become so controlling that I find myself staying in after work and not wanting to go out anywhere. Just go to work, come home from work and stay in my safe little bubble. It’s starting to get exhausting and make my anxiety even worse. There’s friends I am losing as I do not have the energy to go and see them and I am embarrassed to tell them the truth. That my anxiety is too bad to leave the house.

So, I finally got into the fostering program for cats. This way, there is no commitment involved as we are just loving and taking care of a cat until it can find its furever home (my friend came up with this and it’s so perfectly fitting). Plus, the organization takes care of any medical bills that come up, so it isn’t so taxing on my already stretched income. Yes, that’s true, that is another portion of my anxiety…money. A never ending one at that too.

Anyways, so enter Scout. This beautiful little cat that just loves attention and doesn’t like to be by herself either. I think she has taken to me quite well too as she follows me around the house and is even sitting on the end of my desk right now while I write. It helps my anxiety to have her as weird as that sounds.

Another way I have been dealing with my anxiety is joining One Link. It is a program that the Ontario Health program covers, and you just need a referral from your family physician to get in. They offer one on one therapy which I don’t really recommend for a variety of reasons. One being that they are pill pushers, but I won’t open that can of worms today. The one thing that has gotten me a great deal of support is the group therapy program that they offer.

At first, I was so against it, being how not only am I already super shy, but I hate talking about my feelings. I hate opening up about things. You can’t get hurt if you don’t let anyone in. But this group has been a totally transforming experience. I am realizing that there are other people going through similar things as well that there are ways of treatment and coping techniques that make anxiety a little less. It is a 12-week program (not like AA), but each week we learn a little more skills and techniques to cope with Anxiety and something called exposure therapy. This one is super scary as it induces a panic attack on purpose, but I know that in the long run it will be better.

Living with anxiety is something I know will not go away, but I just hope that I can control it in a way that I can live my life without it controlling me.

“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh