Anxiety and Panic Disorder: A Personal Post

Is that the weekend I see? I have a really quiet weekend ahead and I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty excited about it. With a hectic month behind me, I want nothing more than to fill my bath with those fancy new salts I bought the other day, enjoy walks with my dog and indulge in a Sunday lunch with my family. In the past year, I’ve been trying out wellness trends like they were going out of fashion. It all started with a single panic attack that escalated somehow into full blown panic disorder and in the space of a few weeks, it seemed like my whole world had turned upside down.

While I haven’t spoken out about this on my blog before now, I wanted to share with you the things that have worked for me in case someone out there is feeling the same. I think I’ve always been hesitant to talk about mental health on my blog because bloggers have been tarnished in the past for capitalising on anxiety related topics or using it to get views etc. However, let me assure you that anxiety and panic disorder are not twee little topics for me to simply explore and I am quite simply writing this post so that it is out there for the person who is scrolling the internet at night wondering at what point their life took a turn for the worst and what on earth to do about it.

This was quite a personal post for me to write but it’s the one that I wish I could have read when I was experiencing panic and anxiety. For me, it came out of the blue completely. One week I was living my best life, the next I was leaving the GP with a prescription in my hand and a pressing appointment with a counsellor and googling Buy CBD gummies UK. Yes. Sh*t got very real. This post may be useful to you if you have recently suffered with panic attacks or you know someone who has panic disorder but it could also provide some inspiration if you struggling with stress and juggling too many things all at once. Grab some biscuits, it’s a long one!

Waking up and realising that you don’t feel like yourself anymore is a really scary thing and something I never thought I would experience. Not feeling like I could be alone for fear of becoming totally overwhelmed with my thoughts and feelings was, for me, quite distressing. For many people, panic attacks are a warning sign that your body and mind are under unusual amounts of stress and if anything, it’s shown me the importance of listening to my body and knowing the signs that everything isn’t quite right. For me, the panic attack made me feel completely detached from myself and reality. While I only had one, the fear that another one was just around the corner was debilitating.

At the time I was trying to keep my freelance business afloat, I had just got a puppy and I was attending back to back events with my blog, grabbing food when I could. Sleep was basically non existent and so it isn’t surprising that my stress levels rose. However, the panic attack did take me by surprise as it didn’t happen in a busy store or a crowded bar, I had just completed a deadline and I was sitting down for a quiet dinner with my husband on a Friday night. I remember sitting down with a sigh that meant, phew, thank god, I can relax now. The feeling drained out of my arms and I started to panic and hyperventilating and I actually had to go and stand outside to breathe. I thought at the time that I might actually be dying. I woke up the next morning with an overwhelming sense of dread, a churning knot in my stomach and the feeling of something extremely heavy sitting on my chest. My thoughts were racing and I was constantly on the verge of tears.

I googled panic attacks and saw that many people didn’t feel safe leaving the house in case they had one while driving but for me it went the other way. I simply couldn’t be alone. I drove to my Mum’s house and cried for an hour for no other reason than feeling like I was about to lose my mind and then I went to see my GP and left with Propranolol. This medication basically slows the heart rate and helps the panicky feeling to subside. It helped. A lot.

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That afternoon I made an appointment to see a counsellor and if I got anything out of that very strange hour of my life it was the instruction to try daily meditation. Life had quite simply got on top of me and I was willing to try anything to regain my sense of calm. So, I tried every wellness trend in the book. I also called my closest friends. Many people tend to become introverted and put up a barrier but I gathered my nearest and dearest and assembled an army. I then booked a massage, experimented with acupuncture and every other type of alternative therapy and took a week off work.

Acupuncture

I’ve always wanted to try acupuncture but I had no real reason to do so before my experience with anxiety. I was having constant headaches and my GP had suggested that my headaches were stress induced and I’d heard that acupuncture was supposed to relieve them. It was relaxing for sure and I did leave with an air of positivity that lasted for the rest of the day but I couldn’t say the results did much to help my panicky thoughts or my headaches and at £40 per session it was eye-wateringly expensive.

Meditation

My therapist  recommended  a daily meditation app that would help me schedule some down time into my day. I have to say, I really did enjoy these ten minute sessions and they really helped me to calm my racing thoughts. Whether you work from home or in an office, daily meditation can help to relive stress but it also has so many other wonderful benefits. If you are a beginner, this ten minute guided meditation session is a great place to start.

Hot Yoga

This didn’t rid me of my anxiety or panic at all but it did help me to sleep and if I’ve learned anything from this, it is that sleep is essential to good mental health. If sleep is something you struggle with, give hot yoga a try.

Reiki

This was by far the strangest wellness trend I tried on my journey to put panic attacks in the past. Reiki is sort of alternative healing and you basically lie down while the therapist channels energy to different areas of the body via her hands. I only tried one session of this and if I’m honest it didn’t really have any effect at all. I basically paid £40 for a nap. I’m not saying I don’t believe in alternative therapy because I do, it just didn’t work for me.

Aromatherapy

Perhaps the most effective was my experience with aromatherapy and essential oils. My Mum did lots of research into the best ones and even bought me a book on the subject (mums are the best). I used Neroli oils in the bath as well as magnesium flakes and himalayan salts and it did help enormously. (If you are partial to exciting bath salts, get to Home Bargains as they sell them half price).

Therapy

This was a really daunting one for me. My GP suggested counselling and I took her up on it. I felt that by agreeing to this I was confirming that I was in fact crazy and the men in white coats were probably going to be waiting for me on my return. In fact, it was just really nice to talk to someone that I didn’t know. Usually, I would have loved nothing more than to talk about myself for an hour but this new uncertain me was feeling pretty vulnerable and the whole thing was really eye-opening. I went private as the free service had a waiting list of 13 weeks and I couldn’t imagine feeling panicky and out of control for that length of time. It was £40 per session and I had 3 sessions.

I also found it really useful to read about others who were going through something similar. A lot of bloggers that I follow on social media have written down their thoughts and feelings around anxiety and sometimes it is enough to know that you aren’t in this alone. If you have found that anxiety is something new you are dealing with, hop over to Hannah Gale’s blog. I found her blog posts about mental health really helpful as she writes very honest and raw accounts of her experiences. Her post about knowing your mental health triggers was one of the first posts I read.

So what has this taught me apart from the fact that most wellness activities will cost you £40 a pop?

The importance of self care

Before I had an experience with panic disorder, I would have told you living my best life would ideally involve being yacht bound with a glass of champagne in my hand preferably within touching distance of Callum Best. But what if my best life is actually just buying essential oils from Home Bargains and drinking a glass of Whispering Angel in the bath? A year on I can happily say that my panic symptoms have all but gone. I still suffer from health anxiety and I sometimes get a tight chest or feel the beginnings of a tension headache if I take on too much work but I’ve learned what triggers these attacks and I schedule in lots of down time to recharge. I read a quote the other day that said ‘If only we recharged ourselves like we do our mobile phones’ and it really hit home. You don’t have to spend a fortune to feel a sense of wellbeing. Download a free meditation app, add some essential oils/magnesium flakes in your bath and sleep LOTS. A lot of the recharging process is doing the things we know we should do anyway. Eat well, exercise and relax.

You are not alone

The one thing that I did find interesting (if a little shocking) is that everyone I opened up to about how I was feeling had experienced similar things and most had, like me, been offered anti-depressants or some form of medication and thought about taking them. Everyone I spoke to had their own story and it made me realise that you actually have no clue what other people are going through in their lives even when it seems to be all happy and shiny. Talk to your parents, confide in your friends, having a support system is crucial. Some people will be there for you, some will shut off instantly and avoid any awkward conversations but that’s ok. Some people will find your situation uncomfortable or get bored with it after a while and that’s OK too. Some people will drop everything and they are worth their weight in gold. Don’t forget your online community. Some of the support I received was from fellow bloggers I had only interacted with online.

Let go of small worries 

This whole experience has put into perspective a lot of things for me. One is to stop being scared of what might  happen. Feeling so out of sync has made me realise how silly I have been to waste time worrying about what could happen. I’m a stronger person that I thought and small things that used to bother me no longer do. If you looked at my inner spreadsheet, there is a column dedicated to things I’m not a huge fan of. Being home alone at night, disposing of a spider, flying anywhere are just a few. When you add panic disorder and anxiety to the list it kind of makes those earlier entries seem like a walk in the park.

Stay positive

This is harder than it sounds but instead of curling up in a ball and hiding from it, I told a few select people that I trusted and set out to do anything in my power to feel like the old me again. I’m not naïve enough to think that I’m now immune to poor mental health but I’d like to think I’m now equipped to deal with it. Don’t get me wrong, I did a lot of pretending I was OK during the first few months, it was Christmas and so we went to a lot of social occassions where I felt it was hard at times to plaster a smile on to my face. Then there was the panic buying. Don’t even get me started on the amount of money I have spent on calming items. The books about panic disorder, the colouring books that promise to calm the mind and the huge salt lamp I bought that is now residing in the garage because it would take a fork lift truck to lift it into the bin.

This post was a little out of the ordinary but I hope it helps someone. If you have experienced anything similar and written about it, leave me a link to your posts in the comments, I’d love to read them.