What if I've got cancer? What if I drop dead? What if Lil gets really ill? What if I lose someone I love? All these 'what ifs'. Then one night I woke up, not knowing what was happening to my body, my heart was thudding so hard I could see it trying to burst through my chest. I felt hot and dizzy and wanted to throw up. I screamed for an ambulance, I was dying. This was it, everything I'd previously feared, it was all about to end.
It didn't get better, I just learned how to control it. The panic attacks. The heart palpitations were not the start of a heart attack, I needed to remember that. I was put on medication to control the physical effects but then I fell pregnant and had to stop. After a painful month of discovering it was an ectopic pregnancy, methotrexate to finish it and surgery to remove what the drug hadn't achieved, I woke from the operation free from anxiety. No acid reflux, no chest pains. No attacks. I could finally be free of that horrible black suffocating grim reaper that lurked in the doorway, waiting to smother me. It came with a price, of course, but the feeling of that anxiety lift was something to grip onto.
And then came tragedy. I walked into the room my uncle resting in and saw a different person. The cancer had stolen his body and he was full of disease, it was impossible not to react. How something so silent could change someone, destroy them. That night, the dark monster came home.
Propranolol only helped the physical effects of an attack. It didn't, couldn't change my mindset. Every twinge had me questioning if it was cancer, if I was dying. An outsider, someone who can live free from anxiety, may think that it sounds ridiculous but every thought had me petrified. Wondering how bad an attack would be if I wasn't on the medication. Would it send me over the edge? These thoughts, these feelings, sometimes made me wonder if it wasn't just better for me to end it. I could feel my family getting irritated at my over the top thinking and I was slowly driving myself insane. It's a very dark place to be when anxiety takes over. It rules and ruins your life. But although I sometimes had suicidal thoughts, I would never have done anything about it. I knew that it would get better, I just didn't know how.
I started CBT with an open mind. I didn't know what to expect to be honest and I left the first session livid. Angry at my parents for everything that had happened while I was growing up. I had to talk about my childhood and it brought back a lot of painful memories, so much so that I wanted to lash out at everyone. But as the weeks went on, all the anger faded until it left my body. I practised the exercises I was given, spoke about loss which helped to heal wounds I thought were closed and learnt new things about myself. It felt good, I felt better. I was supposed to have another session today but felt I didn't need it and my therapist agreed so I cancelled. Together we'd worked so hard to get to this place, I felt relief and sadness. She was like my comfort blanket.
I'm not fixed, I still feel anxious a lot of the time. I still worry about what's going on inside of my body, the twinges I get. But I'm working on that with my doctor, looking after myself better, cutting down on the things that aren't so great for me. I haven't felt hopeless for a while, so overwhelmed by my anxieties that I thought perhaps it would be better to not exist anymore. I'm a work in progress.
CBT is something I can't recommend enough. It isn't for everyone and you have to find a really good therapist in order for it to work for you, but if you're suffering from crippling anxiety then speak to your doctor about it. Grab it by the balls and don't let it control you, because that's what it does. And although I think I'll probably suffer from it for the rest of my life, there are things that I can do to control it.
You can find out about anxiety and other mental health issues here.
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