If you had asked me two years ago did I see myself as an anxious person I would of said not really. Sure when I was younger I suffered panic attacks and I guess at times I did suffer with it quite badly but by the time I hit my twenties I’d left the anxiety behind. I think I had developed a certain level of confidence and so whilst I sometimes struggled with anxious moments they tended to be provoked by a daunting situation where I felt out of my depth at work for example.
A year ago things changed and the anxiety and related paranoia kicked up a gear so much so that I decided enough was enough and I made an appointment with my GP. That appointment changed everything as shortly afterwards I suffered a big psychotic manic episode induced by the anti depressants I was prescribed and from this I ended up with the bipolar diagnosis.
In the last few sessions with both Sam and Holly we have been looking at anxiety in part because mine is that little bit more manageable at the moment. These discussions have caused me to reflect on things and I look back at times this past year where the anxiety has been uncontrollable so I’ve been scared of having my curtains open because people might look in and laugh at me, at one point this was so bad that I used to go into my kitchen in darkness put on a pan of boiling water and wait for it to boil and in turn fog up the windows at which point I allowed myself to enter the kitchen and cook or do the washing up. At other times the mere thought of crowds has resulted in abject horror so that I’ve hibernated inside and on the odd occasions where I’ve had to face crowds, at times I’ve been struggling to stop a panic attack from happening. I thus have to concede that whilst the anxiety is no where near as bad as that at the moment I probably am an anxious person isn’t reflection weird!
