Thursday 14 November 2013

MY JOURNEY | anxiety, phobias and panic attacks.

Hello honeys!
Writing about such serious issues is something that is completely out of my comfort zone, but after having a major increase in my anxiety levels and becoming aware of this, I thought I'd write a blog post in hope that this will help someone. Recently, my anxiety has been getting out of control and I have read a lot of blog posts on the matter, so I thought that I'd create one as they have really helped me.


What triggered your anxiety?
My anxiety started pretty much as soon as I can remember. It all started with my phobia for dogs, which most people think is silly. From a young age, I didn't have any pets (except fish, which I'm unsure counts?!) so I think not growing up with animals, probably created my fear... but who knows! When I went to a specialist at my doctors recently to help with my anxiety and phobia... Let's just say it wasn't the best experience.
 
How bad is your phobia?
Whenever my friends or family for that matter would invite me to their house, I would have to make  up an excuse because I would refuse to go to their house if they had a pet dog. It also got to a stage where the weather used to determine whether I would walk the short cut way or the normal way to my house after school/college. If the weather was warm, I'd presume that more dogs would be in their gardens so I'd walk the longer way and if the weather was cold I'd be brave and walk the short cut way. I bet you're thinking if the dog is in it's garden, then it won't attack you? This is were my anxiety comes in, if I see a dog then my anxiety kicks in majorly so I avoid every situation I can.
 
Have you ever been attacked by a dog?
For years I hadn't and the fear of not knowing what could happen to me scared me more than the fear of the outcome if I was to ever get attacked. However this summer (2013) I was attacked by a dog that I had previously been trying to avoid, however after seeing my specialist and getting instructed to walk somewhere that I know has a dog.. well you know what happened next. I was attacked. Fortunately I wasn't hurt as it only bit my foot and because I was wearing uggs (in summer? crazy I know) that were too big for me, it didn't cause me any pain.
 
What is anxiety?
Although everyone has anxiety, just in most cases it is next to nothing which I am extremely jealous about. Unfortunately, most people just throw around the word 'anxiety' whenever they feel like it and that's really insensitive and gets me quite annoyed. So I thought I'd answer the most basic question that even I struggled to answer because its hard to describe.When I googled the question it came up with "a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome.". Which is a basic outline of what anxiety is; however to me, its something much worse. Anxiety is a feeling of uncertainty and panic which may lead into panic attacks which I experienced for the first time two weeks ago so I may make a blog post about it soon. If you have any questions about my person experience or anything in general please don't hesitate to email me at the email address to the right or just write them as a comment below.
 
How do you personally deal with your anxiety?
1. Taking time out and distracting myself from my issues normally gets me through my anxiety, normally when I'm feeling nervous and upset I go to my very close friend so that she can take my mind off the matter. However just taking deep breaths, switching off my phone and lying down just so the world seems to have slowed down for a minute helps me to calm down and control it.
2. Anxiety is developed by fear and most people tell you to directly face your fear. Although this is true, I think people underestimate people's abilities and facing my fear is definitely not on the cards for me anytime soon. I personally like to take 'baby steps' and when I've accomplished something that's feasible to me, I feel so proud of myself and it helps me get through my troubles for the meantime.
3. Don't expect perfection. If your anxiety gets the worst of you and you feel like you cant do it or you start to uncontrollable cry or feel hopeless. Just remember anxiety isn't something you can just over come in a short amount of time. Normally I read inspiration quotes and remember that I will get over the fear with time. When I start uncontrollably crying, I start to tell myself that I WILL get over this anxiety, I repeat it over and over in my head because then I start to believe it. 
4. Sometimes my anxiety gets the better of me and if its a fear of some sort I avoid it at any cost but I know that you shouldn't do this. My anxiety also used to come from public speaking (I know, I had lots of triggers) and you need to just ask yourself what's the worst thing that could happen? Because you'll soon realise that you'll regret avoiding the situation and in my case not turning up to do a speech.

I may do a part two of this in the future but for now I think I've covered everything I wanted to.


Thanks for reading and I hope this helped 
xx
 
 

2 comments:

  1. I have anxiety as well and its nice to see another blogger who understands, and thank you for sharing your insight on it! Im terrible at public speaking and I have never been able to get over it, no matter how many presentations I have done :p

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    1. this is so ironic but I've got a presentation today which I'm dreading!! thank you for reading my journey, hope it helped x

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