Join The Club: Dealing With Health Anxiety In The Coronavirus Era

Having health anxiety sucks, having health anxiety in the midst of a global pandemic is a nightmare. You might be anxious too, now the coronavirus is a threat, but we've been doing this for years. We're the experts.

Health Anxiety?

Health anxiety is the new, kinder term for hypochondrias.  It is, at its core, the crushing fear of being ill and sometimes passing on illness. This particular branch of crippling anxiety was given a new name because of the stigma that comes with the hypochondriac label. There is so much shame around the matter that sufferers would rather suffer in silence than voice their worries. You're told you're being overdramatic, attention-seeking or just plain stupid. Hypochondriacs are a comedy cliche. You don't have to agree with the fear, but you have to understand that it is terrifying and life-altering for the sufferers.

Typically, we'd assume health anxiety is ultimately a fear of dying from an illness but it's so much more than that. Each person tends to have their own reasons for being so scared. As an ex-agoraphobe, mine revolves mostly around not being able to escape. When I feel threatened, my instinct is to leave, cancel or somehow put an end to it. I can't do that with the coronavirus outbreak. I can't make it go away. We all have no choice but to sit and watch with uneasy hope. I am terrified of feeling ill, whatever the symptoms might be. I am afraid to be trapped in a hospital. I am afraid that if I catch the virus and it gets bad, I have no control over what it does to my body. I am afraid to have no control over who I spread it to if I don't know I have it yet.

I Can't Fix It

When this kind of anxiety starts to flood every minute of our lives, we develop incredibly unhealthy coping mechanisms. If you tell us that washing our hands can solve this problem, or any health problem really, then through sheer terror we'll do it until we have no skin left. Unsure where all that soap went? Check the cupboards of any health anxiety sufferers, we're stocked up no matter the current global climate. We'll over check our bodies every second of every day on any given day too, just in case we've developed an illness, let alone now in the times of a pandemic. There's a strong desire nationwide to just stay home. Self-Isolation is all good and well, but staying home is a slippery slope - I would know.

I've read the statistics, I've listened to the comforting words of professionals, it just doesn't sink in. The crux of anxiety is that statistics don't matter. I could be that one in one million. Someone has to be, right?

You say the coronavirus will only harm the elderly and the immunocompromised and the ablism is heard loud and clear. The guilt I feel for using my privilege to comfort myself is crippling in itself. Health anxiety stretches to our loved ones too. I don't want just healthy old me to not have to deal with it, I don't want anyone to have to.

They can tell us that we'll be fine if we wash our hands, but I don't want the "if". I want to hear that it is fine. No more no less, just fine, please.

In fighting the urge to run away to some distant mountain town, so far off-grid even a global pandemic can't touch it, I've tried being constantly on top of the news. I've spent more time on my phone than ever, under the belief that knowledge is power. The whole world is talking about it and all I want is to run from it, but I've been through enough therapy to know that running isn't the answer. Instead of tolerating the constant aches, nausea, and dizziness, I've decided to take knowledge to extremes and only left myself more scared. Turns out, absorbing negative information from unreliable sources every second of every day ISN'T good for your mental health??

Reality Beckons 

If knowledge is my only way to feel any sense of power, then I have to do it right. No more twitter, no more deep-dive conspiracy theories and definitely no more hysterical Mothers on Facebook. Or anyone hysterical on Facebook really. I can't count how many times I've seen comments on coronavirus related threads from people who claim to know a secret the government or media are hiding. Trust me when I say that journalists aren't that sly. If there was a secret out there, someone would have sold it to a media outlet by now. If unverified strangers are spouting "hidden" statistics and mass cover-ups, at least one other source would know about it. There are papers (not mentioning any names 🌞) who will do unspeakable things just to be the first to break a story. If these MI5 spies turned Facebook commenters were right, believe when I say it wouldn't stay hidden for long. 

The thing with anxiety is that we struggle to distinguish between genuine threats and hysteria created by media and the people around us. Through lots of therapy, I came to learn of the availability heuristic. This, in short, is where we trick ourselves into believing something is more common or more likely because we hear about it a lot. In a world where news, opinions, and discussions are available 24/7, we're constantly falling victim to the availability heuristic. Plane crashes, car accidents, abductions and even murders we seem to think are likely. This is because we can't stop hearing about it. There are 7 Billion people on the planet, nothing is likely. 

To put the whole thing into perspective: the UK has a population of over 60 million. If we gained 1000 new cases a day, which is incredibly high and unlikely, it would take 164 (and a bit) years to reach the whole country. Given those numbers, why do so many of us feel like our chances of contracting the virus are so high? 

It doesn't matter if the news is good or bad, media circulation is about fear. This outbreak is the first pandemic to occur in our social media age. Swine Flu killed more than 200 UK residents, but I barely remember it happened. The escalation and inescapable nature of this outbreak are what's fuelling the fear.

In truth, the virus IS dangerous. People ARE dying. Vulnerable people are at the highest risk of an infection being fatal, but no one is talking about the mentally vulnerable. A little research revealed that as many as 35% of SARS survivors suffered years of PTSD. The toll these things take on our mental state should not be underestimated. Since the coronavirus arrived in the UK, anxiety charity No Panic has reported a 20% jump in calls to their helpline and OCD UK reports similar increases in cries for help.

Understand that your hysteria is not helping others to "prepare". It's fuelling terror in those who suffer from anxieties. We have genuine and reliable sources who provide information on the outbreak and progress of the virus without scaremongering, if we need advice, we'll find it there. Assuring us that "more people die from the flu" only makes me nervous about getting seasonal flu in a way I never was before.

Clickbait Media 

Scooby Dooby Dooby Do Not Spread
False Information

In researching this virus that has stolen my focus and any voice of reason I had, I was forced to sift through so many headlines that could have terrified me had they been relayed to me by someone who hadn't read the article. (You know you do it. We all do.) On January 31st, the Plymouth Herald informed us that DEATH RATES ARE HIGHER THAN RECOVERY RATES. This statement came based on research from only a few countries and later admit that recovery rates are slower to be calculated. A pretty bold statement to have made, ey. 

The BBC has published an article which informs us that between 5 and 40 people in every 1000 cases will die. Nonsense statistics like this are terrifying. Those of us predisposed to panic will jump on the 40, while others feel comfortable with the 5. This only leads to judgment and rudeness when someone confesses that they're scared because what you see as nothing is a nightmare to others.  

Recovery Secrets

In all of this madness, all I want to hear about is successful recoveries. Turns out, no one wants to talk about that. It doesn't make for an exciting news story. I found only a handful of articles that mention someone who has recovered, and none were particularly insightful. I understand that tracking and reporting recoveries can be tricky, but my anxious brain is craving it. Reporting recoveries relies on re-testing, which can take an awfully long time given the priority of new cases. Recovery is vague, is it based on feeling better or the virus still being present in our bodies? We can assume though, that after a few weeks if the case isn't reported as critical or fatal, it's been a recovery. 

Wikipedia has been the most reliable resource in all of this chaos, because it's the only one that offers up every source they've used and admitted that, though several outlets have reported recovery numbers, no one has confirmed it from an official source. Reality is though, recoveries have happened. It is not a death sentence.

Hiding recoveries might seem like a conspiracy theory, but is there really anything we would put past our media? The recovery rate and death rates are statistical illusions because they can't be calculated at the same time. If it takes 2-4 weeks to recover from the coronavirus, we won't hear about the recovery for a month. If someone dies, it tends to be early on. This lets the death rate soar before the rest can catch up. Recovery is all I want to hear about, and all we never get told. 

A Not So Grim Outlook 

We can't escape the media frenzy telling us that the outlook is grim. Every news outlet has at least one story a day that insists that the positive cases are set to soar. We get it. We know it's not going to stay this low, but we don't need to be bombarded with the idea that we're all in peril. 

The unknown is terrifying for most of us, especially those with anxiety that can only be calmed by having a sense of control. So far, all we have to compare our outlook to is China and Italy and, given that negative media sells, all we heard is that it's a disaster zone. But China is improving every day. The number of cases is dropping every day. This good news isn't shared and is another statistical illusion. The numbers don't add up yet, if they ever will. Active cases, death rates, and recovery rates don't equal the total number of cases reported, even after all these months. Keep this in mind when you're reading statistics. Don't let everything you see scare you, God knows I've spent the last few months wasting my time with this kind of stress.

Whether you're scared on a regular basis, or just now with the virus fear, a little respect and concern for others will go a long way. If you need unhealthy coping mechanisms or unintentional ableism just to get by, then, for now, do what you have to do.

When you're teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown most of the time, the thought of getting a dangerous virus is enough to push you to the edge. Think before you share. I'm not looking for sympathy for myself or fellow health anxiety sufferers, just maybe a second thought before you jump on the hysteria train.


P.S 20 seconds is a long time please turn the tap off and recycle your excessive soap bottles.  



Here are some reliable sources for your coronavirus news:

https://www.who.int/ - World Health Organization

https://www.nhs.uk/ - National Health Service

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/public-health-england - Public Health England

Learn To Check Facts Before You Share -https://notsofastcampaign.org/fact-checking/


For direct help from charities and organizations:

https://nopanic.org.uk/coronavirus/ - No Panic 

https://www.mind.org.uk/ - Mind 

https://www.anxietyuk.org.uk/ - Anxiety UK

https://www.ocduk.org/ocd-and-coronavirus/ - OCD UK

I Don't Know About You: 22

I've avoided writing this for so long. I've started this piece three times, re-downloaded Grammarly, changed my blog layout, changed it back, and pretended to be researching by reviewing my entire camera roll. I'm done hiding now. I'm ready to tell the truth, to stop hiding behind half-truths.

I haven't written in way too long now and I keep telling myself (and everyone else) that it's because I have nothing to say. At surface level, that's true, but deeper down I know there's still plenty to be said for where I am right now. I pretend it's all rainbows and butterflies around here, so there's nothing to write home about. In truth, it's more rain and caterpillars, and sunshine and chrysalises (does that even make sense?) It's good with the bad, it's summer with the humidity, it's a chocolate brownie with walnuts. The good is easy to talk about - it's achievements and successes and moments I'm truly proud of. The bad, however, is harder than ever to share. In the past, bad was most of what made up my consciousness, it was front and centre and talking about it came easy because it was all that was expected from me. Now, it feels like the bad is barely considered because it's barely shown, even if that's my own overactive imagination assuming what others think. I worry that I've shown so much of my good days that no one (that's friends, family and all the way to strangers across the internet) have this picture of me being healthy and ready for anything.

This terrifies me for only one reason - expectation.

When you're openly ill, mentally or otherwise, expectations are low. You're left to call your own shots and there's no surprise on the faces of others when "no" is the response to an offer that you aren't ready for. When your illness is less present, easier to manage and easier to hide, it feels like expectations skyrocket. Suddenly, "no" is no longer an option, or at least it doesn't feel like it is. The world has seen your success and it wants to be a part of it. Making self-care choices becomes a rarity when you want to please others, when you have no real reason not to. When the world has seen you succeed at so much, it doesn't understand why you don't always want to be excelling. It expects you to be choosing to push at every opportunity and can't make heads nor tails of it when you choose comfort over progress sometimes. It expects you to have outgrown that. It's disappointed when you want to stand still for a moment, and disappointment is the hardest reaction to face up to.

As I stand here on the precipice of turning 22, I find myself nostalgic for the year gone by, undoubtedly the most progressive, successful year of my life (on my June to June brain calendar). I share the occasional highlight on social media, but I try to keep it to a minimum because I like to keep it realistic (and the crippling fear of others thinking I'm completely fine). In this post I've been avoiding like the plague, I want to finally gloat a little. I want to show the world how proud I am and how possible recovery is, eventually. But I'd be doing myself a disservice if I didn't tell the truth and reveal the darker moments, the truths I've been hiding. I owe it to myself for the year to come, a year I have no doubt will be even more progressive than the last, to go into it with honesty, and offer the world some realistic expectations for what's to come. Maybe somehow, by being raw here, I'll calm my expectation-fearing soul.

In May of 2018, I suffered what I like to call "an episode" - a series of consecutive days where anxiety plagues my body. The day after booking my driving theory test, I found myself in a constant panic wave that never crested. That's what they don't tell you about living with panic attacks - I'd rather have a full attack and see it finish (because your body can't sustain high stress like that for long) than be trapped in this constant mediocre panic feeling that never peaks. The anxiety was maintaining itself inside me, feeding on itself, but never reaching high enough to come back down. I was terrified, unable to move or function. I felt sick to my stomach (I kind of hate that phrase, of course, it's to my stomach) and desperately tried to be sick, just to get it over with, but that wasn't what my body was trying to do.

When you're anxious, your body shuts down your digestive system because it's a waste of blood and energy that could be used in your muscles to fight or run from the threat. This innate reaction is useless in modern times when we aren't often running from or fighting the things we're afraid of. It just creates nausea, a futile feeling at best, but never anything more. It's no benefit to your evolution to be sick when you're under threat.

This lasted a few days, during which I shook uncontrollably, ate dry pieces of bread and hid away from the world. If you check my social media, you'll see no sign of this, because I didn't want to share it. It wasn't fun, it wasn't pretty and it wasn't something I was proud of.

I pulled myself out of it though. I never cried once. Looking back, I'm grateful to this phase for hurting me so deeply that I vowed never to go back. I canceled my driving theory test less than 24 hours after the booking and prepared myself to start learning to live all over again. Dizziness set in after my week of nausea subsided and lasted until February. I was spaced out, unsteady on my feet and my vision was disturbed.

There's no rhyme or reason for the symptoms that present in a hyper-stimulated body. It picks and chooses which physical aspects of anxiety presents as and when it wants. Hyper-stimulation is something I simply have to learn to live with, at least for a few years now, until my body has been adrenaline free for a long time. Every day features some level of anxiety for me, especially now that I'm working so hard on bettering myself, and this means flooding myself with adrenaline on a daily basis. Hyper-stimulation is the name for the state your body enters when it has been subjected to so much adrenaline so regularly that it no longer returns to a calm state, even when you're feeling mentally calm. At any given moment, my body is behaving as if I'm under threat. This presents itself in ways I never knew possible. Nausea comes from a constantly restarting digestive system. Dizziness comes from a lack of correct breathing and a continuous scrambling of the senses - which challenges your eyes and sense of balance. I get hiccups, headaches, body aches, unmanagable temperature changes, and rashes. Nothing about how I feel is "okay", but I'm okay.

This last year has been difficult. It's been laden with anxiety, physical symptoms I never expected and more challenges than I can count. I learned that even my worst anxiety doesn't hurt me, nothing I feel ever comes to the horrendous kind of conclusions I imagine. The problem is, in our multi-level brains, it's easy for our logical mind to know and understand something while our emotional subconscious stays doubtful. In my head, I know I'm safe, I know panic can't hurt me, I know anxiety isn't something to fear, but in my heart, sometimes it's harder to be certain.

In no particular order, in just one year my world had stretched to include; Sitting in cafe's all alone, taking Mia on walks for hours, miles from home, with no idea where we are or where we're going, taking buses whenever I'd like, taking those buses to wherever I want all alone, letting my ever so patient boyfriend take me on actual dates. I've taken trains, I've been to places I'd never been to before. My life is more open and free than I could have imagined this time last year.

In the last 6 months alone my life has become almost unrecognisable. In January, I passed my driving theory test. In February, I joined the volunteers at Parkrun and find myself going back every week. In March, I joined a weekly yoga class, yoga has been my saving grace regardless of how obnoxious it is, the first "class" I've been anywhere near since 2014. In June, I started my first real job. I get paid to do what I love, to write. Life has gotten a little hectic, and sometimes I still feel like I'm not ready for everything I've taken on, but for the first time in many years, I no longer feel like labeling myself as an anxious person. I feel alive and normal, and normal is bliss.

None of these achievements would be quite so sweet if it weren't for the upsets and struggles I've had to go through to get there. None of this came easy, and most of it still isn't. There's no defined time it takes for a new experience to become less frightening, but I know it's an awfully long wait. After about 15 weeks at the Parkrun, I had my first panic attack in more than a year and a half just before the event. I still can't really understand why, but my body was fighting it as hard as it could. I was gagging and shaking and locked into my own body. Then it finished and I moved on. I went to the event and I behaved no differently than any other day. I have never had a panic attack that I've walked away from without any emotional scarring - until then. If that's not progress I don't know what is.

I booked my first driving lesson in March. I also canceled my first driving lesson in March. I felt nothing but dread and terror and there was no joy in the anticipation for me. Maybe I'd have come around if I stuck with it, but that's something I have to live with. I refuse to regret the decisions I make to protect myself if it was right at the time. Not every day has to be lived fearlessly. I've said yes to challenges more this year than ever, but I'm also more ready to forgive myself on days I have to say no.

I've taken more medications this year than I ever too, and I'm finally not afraid of that. A typical part of agoraphobic anxiety is a fear of taking medications, the fear that once it's in your body you have no control over what side effects might come. For the majority of the last few years, this included avoiding pain killers on my period and Lemsip when I had a cold. When the dizziness started to win, I decided to be brave. My doctor prescribed me Propranolol, a beta-blocker to help steady my heart and breathing. When nausea returned these last few months and I started to drink Gavison like it was water, I turned back to my doctor. Hiatus Hernia, he said. (You can look that up yourself.)
I was given Omezparole, a proton-pump inhibitor which stops acid from being produced, to give my organs a chance to repair themselves.

Anxiety is a physical illness just as much as mental and I won't hear otherwise. When I say something is too difficult, it's because of the dread that comes with challenging yourself when your oesophagus is eating itself, or your brain is unable to steady your balance, not because I'm too nervous to step out of my comfort zone.

I suppose that's it. I didn't really expect this to descend into a science lesson but I'm glad it did. The honest truth is that I'm doing really well, thriving, I hesitate to say. I'm also struggling, almost every day, because I've never been so torn between wanting more and wanting to hide. It's easier to give up, to stay away from the pain because it feels safer in the knowledge I'm doing nothing to risk any anxiety, but that's not what I want and that means I'm going to have to hurt. I'm going to have to have more episodes, more panic attacks and more symptoms I don't deserve, but it's all in the name of progress.

So here's to 22, may it bring me discomfort and terror and pride and success. I'm ready now, I'm ready for what lies beyond.

Dear Mia: and other things she can't read

For those of you who have managed to avoid seeing anything I've posted all year, we got a dog. In February we brought home our 8 week old, 4 kilogram, black labrador baby girl.

Like most dog people, I spent years trying to convince my family that getting a dog would be a good idea, but to no avail. That was, until last Christmas, when all the planets aligned and the whole family finally agreed that we wanted a dog and that it could be really good for my anxiety. (As first-time dog owners, for my parents too, we didn't have the knowledge for a rescue.)

One of the lovely boys (I'm wearing
the same outfit as collection day, yes)

Come January, we started our search for labrador litters - the perfect "not girly or fluffy or tiny" family dog for us.We found one in the area and made a plan to visit them one weekend. On a Saturday, we headed 40 minutes away from home, the furthest I had been in years. We met two lovely boys who were 16 weeks old and would have been ready to come home with us the very next weekend, and my god was I excited. However, my family wanted to see another litter before making a choice and found one that evening. I agreed reluctantly to see a litter over an hour and a half drive from home and were only 5 weeks old, but at least we could visit them the very next day.

On Sunday, we journeyed all the way to the south coast. I was shaking, gagging, and utterly terrified, but as soon as we entered the beautiful, cosy suburban home and were greeted by SEVEN 5 week old puppies, I felt a sense of calm I can't describe. We were told there were two still unreserved, both black girls. They were identical in every way, apart from one with little white paws - we knew that one would be ours. It felt like she belonged with us: she was the runt and a little out of it, my soulmate. I let go of the boys from the day before, and I hope they landed somewhere lovely, but this litter stole my heart. We visited them twice more before collecting our new baby on February 18th.

I wish I had a better picture from
our journey home, but you try
taking a picture of a very
concerned tiny puppy. 

On that journey to collect her I almost threw up in the car, so terrified that I was making a decision I couldn't handle. I shoved my total panic down because this was something I really, really wanted. She screamed the entire way home, between snoozes (a sign of things to come probably), and we named her Mia.

Once home, I couldn't keep my eyes off her, struggling to calm my panic and my excitement all at once - And then she fell asleep in my lap, and all my anxiety faded. I was a mother.

Our first few weeks together were wonderful. Lots of sleeping, then lots of stress. Puppies are hard, man. Into March I began to feel painfully anxious all the time, and then came a week of panic attacks. From the moment I woke up, I would be shaking. I couldn't eat, I couldn't move, and I couldn't look at Mia. She was a constant reminder that I was under pressure to be better, I wasn't coping with the responsibility. I still feel knots in my stomach when I remember that one day, through tears and pain I told my mum we couldn't keep her. I'm so ashamed of myself for feeling that way, but apparently puppy post-partum is common. My Mum's not one to fight my anxious requests and appreciate that, but my god am I glad she said no this time.

Despite not being friendly to her at all that week, Mia never gave up on me. She'd sit on my feet at the end of the sofa while I shook and cried, and licked my hands when she could reach. As the week wore on, my strength grew back, and my bond with her has been unbreakable ever since.

Her existence in my life has impacted my mental health in such a positive way. I wanted to get better for her, so I did. In March I went on my very first walk with her, out in the woods, and I've been almost every day since. I've been to different places, at different times, with different people, when less than 6 months before I never would have considered it at all.

Since that awful week, she's been my sidekick. My inseparable soulmate. We barely spend any time apart really. For years I've been stranded at home by my anxiety, but with her, that doesn't feel so sad. I haven't felt lonely all year, because I know she's always here, happy to just hang out.

Within a few weeks of having Mia in our home, she developed the name "Mia Moo", and usually goes by Moo now. I honestly couldn't tell you how it started, but it truly is the best fitting name for her. My girl is quite the character.

She spends most of her time on her back, whether it's sleeping or playing, she just doesn't want to stand up, she's a bundle of limbs and strange noises. So many noises. What she does want, is to eat. My god she loves food. So much so that on her very first day we had to stop her eating moss and rocks. We don't stop her anymore, we have to pick our battles. Between mud, sticks, pinecones, carpet and bugs, we don't have much time for anything else - honestly, it's a relief when she's stolen real human food for once. She's a goofy little thing, with no coordination or common sense. She does as she pleases whether its logical, or safe, or not.

She is the sassiest, most determined, independent puppy dog ever. She is also the clingiest, whiniest dog. She wants her own sofa to sleep on and will move if you sit near her when she wants space, but if you leave her alone, she'll cry. If you aren't paying attention to her, she'll cry. If she's hot, cold, tired, hungry, wants to play, wants to sleep, she'll cry. She definitely lives a life of her own, and does what she wants when she wants and will get her own way eventually. It took her 9 months, but she successfully made her way into my bed overnight, despite having her own downstairs.

Mia now weighs 27 kilograms and will be one year old on the 21st of December. I couldn't be without her now, she is the absolute love of my life but she is an absolute menace. Theft is her favourite pass time. We've lost slippers, flip-flops, an entire bench, a rubber duck.. the list goes on... but for some strange reason, we still love her endlessly. (It'll be because she's so damn cute, and she knows it.)

She'll greet us excitedly when we've been gone for minutes. She hates the vacuum cleaner but is so fearless that she thinks she can take it on, every single day. She's a year old and still doesn't understand her own tail. She doesn't understand social cues and tries to play with dogs even when they're clearly mad at her.
Sometimes she wakes up in the night and coughs up wood like a cat coughs up hairballs. Nothing she does ever makes any sense, and I'm utterly obsessed with her.

My Mia Moo is definitely one of a kind, and couldn't be more suited to her odd white paws (and tail, and chest..). I don't think any description could do her justice, you have to see her to believe how totally bizarre and completely lovely she is. I could not be more grateful for her falling into my life.

Happy Birthday, baby Moo.

If you want more Moo pictures, and who doesn't, my snapchat is dedicted to her - beckystorey

Hi, I'm Anxious

Have you ever been caught out doing something odd like making faces at yourself in the mirror or sniffing your own armpits, and found yourself on the spot trying to explain it away? That tension, that desperate search through your mind for any other excuse is exactly how I feel when I realise I've inadvertently mentioned that I'm at home in the middle of the day, on a weekday, when most people should be at work or in some sort of education.

Being a social dog walker, I meet new people almost daily, and some of them I spend enough time with to get to know closer. I love meeting new people and learning about their lives, which as an anxious soul is a little out of character - but there's something that I just can't get enough of when it comes to listening to other people's stories. From what I know about how to socialise, it seems we just drop hints into the conversation on what we do with our days. My Mum will mention something about being in a school and after the always necessary "oh you're a teacher?", she then goes on to explain that she only works in the background and then further on to discuss and share thoughts and ideas with the new acquaintance. Being in my situation, I miss out on this form of bonding.



Sometimes in these conversations with new faces, I'll mention something about what I do with my time. Usually, this means implying that I've been at home in the middle of the day when most 20-somethings would be busy. I stifle myself once I've let this slip, waiting for them to ask what I do. More often than not, they don't. I assume everyone just jumps to assuming they misheard, or that I am in fact extremely lazy. What they don't assume is that a mental health problem could be behind it all.

Despite how it sounds, truthfully, I want to be asked what I do. I'm not afraid of talking about it, I'm afraid of bringing it up myself. If another person opens the door to discussing my anxiety then any discomfort they feel is on them, but if I start it I feel so much remorse for pushing a taboo topic on them.

I'm not embarrassed about who I am or what I do. It's basically a full-time job for me to talk openly about my anxiety. I'm not sensitive to questions, in fact, I welcome them. I'm proud of myself and I see the importance in helping others learn about such rare disorders like my Agoraphobia. The issue is always with how other people feel about it. I never know what a person is going to say. I never have high expectations but there's nothing quite as uncomfortable as someone responding with "oh you just have to take deep breaths and keep going, ey?" ... Thank you for your kind words but 4 years of panic attacks can't be fixed with deep breathing.

Explaining that my anxiety means I find it hard to leave the house is tough to do when I am in fact outside my house. I have to follow up every revelation with "it's getting better though, a year ago I never would have come here" because when you say mental health, people want to see mental health. For those who are unfamiliar with mental illnesses, it's hard to see how anyone could be anything other than totally broken or totally fine.

I'm well enough to walk my dog, not to go to work.
I'm well enough to go shopping, not to be in education.

I hope for a future where it no longer feels like I don't have the privilege of talking openly about who I am. I hope for a world where I get to fully immerse myself in meeting new people and sharing my life just as much as any fully functional person would do. For now, all I can say is, ask me. Don't fear the possibility of the conversation taking a turn you might not be prepared for. All I want, and I imagine most others like me, is to be as normal as everyone else. I want to talk about my interests and my life, it shouldn't matter that I don't fit into all the same categories as other people my age.

I want to talk about it and I want to be honest, but I've also been taught over the years that I don't have the freedom to start the conversation myself because I can't force anyone into an uncomfortable position. Ask those questions, get to know people even if the conversation won't be as small talk-y as we're used to. You never know how interesting a person could be, or how much your life could be changed just by getting to know someone.
(also I promise my anxiety stories are witty and hilarious, never sad and uncomfortable)

The Old Me Can't Come To The Phone Right Now

This evening, returning from a late evening walk with my family and our puppy (she's 9 months old okay, she's still a puppy), staring wistfully out of the window at the pink sunset in the distance, Taylor Swift began to play on the radio. I love her and I don't care who knows it but Look What You Made Me Do has had to grow on me. Sitting there contemplating life, I began to spiral on the concept of a personal evolution. Changing who you are in its entirety, so much so that any old version of you no longer exists.

Mirror Pictures circa 2005

It's a strange concept when I think about it, that we can fully let go of an older copy of ourselves and completely change our fundamentals. I suppose when I read that back, it's just growing up. From the ages of 5 to 10, of course, we'd change. 10-15, sure. 15-20, I guess so. 

But what if, in the space of 4 years, you lose everything about yourself only to have to start again? 

Between the ages of 16 and 20, my whole world changed so much that I had no choice but to redevelop myself, working from the bottom up. I don't have an issue with the changes in myself, or other people for that matter. I'd always advocate for adapting and changing whatever parts of you you'd like whenever you'd like.  My concern lies with the footprint you've left in the earth. The footprint that you no longer fit inside.

I exist as two different people in this world now. The person I am today, and the person I was 4 years ago in the world I left behind. We all exist as different copies of ourselves really. When that distant family member says "my goodness haven't you grown!" that's them confessing that they had held one single copy of you in their mind and hadn't taken it upon themselves to update it. This past version of myself now exists only in a world that has long forgotten me. When others think of me, without knowledge of who I am today, they think of nothing but a ghost. A figment of their imagination. It's not that I have a problem with the who I was at 16, it's just that nothing remains of that person. Like a snake, we all shed our skin every so often, we just do it in personality traits and hair colour. 

Mirror pictures 2013

In 4 years of changing, I've had to learn who I am from scratch, with this new slightly more anxious vibe. Trauma teaches you who you are pretty quickly. When you stare your own mortality in the face and decide you want to survive, you begin to really live as exactly who you want to be without shame or apologies. Things I would pretend to be interested in, pretend to like, pretend to be when I was 16 are entirely gone from my life. If I don't want it, I won't have it. I am unapologetically myself even when it's not the socially desirable option or even the practical option. Gaining this level of self-acceptance is the only thing that will push you through years of oppressive mental illness. I am anxious 24/7 and it is important to me to always look after myself in any way necessary, I'm not going to be ashamed of what I do and do not feel capable of.

What used to be mornings of waking up at the crack of dawn just to cover myself in badly applied makeup and straighten and backcomb my already dead hair, are now mornings filled with deep breathing and kindness (and puppies). My mind may be unwell, but my soul feels healthier than ever, and I owe that to my choice to strip away everything I don't want any more. I am in awe of the people who do run their mornings with beauty and glamour, I could spend hours watching makeup videos on Instagram but I'm self-assured enough to know I'm not interested in trying it myself. I suppose I'm a bit stubborn now, I won't do anything I don't want to do if it involves pretending to be someone I'm not. Life is far too short to torture myself by forcing myself into activities I don't want to do.

Academia was never my strong point, not because I wasn't smart, but because I didn't care. If I didn't care for the subject, I wasn't going to do it. (Here's a written apology to all the teachers who dealt with my "coasting", thank you for sticking it out.) These days, despite not being in any full-time education, I love to learn because it's MY choice, and there are so many teachers and classes I look back on fondly, for still inspiring me to keep growing. Turns out the world is just a much easier place to be in when you're not being forced or pretending.

When I first cut my hair off, I felt free, like I'd released myself from the chains which held me back to being the same person I'd always been. Turns out, changing your look won't automatically free you from the past, but it's a good start. Not too long ago, I went and bleached my hair again for the very first time since I was 16. Being bleach blonde was my "thing" then and I held onto it with the grip of a child on a comfort blanket, but when I got ill I decided it wasn't important anymore. Dying my hair again seems so insignificant, but to me it really meant something. It meant to me that I was getting better. That I was shifting my priorities again, to include indulgence, because my desire to try new things and stand out a little more had returned. Not everything from your past life has to go away forever, you see. You can pick and chose who you want to be at any given time and you never have to feel guilty or wrong for dropping and collecting any parts of you that you feel you're missing, or don't want around for a while.

I feel so much more peaceful inside myself these days. I have nothing but positivity to put out into the world, even when it hasn't always done the same in return. I often wish I'd found this part of myself when I was younger, but sometimes you have to learn the hard way. I consider myself a grandma in a 20-somethings body (even if I'm often mistaken for 15), and I couldn't be happier. If I'd felt this confident in my own choices when I was at school, I truly think life would have been extremely different today.

Mirror Pictures 2017

There's something endlessly relieving about totally letting go of your former self, and keeping only the parts you truly want. Accepting wholeheartedly that you made some poor choices and some excellent choices, and that you don't need to continue to carry them all with you. In the end, if those in your past life hold an incorrect version of you in their mind, then they aren't important to your new being anyway. You don't have to live in the shadow of your youth, no matter what the catalyst to your change was. You can start today, just because you want to.

You can cleanse your life of all the debris that remains from the years gone by, you don't need to carry it with you. Be it pictures you've kept, a hairstyle or Facebook friends you barely remember, you are allowed to start again. Those who remind you of your wrong-doings aren't valuable to your fresh start. The people who have watched you change and grow will be the only people who matter.

The only harm you can do comes from allowing your memories to shape who you are today. You don't have to be a certain type of person, interested in certain types of things just because of your experiences in the past or what others thought of you. You can shape your own world, just by deciding that you want to start again.

I'm telling you, you are allowed to make choices that will erase your footprint from the earth. You're allowed as many footprints as you need before you get it right for you.

I suppose my point is that you can be whatever and whoever you want. Change as often as you feel necessary. Adapt to new surroundings and never feel guilty for leaving behind a world you once happily inhabited. Know that some people weren't meant to benefit your life forever, some may have never benefitted you at all, but the clouds of youth covered it. Start fresh and be unapologetically yourself.

Dungarees, a puppy, and that boy I friend zoned in 2008.

Stop pretending you care about things your friends like, so you'll fit in.
Stop going out to places you don't like, doing things you don't care for, just because it's the done thing.
Cut out the ex-partners and ex-friends that don't serve to benefit your life. In fact, as a general rule, cut out anyone who doesn't add joy to your days without hesitation.
Take up that hobby you're nervous about because you don't know if it'll be weird or if you'll be any good.
Put your feelings out there and never look back.

Not Quite a Girl Not Yet a Woman: Recovery and the Art of Getting Better

Lately, my most prominent topic of conversation among both my neurotypical friends and my ever growing group of less neurotypical friends has by far and away been recovery - and more specifically how we seem to be punished by the universe simply for getting better. The world can understand "irreparably ill" and "completely fine" but the in between stages of "far from bad but far from good" seems to send other people into an endless spiral of confusion, leading us to have to pick up the pieces for them.

I can understand why it's so hard to grasp the concept from an outside view. When I say I can walk to our local corner shop with no issues, and I can even do it with other people these days, I'm always met with praise and congratulations, but when I say I can't get in the car and drive there? Blank stares and confused eyebrows. Why can't I do that if I can do this? Boy if I knew, I'd be doing it all.


My best example is that on many occasions now, I've been able to drive with my boyfriend (shout out H ily) but other days I simply can't. No if's no buts, I'm just not doing it without an unfathomable panic attack. There's no rhyme or reason as to why it differs, it just does and everyone else needs to be on board with that. Nothing stays the same, okay?

There seems to be this notion that recovery should happen all at once and all together when it's more like taking a category at a time.
Walking - Check.
Into this one tiny shop alone - Check.
Being in a car with someone other than my parents - Nope.

Some might argue that going into a store is harder than just being in the car, but if that was the case I'd be able to eat soup instead of being able to sit in waiting rooms alone (A proud accomplishment if I do say so myself and I'm not sure why I fear soup).

Anxiety towards one issue is not comparable to the other - Just because one task seems easier than another, does not actually make it easier. It's individual and unaffected by our other accomplishments. Just as having learned to speak French won't make you any better at speaking Mandarin.

It is almost as if we're punished for being in this middle ground because the rest of the world doesn't understand how to deal with it. Privileges (and I use the term very loosely) are taken away when we begin to improve because it's suddenly expected that we've improved entirely. If you can do this, then you don't need any of that. If you don't have a cold anymore then we're taking away your tissues, even though your nose is still a bit runny. Reactions like this make recovering not only more laborious than it already has to be, but almost pointless. Recovering is firmly a middle ground, which still requires the same patience and care as being completely over taken by your illness. The frequency of good days, or good moments, may have increased, but ultimately there are still so many bad days and it's not right that we have to justify those to anyone who can't understand the idea that being "better" isn't set in stone.

The pressure grows so intensely when we start to show signs of having it together. My likelihood of saying yes to things I wouldn't even dream of before has increased tenfold, but that makes it near impossible to say no on the days when I feel beaten by my anxiety. It's a real life application of the "you've made your bed, now you have to lie in it" phrase. I've presented this image of a person with their life together. Someone who is, by all accounts, doing well, who can achieve almost anything now, give or take a little anxiety. Unfortunately, this isn't realistic in the slightest. As a result, I feel I have to apologise and explain myself in a way I never had to before. In the past, I'd fully embraced my own situation and unapologetically owned my anxieties. It was futile for anyone to ask anything of me, because I was always going to stick to my protective guns, guilt free. Now, I've opened the flood gates, I rarely take "me" days or say no. This has led to so very many days feeling overwhelmed and guilty.

I find myself regularly having to explain that I need some time because I can't keep up with my own rate of progression. I'm trying so hard, and I'm so proud of myself, but there's only so long you can keep up such intense hard work before beginning to crash. This would be an isolated problem of its own if only I didn't then have to explain myself as if I'd done something wrong, because I need to take few steps back. My actions affect others and I understand how it can be painful to allow their lives to be impacted by my own when my life is never stable. I'm more than appreciative of the people who continue to love me, to care for me, and want me in their lives despite all the baggage I come with, but I can't help but feel like I'm never quite enough now.

Every so often, I have some seriously good days, I can almost appear fully functional. In reality, I am simply a high-functioning bundle of anxiety. However, the good days are what everyone remembers, what everyone clings to. When I can't function quite as well, it's as I've told my loved ones that I'm converting to Satanism. I mean well, I always do, but sometimes I can't keep up. Unfortunately, this is often received as if I don't care, or don't want to be a part of the relationship.

If I may, I'd like to clear this up once and for all. Yesterday is not today, last week is not now. I am doing my best every single day no matter what. Just because my best today doesn't look like yesterday's best, doesn't mean I'm not working equally as hard. Sometimes, I back out of things at the last minute. That is because I cant possibly carry on with how I feel and I need to escape, but I left it as late as possible because I wanted to try. Be pleased that I tried, that I even considered whatever it was. Don't blame me, or take offense, I tried. Know that I will have always tried my best. A year ago, I probably wouldn't have even attempted such things. I never want to cause any upset when my anxiety affects someone else's day, it's just that at this moment it seems like my options are going through with the plans or death. We'd all choose the same, given the same circumstances.

When it comes to recovery, the vast majority of us are living in this Phantom Zone. Where we are doesn't exist inside the usual space/time continuum, only to us in it. Please just give us time, let us call our own shots and try to take life with us as it comes. We're moving one step at a time and so should you. I know you have plans and hopes that include us, and we are more grateful for that than you'll know, but please, let us decide what is and isn't realistic.

We'll get there, I promise.

I hadn't sat on this field in 4 years - seriously.

Retrospect Is 20/20 (get it?)

I can't be the only person who counts years from birthday to birthday, not January to December. For 4 years now I've been counting my life in birthdays because, for some cruel and unusual reason, my birthday has always been at the very centre of a great change in my life.

2013: Anxiety: The dawn of an era
2014: Anxiety II: Woops more anxiety
2015: Anxiety III: You have no qualifications but here is some depression
2016: Anxiety IV: Hey, maybe it isn't all bad.

When June rolls around, and I begin the 29-day countdown, I can't help but become nostalgic for the very recent past, and this year feels even more important because I finally close the "childhood" chapter on my life and apparently become an adult.

This last year, starting from my 19th birthday, of course, has been a wild ride if ever there was one. Admitting it is hard, but the truth is, I never believed I'd make it to 20. In fact, I believed it so little I even wrote it down. Looking back now, I'm so glad I chose to keep an official record because it serves as a constant reminder of how far I've come. This year has been one of massive change, my family life and my social life, and therefore my own personal life, has been flipped upside-down.

New meds, new therapist, new me.

It's not that I give full credit to these things for the improvement in my mental health, but I can't deny the huge help they've been or the fact that they appeared shortly after my last birthday. This time last year I was seeing a perfectly reasonable therapist - a good one in fact. I truly owe him for dragging me out of the gutter I was in back in 2015 (And recommending that I should date my now boyfriend). That said, 18 months is a long time to spend with one therapist and once I'd reached a certain level, his help was no longer making much of a difference. I moved on, found someone new with a different approach and began to make strides again. I've achieved things in the last year that I thought I'd never get to do again.

At the very same time, I'd decided to change my medication. I'm proud of being on medication to control my mental health, it's no different to antibiotics or pain killers. I'd hit a ceiling with my current medication, I had been taking a subtherapeutic dosage for 6 months and couldn't stand the side effects which came with trying to increase that level - so I packed it all in and anxiously started something new. So far so good is all I can really say on the matter.

It's no secret that the last few years haven't been easy for me, and if they were a 10 on the "boy this sucks" scale, then this past
year has been a 6 (okay sometimes 5, sometimes 7). I'm a little too superstitious to admit it, so I say cautiously, that this year definitely feels like a whole new life.

I'd also like to take a moment to get mushy about the people (and animals) in my life who pushed me further towards this new beginning.

I'd never imagined that anyone would be able to truly be on side with how my life works and the irrational ways I feel, and yet, despite all the odds, one year ago, my best friend of the last decade officially became my other half. While I wouldn't credit another person for fixing me, I will credit him for being there every step of the way while I fixed myself. So many of the new experiences I've had this year have been because of him. Not because he made me, or even that it was his idea, but because he let me do the irrational things I needed doing in order to step out of my comfort zone and being right there with me. I wouldn't have managed half the things I have this year if it weren't for what we have, thank you for letting me be me. (gross, I'm done now)

MORE IMPORTANTLY, this year brought the newest edition to my family, the Moo. Mia is, and always will be credited for the biggest improvement in my health. Never could I have imagined that one tiny being would be enough to push me to put their needs above my own anxiety, but here she is, convincing me every day that some things are just worth the risk. Because of her, I have broken down walls I thought would stay up forever. Because of her, this year, I have reached a place where I can just about pass off as a functional human.

I try to steer well clear of setting goals and expectations because they only give me more stress and anxiety, so as far as the next year goes I'm keeping an open mind. One day at a time is all I'm really concerned about. So far, that's paid off pretty well. I entered this year with the lowest of expectations and purely negative ideas of how life would be. I never would have dreamed that things would end up the way they have, and I will never stop thanking my lucky stars, and whatever other spirit is watching out for me, for getting me to where I am now.

I may be miles from the finishing line, but at least I'm back in the race.