Cutting the s**t;
My Experience and Advice
Get your facts right
Anxiety; a simple emotion that alone, is not a disorder but quite normal, like fear.
Generalised Anxiety Disorder; a long term disorder that gives you the feeling of anxiety over a wide variety of issues and situations.
As I have said, Anxiety is a feeling that all of us will experience. It is like the feelings fear and worry and can also have different levels of severity.
People that struggle with Generalised Anxiety Disorder, feel anxious most of the time and quite often can't remember a time they were relaxed. Generalised Anxiety Disorder can be caused by over activity in some parts of the brain, an imbalance of some brain chemicals, having a past traumatic experience or you could inherit it from your parents.
It is estimated to affect 1 in every 25 people in the UK, so trust me, nobody is alone.
There are two main ways in which it is said to be treated; medication and cognitive behavioural therapy. The medication can be anti-depressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and I'll get into the therapy in a bit.
My advice from experience
Now, this isn't going to be cheesy or depressingly tumblr. I'm someone who suffers from Generalised Anxiety Disorder that hid it for years, avoided the help of others and am now slowly making myself better. So, for some anecdotes, advice and help, just read on.
I remember a particular time in my high school life where it was particularly bad. I've always been a workaholic and perfectionist, so when my grades weren't their best and there wasn't much time before my exams, it began to worsen. For a whole week, I remember being alone and having continuous panic attacks. After experiencing it at this severity and having a panic attack at school, I went to the Support System in place at school.
I remember feeling sick with nerves about telling someone but pushed myself because I felt exhausted in every form. A lady took me into a room and I went on to slowly explain myself. Because it took me a while to develop my words and I murmured on about seeing the school nurse, she thought I was pregnant. This made me laugh a little as I shook my head. After finally telling her that I felt constantly on edge and would panic for no reason, she immediately knew what I was describing.
A meeting with the school nurse was set and to make me feel more comfortable, I was told that there were three others in my year group that felt the same way. We met for a 40 minute session where she told me about Generalised Anxiety Disorder and the effects of it. Little did I know, this was the beginning of cognitive behavioural therapy.
A wee bit about therapy
90% of people who go through cognitive behavioural therapy, gain some sort of recovery. However, I am within the 10%. Because of this, I have not been the greatest fan of the treatment but I'd like to personally say that if you are diagnosed and your doctor thinks it's the best thing; take their advice over mine.
The therapy is basically based around the teaching of different ways to cope with anxiety and get rid of anxious feelings before they build up into an attack. It didn't work with me because once I found out that this was the medical process I was going through, I became unwilling.
And back to my advice from experience
So, after about five or six sessions spread over a couple of months, I stopped seeing the nurse. For me, the techniques never worked and I felt worse because of that. It wasn't anyone's fault really, I'm quite apprehensive about therapy and psychiatry and was which probably held me back.
After not seeing her for some time, I realised that I could learn to control it by myself. And I did. I gained a more positive outlook in general, realised my grades aren't the be-all and end-all and that if I could control my anxious thoughts, then I'd improve plenty.
Ultimately, it takes some time and patience. Somehow I felt a huge difference within a couple of months. Mainly because I joined an alpha course which helped me in many ways like relaxing and trusting that everything will eventually work out. I'm not saying that you have to join an alpha course, but finding support is a big help.
I also became more positive and less pessimistic. This doesn't come over night, but just avoid thinking about what could happen and just go out and try. Of course I had a phase of staying indoors constantly because I was afraid of having a panic attack, but that didn't help me in the slightest. Just begin to go out of your comfort zone and you'll start to enjoy yourself a little more. Because life begins at the end of your comfort zone.
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Someone who suffered from high anxiety levels; Zoe Sugg |
Still trying to keep it not cheesy; I'm just going to say that Generalised Anxiety Disorder kept me alone in a room, depressed and unhappy for some time. Don't let it waste any of your precious life as well. The only way to get rid of it, is to fight it. By doing everything it doesn't want you to do. As someone who used to be anxious about cars, it is crazy to me that I'm excited to start learning to drive this year.
Thank you for reading, I hope this has helped. Feel free to comment if you would like me to say anymore.
