I have wanted to start a thread like this for awhile, I would like to post about what steps I am taking to move past the panic/anxiety and obsessions that interferes with my daily life, with Christmas and my birthday and new years just around the corner, I cannot see a better time to post this. Perhaps it may help somebody, but I know it will help me because I have often looked back at my old threads and felt incredibly happy at my progress. Please feel free to contribute, if you are also doing something good to combat your anxiety please post it on this thread and share your story and successes with me.
So abit about me:I am soon going to turn 21, I took some time out after doing my A-levels because of how poor my mental health had become, with the time I have been out of education it is fair to say my mental health has taken me on a roller coaster of a ride. I had severe health anxiety for almost a year constantly fearing illness, I was 100% convinced I had cancer in my body and lymphoma was my biggest fear. I have gotten over that anxiety for good it seems now. I can and will go over how I got over it if it will help somebody.
After that had a "nice" gap where I felt calm but numb to the world and didn't feel like I cared enough about anything anymore, not myself, no goals or aspirations. Nothing. I felt like I would live my entire life this way. At that time I had performed poorly in some exams I decided to sit that would have taken me to university and so I felt very worthless. I had lost many friends also by that time, but I had also cut out a lot of toxic people. So having little support was hard on me.
The last 2 years feel like a blur of panic and sadness and low self-esteem and I won't allow myself to go on like this for the rest of my life, I have accepted that I may struggle with anxiety in all its forms for the rest of my life but I will not let it destroy the quality of my life, I deserve, just like anyone else to live a happy life.
What I am struggling with now: I have recently been hit with new type of panic/anxiety, which involves intrusive thoughts and me obsessing over them. The theme I have been plagued by is POCD, never in a million years would I have thought me out of all people would experience this kind of fear and anxiety. It all started when I had a horrific dream, absolutely horrifying and since that day I have horrid and vivid images that completely shake me and distract me from my daily activities. This is something I am struggling with deeply at the moment but I also have learnt enough from my past anxieties and fears that I cannot let what thoughts I have destroy my present life. As I read about it, I have found many people experience the same thing or similar and it has nothing to with their character, it is distressing to us because it's the absolute worst thing imaginable and from my past fears this makes a lot of sense, when I had my health anxiety someone being diagnosed with cancer felt like the worst thing imaginable, and although today I don't feel like a cancer diagnoses is any less scary, but because now I am no longer as sensitised to it I feel that I can separate myself from the anxiety, and I believe the same thing applies to this new theme of anxiety. I know I will move past this panic as I did with all my previous anxieties, though admittedly this one is more revolting and upsetting. But I am strong enough, I know I can get over it.
So what am I doing now: Well, I am reading A LOT, as many self help books I can find, not just on intrusive thoughts and anxiety but on other parts of my life too like studying. I am taking a new set of A-level exams this year which I am studying for, I will be taking them next year in may and june, and I have been on a fitness journey which is both improving my selfesteem and confidence, and I am sleeping better and eating better and making my days flow better. I hope to go to university next year and study a law degree, I am working hard to be ready for it both academically and mental health wise (which is the main reason I took time off from anything academic, I knew I hadn't developed a coping mechanism to deal with the challenges my anxiety proposed).
I am beginning see all my old and new anxiety themes as challenges, I will survive them and cope with them, as I said previously, I accept debilitating panic and anxiety maybe something I have to deal with for the rest of my life, but I will improve the debilitating factor. I will not let anxiety run wild and destroy what should be some of the best years of my life.
My hopes and thankyou's: My hope is to get better but also to help others struggling with severe anxiety, I can understand anxiety because I live through it and I hope one day my challenges and what I have learnt through them help someone on here or in my personal life.
I have to give thanks to both Fishmanpa and mynameisterry who have both helped me and others on my time here on NMP, and when theres nowhere to turn and you post on an anxiety forum, receiving such detailed, helpful and non-judgemental responses help us anxiety sufferers immensely. I hope to give back how you both and others on this forum do.
I think thats enough rambling for my first post
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