Soul Fire
30-10-13, 20:03
Evening all,
I'm not sure where to start really but I would love to share my story with you. You might want to grab a cup of tea as I ended up writing a fair bit.
Up until 18 months ago my life was amazing. I was still in my twenties, I had a great job with excellent future prospects, I had a dedicated committed girlfriend, perfect health, no money issues no substance abuse problems and I was enjoying life.
Then one day out of nowhere something happened to me that has since sent me on a downwards spiral of anxiety, guilt and self hatred. I have trying ever since to recover and return myself to myself.
I'm not going to go into what happened, it still haunts me really. An incident occurred at work, I spoke to my managers about it who had no concerns and basically told me to find something else to worry about, thing is I couldn't. For the next six months during every waking moment the incident would play over and over in my head, I kept thinking about all the bad things that could've or could happen as a result. It all seemed very real to me, I worked in law enforcement.
I discussed at length my problems with my girlfriend and family and after loosing interest in pretty much anything life had to offer me and loosing a fair amount of weight I decided to seek professional help.
My doctor started me on anti depressants and suggested I take psychotherapy, which I did, I decided to pay for private care as I was so desperate to get myself 'well' again.
During the next six months the initial incident that started the whole thing slowly started to become less frequent in my mind. Unfortunately a series of smaller issues replaced the void that it left.
These smaller issues would play in my mind constantly until something else would come along and replace it, my fear, created from this initial event is that something I have done or not done will end up causing massive harm to someone and I was the key player that could've prevented it.
So the actual origin of what drives my anxiety and obsessive thoughts started as one thing and then evolved into many things that would replace each other.
After lengthy discussions with my girlfriend and psychiatrist I decided to chuck in the job. My bosses and colleagues were gutted, I didn't tell them the real reason for leaving, just that I wanted a career change. It feels like I gave up a lot but I just couldn't handle the pressure of making a mistake that could lead to someone else getting hurt as a result. Part of me was resentful as I was good at what I did, but was never going to be an environment that would lead me to be able to recover from my fears.
I walked into a much lower paid job but working in a much better environment. A few weeks ago I even felt good enough on the inside to play my musical instrument which I hadn't touched since before the initial event took place. My now wife came through the front door in tears saying that she heard me playing from outside and that this was a sign that I was 'me' again.
A couple of months ago I started to lower the medication dose through the advice of my doctor. The last few days I've come off them completely, to be honest I'm not sure they even helped.
Where am I now? Well things are Ok but that's about it. The job I work in now involves road safety and I still get paranoid that someone is going to steal something from me and use it to hurt someone and I will be at least in part responsible for not taking more care with my data. I have also been involved with training people on new computer systems and I feel that if I make a mistake in my training then the person I trained will do something wrong, again leading to someone getting hurt and me being the catalyst.
The only way I have been able to carry on is the thought that this fear would probably be present in most jobs that I would do, for example if I was a mechanic then I would worry about not checking something correctly which could lead to a pile up. Or if I worked on a checkout I would mistakingly put raw meat with something that could cause food poisoning or something.
I worked hard for 7 years doing my best day in and day out to try and do a good job and keep people safe. This has left me a nervous wreck and being over cautious, obsessive and paranoid, what a great reward for dedicating my previous years to others.
I still don't feel good enough in what I do and although I feel so much better than I did I feel as this is now who I am. I have got to know the stranger who walked into myself and am trying now to live with him.
I am still in therapy but much less frequent now than I was. My therapist has been great, I almost don't want to discuss how bad things still sometimes get because I don't want to let him down.
Other things I've changed in my life is starting yoga to help me meditate, doing more exercise and reading a shed load of books on mental health.
As for everything else in my life? Well financially things are a bit more challenging but it hasn't fundamentally changed the way we live our lives. I got married and had a fantastic anxiety free day and am now planning a family.
I hope I can offer people on this forum my experiences with anti depressants, experience of therapy and how things can change, if not in the way you'd like but in a way that might be slightly better than before - which is progress.
One last thing, I would like to offer my thanks to everyone involved with this forum, it's been a massive help to me over the last 18 months and its only now that I felt like I wanted to share my story as it feels like I might be able to offer help to others in return.
Thank you for your time in reading.
I'm not sure where to start really but I would love to share my story with you. You might want to grab a cup of tea as I ended up writing a fair bit.
Up until 18 months ago my life was amazing. I was still in my twenties, I had a great job with excellent future prospects, I had a dedicated committed girlfriend, perfect health, no money issues no substance abuse problems and I was enjoying life.
Then one day out of nowhere something happened to me that has since sent me on a downwards spiral of anxiety, guilt and self hatred. I have trying ever since to recover and return myself to myself.
I'm not going to go into what happened, it still haunts me really. An incident occurred at work, I spoke to my managers about it who had no concerns and basically told me to find something else to worry about, thing is I couldn't. For the next six months during every waking moment the incident would play over and over in my head, I kept thinking about all the bad things that could've or could happen as a result. It all seemed very real to me, I worked in law enforcement.
I discussed at length my problems with my girlfriend and family and after loosing interest in pretty much anything life had to offer me and loosing a fair amount of weight I decided to seek professional help.
My doctor started me on anti depressants and suggested I take psychotherapy, which I did, I decided to pay for private care as I was so desperate to get myself 'well' again.
During the next six months the initial incident that started the whole thing slowly started to become less frequent in my mind. Unfortunately a series of smaller issues replaced the void that it left.
These smaller issues would play in my mind constantly until something else would come along and replace it, my fear, created from this initial event is that something I have done or not done will end up causing massive harm to someone and I was the key player that could've prevented it.
So the actual origin of what drives my anxiety and obsessive thoughts started as one thing and then evolved into many things that would replace each other.
After lengthy discussions with my girlfriend and psychiatrist I decided to chuck in the job. My bosses and colleagues were gutted, I didn't tell them the real reason for leaving, just that I wanted a career change. It feels like I gave up a lot but I just couldn't handle the pressure of making a mistake that could lead to someone else getting hurt as a result. Part of me was resentful as I was good at what I did, but was never going to be an environment that would lead me to be able to recover from my fears.
I walked into a much lower paid job but working in a much better environment. A few weeks ago I even felt good enough on the inside to play my musical instrument which I hadn't touched since before the initial event took place. My now wife came through the front door in tears saying that she heard me playing from outside and that this was a sign that I was 'me' again.
A couple of months ago I started to lower the medication dose through the advice of my doctor. The last few days I've come off them completely, to be honest I'm not sure they even helped.
Where am I now? Well things are Ok but that's about it. The job I work in now involves road safety and I still get paranoid that someone is going to steal something from me and use it to hurt someone and I will be at least in part responsible for not taking more care with my data. I have also been involved with training people on new computer systems and I feel that if I make a mistake in my training then the person I trained will do something wrong, again leading to someone getting hurt and me being the catalyst.
The only way I have been able to carry on is the thought that this fear would probably be present in most jobs that I would do, for example if I was a mechanic then I would worry about not checking something correctly which could lead to a pile up. Or if I worked on a checkout I would mistakingly put raw meat with something that could cause food poisoning or something.
I worked hard for 7 years doing my best day in and day out to try and do a good job and keep people safe. This has left me a nervous wreck and being over cautious, obsessive and paranoid, what a great reward for dedicating my previous years to others.
I still don't feel good enough in what I do and although I feel so much better than I did I feel as this is now who I am. I have got to know the stranger who walked into myself and am trying now to live with him.
I am still in therapy but much less frequent now than I was. My therapist has been great, I almost don't want to discuss how bad things still sometimes get because I don't want to let him down.
Other things I've changed in my life is starting yoga to help me meditate, doing more exercise and reading a shed load of books on mental health.
As for everything else in my life? Well financially things are a bit more challenging but it hasn't fundamentally changed the way we live our lives. I got married and had a fantastic anxiety free day and am now planning a family.
I hope I can offer people on this forum my experiences with anti depressants, experience of therapy and how things can change, if not in the way you'd like but in a way that might be slightly better than before - which is progress.
One last thing, I would like to offer my thanks to everyone involved with this forum, it's been a massive help to me over the last 18 months and its only now that I felt like I wanted to share my story as it feels like I might be able to offer help to others in return.
Thank you for your time in reading.