fairypants69
09-02-15, 14:06
Hi all! This could be a bit of an essay, sorry!
So I'll start with a little about me...I'm almost 29 and have a gorgeous 19 month old daughter with my fab hubby, who has his own mental health issues. I am his full time carer and a full time mummy. That is pretty much my entire life in a nutshell!
I started suffering with anxiety in my early teens and at the time my GP prescribed Gaviscon for the pains and told me to get on with it. Funnily enough it never helped but I learnt to manage the attacks. I slowly built my confidence up as I got older and although it still affected me with new symptoms building up over the years, I carried on fighting it. When I turned 21 I decided a new start might be what I needed, so I applied to university and moved 300 miles from home. It was fantastic and I was loving having my own space, my own life and being able to make my own decisions, without my mum very overbearing mother telling me what to do and always speaking for me (much to her disapproval!), but life was good! All of a sudden, out of nowhere the chest pains, shortness of breath and sheer panic started kicking in again. I just didn't get it because I felt better than ever and like I was free from everything that had always held me back. One morning I was meeting a uni friend to walk in with her and she was a few minutes late as her bus was late, by the time she got to me she found me sitting on the path barely able to breath, in the middle of a full blown panic attack. She was so worried about me, she called a taxi and took me straight in to the university doctor, where they checked all the usuals and wanted to do a blood test. Everything came back fine, so they referred me to a Cardiologist at the local hospital, where they did a 24 hour test which I had to wear while going about a normal day and make notes of what I was doing when, what I was feeling when I was having pains etc. It all came back fairly normal, nothing to sorry about and the Dr suggested it was probably anxiety attacks and gave me a few tips on how to manage them with breathing exercises and sent me packing. No further help, from anyone! Well as before, I carried on and learnt to deal with the attacks again. All was great for several years, especially meeting hubby a few months before I moved home and quickly building a very strong relationship once I moved home. We got married just a couple of months after moving in together and discovered we were expecting! It was an amazing few months, baby arrived and everything was fan, we even braved a last minute family holiday when she was just 5 weeks old! Just after that holiday is when it all started going wrong. A good friend was killed in an accident, a couple of months later my grandad became even more unwell and died after a couple of weeks of stress filled waiting, the night before his funeral my nan (on the other side of the family!) died very unexpectedly as she was fit and well. We just about dragged ourselves through Christmas and in the new year I went to my GP because I was finding life harder & harder by the day and having a new baby I was scared I'd got postnatal depression, but GP said it wasn't but I was obviously depressed so prescribed Fluoxetine. It helped for a while but he wasn't prepared to offer any counselling and told me to stop worrying about my husband and get out more. After a few months I was feeling a lot better and a lot more confident in myself, so decided to stop taking them and everything was back to normal and wonderful again. Except by this point my husband had already been diagnosed with postnatal depression on top of his already very long standing mental illness and we'd been battling through that at the same time! Unfortunately, by August last year my hubby was signed off work for the "foreseeable future" and had to take voluntary redundancy on medical grounds. He is still off work now and is finding it really tough, but with finances being so tight, trying to pay rent on a private letting that we can't afford and bills mounting up, we had to sell our car to pay everything off so we don't even have our on transport now which makes getting out near impossible as we both struggle with it so much. Now I'm back to relying on my mum to go anywhere and without her I don't get out, but I'm back to being told what do to, when to do it, how to do it, I'm doing it wrong and being spoken for - it's driving me round the bend!!! My anxiety is reaching it's peak again and even the thought of cooking dinner is keeping me awake at night, by the time I get to cook the dinner I'm in such a state I mess it up and we end up with nothing and the cycle starts again!
I know I need to get help and going to the GP would be a start, but if I end up with the same GP as before he isn't going to take me seriously again and I'm not going to get anywhere! I just don't know what to do or where to start! I am at a total loss and it's really starting to get to me!
Sorry for the essay and thanks for reading!!
So I'll start with a little about me...I'm almost 29 and have a gorgeous 19 month old daughter with my fab hubby, who has his own mental health issues. I am his full time carer and a full time mummy. That is pretty much my entire life in a nutshell!
I started suffering with anxiety in my early teens and at the time my GP prescribed Gaviscon for the pains and told me to get on with it. Funnily enough it never helped but I learnt to manage the attacks. I slowly built my confidence up as I got older and although it still affected me with new symptoms building up over the years, I carried on fighting it. When I turned 21 I decided a new start might be what I needed, so I applied to university and moved 300 miles from home. It was fantastic and I was loving having my own space, my own life and being able to make my own decisions, without my mum very overbearing mother telling me what to do and always speaking for me (much to her disapproval!), but life was good! All of a sudden, out of nowhere the chest pains, shortness of breath and sheer panic started kicking in again. I just didn't get it because I felt better than ever and like I was free from everything that had always held me back. One morning I was meeting a uni friend to walk in with her and she was a few minutes late as her bus was late, by the time she got to me she found me sitting on the path barely able to breath, in the middle of a full blown panic attack. She was so worried about me, she called a taxi and took me straight in to the university doctor, where they checked all the usuals and wanted to do a blood test. Everything came back fine, so they referred me to a Cardiologist at the local hospital, where they did a 24 hour test which I had to wear while going about a normal day and make notes of what I was doing when, what I was feeling when I was having pains etc. It all came back fairly normal, nothing to sorry about and the Dr suggested it was probably anxiety attacks and gave me a few tips on how to manage them with breathing exercises and sent me packing. No further help, from anyone! Well as before, I carried on and learnt to deal with the attacks again. All was great for several years, especially meeting hubby a few months before I moved home and quickly building a very strong relationship once I moved home. We got married just a couple of months after moving in together and discovered we were expecting! It was an amazing few months, baby arrived and everything was fan, we even braved a last minute family holiday when she was just 5 weeks old! Just after that holiday is when it all started going wrong. A good friend was killed in an accident, a couple of months later my grandad became even more unwell and died after a couple of weeks of stress filled waiting, the night before his funeral my nan (on the other side of the family!) died very unexpectedly as she was fit and well. We just about dragged ourselves through Christmas and in the new year I went to my GP because I was finding life harder & harder by the day and having a new baby I was scared I'd got postnatal depression, but GP said it wasn't but I was obviously depressed so prescribed Fluoxetine. It helped for a while but he wasn't prepared to offer any counselling and told me to stop worrying about my husband and get out more. After a few months I was feeling a lot better and a lot more confident in myself, so decided to stop taking them and everything was back to normal and wonderful again. Except by this point my husband had already been diagnosed with postnatal depression on top of his already very long standing mental illness and we'd been battling through that at the same time! Unfortunately, by August last year my hubby was signed off work for the "foreseeable future" and had to take voluntary redundancy on medical grounds. He is still off work now and is finding it really tough, but with finances being so tight, trying to pay rent on a private letting that we can't afford and bills mounting up, we had to sell our car to pay everything off so we don't even have our on transport now which makes getting out near impossible as we both struggle with it so much. Now I'm back to relying on my mum to go anywhere and without her I don't get out, but I'm back to being told what do to, when to do it, how to do it, I'm doing it wrong and being spoken for - it's driving me round the bend!!! My anxiety is reaching it's peak again and even the thought of cooking dinner is keeping me awake at night, by the time I get to cook the dinner I'm in such a state I mess it up and we end up with nothing and the cycle starts again!
I know I need to get help and going to the GP would be a start, but if I end up with the same GP as before he isn't going to take me seriously again and I'm not going to get anywhere! I just don't know what to do or where to start! I am at a total loss and it's really starting to get to me!
Sorry for the essay and thanks for reading!!