Hi everyone,
I've been thinking about starting a blog and I've written this article to offer my friends and family a bit of an insight into daily life for a chronic anxiety sufferer. I hope you enjoy it/find it a good read if you can relate
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When someone has cancer, people see them going through chemotherapy and see the harrowing effects it has on the human body. When someone has a broken arm, people see the sling and the external pain and how demanding it is to complete day to day tasks. When someone has a physical illness, people around them can see their injuries, their bruises, their suffering. But when someone has a mental or invisible illness, the physical effects become a lot harder to see.
I wanted to write this to give people a bit more of an insight into day to day life for someone suffering with an undiagnosed mental and physical illness, and to help my friends and family to understand a bit more of what I battle with on an average day.
Your alarm goes off and you get out of bed to face the day. You pull up the blinds and look at the beautiful July sunshine gleaming through; what a beautiful day with no foreseeable threats. But then you suddenly remember the harrowing thoughts you had last night before you went to sleep; the lump you found that was going to result in a cancer diagnosis, the irregular heartbeat that was going to eventually lead to a stroke, the stabbing chest pains that were positively going to end in a heart attack today, and the breathing difficulties that were certainly going to kill you today. You suddenly feel terrified of all these conditions that are going to attack you mentally and physically at any given moment today; you're dreading the day already.
You get a shower and start getting ready for work; you put on some music and tell yourself that you're a 25 year old, healthy youngster whose body is not going to kill you today. You force yourself to believe it.
The morning passes and you're getting on well with your colleagues, daydreaming about your holiday next month and feeling really perky considering last night's thoughts. Your boss is talking to you about a serious assignment you are in the middle of completing when, out of nowhere, you feel like someone's reached down your throat and is bouncing your heart off the walls of your chest like a bouncy ball: you panic, loose your sense of sound and vision, ademant that this is it. You're finally dying. You can no longer hear your boss, all you can think about is running out of the office and dying painfully and alone in a toilet cubicle. You run down the corridor and lock yourself in the cubicle, waiting for your heart to finally stop. You think of your family, your loved ones, and think how they will ever cope with your death.
About 20 minutes pass and you're still alive. You can't quite believe it. You make your way back to your office and apologise that you felt a bit sick, laughing. Your boss looks unimpressed with a pragmatic expression of 'why did we ever employ this ridiculous drama queen'. You then have to sit back down, put the event to the back of your mind, and carry on with your work as telling people the truth about what happened is completely out of the question - how would you even begin to explain it?!
It gets to mid afternoon and you've returned to a vaguely calm state of mind - you're still amazed that your body is still alive. Then someone comes over and offers you a donut - are they insane?! You had some chocolate this morning so it was evidently the sugar overdose that caused the mini-heart-attack. You must never consume sugar again or it could potentially be fatal next time.
Now, imagine this episode happening: on the train, in the car, whilst watching TOWIE, whilst eating a chicken sandwich, whilst in topshop, whilst in Nando's, whilst in a certain bar in town. Now imagine that you can never do/go to any of these things/places listed again because it will certainly cause you to have another heart attack. No more TOWIE, certainly no more trips to Nando's!
This is what psychologists refer to as 'safety behaviour' - chopping out any situation in which an extreme panic attack occurred.
There's a number of things that I don't do anymore as a result of safety behaviour - now imagine having to explain that to your family and friends and imagine how boring and totally embarrassing you'd sound. Best to keep that one under wraps!
Day two comes around and your ademant today is going to be a normal day. Please no heart attacks, please no mini strokes.
Everything's going fairly well actually - this can't be normal! Oh wait: what's that lump under my armpit? Holy shit. I knew it. Cancer! Oh god. I need to leave work immediately and get this seen to. I can't deal with this! The chemo. Everyone will know I'm wearing a wig. I'll have to see my boyfriend and family suffering and potentially watching me die! This day has suddenly turned into a living nightmare. I'll probably meet loads of nice people in the support groups though. Do they even do support groups for young people with cancer? I'm all alone. I hope the hospital unit is nice where I'll be spending the next 6 months, that's if I make it that long.
You tell a friend and they laugh. You tell your partner and they want to smirk as it's the 4th lump this week that you made them take you to the doctors about, but they take you and promise you everything will be fine. But you know this one won't be fine. This one will kill you.
Someone's picked up your heart and is using it as a bouncy ball again. Oh my goodness. Has the cancer spread to your heart?! This is all connected. I'm dreading the face of the doctor who does the MRI scan. I wonder what picture they'll use of me for the papers?
You get in the car after work and suddenly your windpipe feels like someone's bound it in string. What the hell's happening now?! Great, breathing problems. Always offering a warm welcome to a new symptom. Wait - this is getting worse. You suddenly forget all about the cancer as now you need to focus solely on this. The tumour must be so big that it's compressing your windpipe.
You try to continue with the day but you can't concentrate on anything other than your cancer diagnosis. It's racking on your mind like a heavy child on your shoulders that you can't lift off.
The following day comes around and you try and get stuck into the tough assignment you've been given at work. You're unsure what symptoms today will bring. Ah, speak of the devil. All of a sudden, a stabbing pain hits you sharp on the left of your chest. It travels down your arm slightly and shows no sign of stopping. You're finally having that heart attack that's been looming for months: shit. Time to leave the office again and immediately get to the privacy of a toilet cubicle where your body can privately pass away. You're walking down the corridor and the pain is pulling at your chest like five pairs of pliers nipping at your internal organs.
Over the next few days, weeks and months, these symptoms continue to happen, in any given order and at any given time, on a daily basis. It's impossible to make plans as your body has full control over your agenda, and an exciting weekend can quickly turn into a living nightmare. Going abroad is a frightening, daunting thought, and instead of counting down the days until you'll be lying on your sun lounger, you're living in terror of needing urgent medical care when you go into cardiac arrest over the Atlantic Ocean. Going anywhere without the support of your partner or parents is a huge challenge, so booking weekends away or trips to new cities with friends is rarely an option you can risk.
Now, imagine you're family/friends' reaction when you cancel plans, don't partake in plans, or make excuses for not being able to attend plans. Imagine your boss's reaction when you suddenly walk out of the office, when you only went to the toilet 10 minutes ago, then do the same thing again in another 10 minutes.
There's three adjectives people would use to describe you - ignorant, dramatic and slightly abnormal.
The main problem is, no one sees the bouncy ball in your chest, the string round your windpipe, the child on your shoulders, the pliers on your internal organs, or the safety behaviours that you adopt every day.
Imagine you come out of work on a Friday, you've got a bouncy ball jumping around your chest, a piece of string wrapped round your windpipe, a child on your shoulders, pliers pulling on your internal organs, and a demon stood next to you telling you that if you go anywhere that doesn't conform to the 'safety behaviours' list, you will surely go into a fatal cardiac arrest. Would you have that Friday feeling?
I hope this helps people close to me to understand what I battle with on a daily basis and how it has such a downward pull on my life. Sometimes it can feel like i live in a 25 year old's body, but a 75 year old's mind. Every day is difficult, some more than others. I can I have a brilliant week, and then a terrible week. I can feel like I'm floating on a cloud, and then trapped in a nightmare. I apologise for my moods, my temper, my snappiness, my emotions, my distance, and everything else I can put people through - I hope this gives you a bit of an explanation as to why I act like I do sometimes.
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