I had a full-blown anxiety relapse in early July and had started feeling better after having re-started citalopram (10mg for first 3 weeks and 20mg thereafter) and therapy at the end of July/early August. I noticed quite a big improvement 5 weeks in - ie the beginning of September.

However, also in early September, one of my worst fears came true. One of the main themes of my anxiety is to do with myself or my loved ones becoming seriously ill or dying. Just over 3 weeks ago, my grandmother suffered a bad fall at home, and was taken to hospital for an emergency hip operation (dynamic hip screw). She was recovering well and was moved to a community hospital for rehabilitative physiotherapy a week later. However, a week ago today, we had a massive shock when the hospital called to say my grandmother had suffered a severe stroke and she had to be moved back to the main hospital.

The last 7 days have been difficult - the hospital staff have said they can't really do much more for my grandmother, so she will have to go into palliative care. She can no longer move her left arm or left leg, so she is essentially bed-bound. My step-dad had been redecorating my grandmother's kitchen while she was in hospital, so it's sad she'll never go home to see it now. We don't know how long she has left, and due to the coronavirus situation we don't know if we'll be able to have much say as to what nursing home she goes into.

Over the last 3 days, I've felt like some of my anxiety has come back, although it's nowhere near as bad as it was a few weeks ago. I feel like the stress of what's happened to my grandmother has set me back a bit. I get thoughts about life and death, although now I don't really get the associated physical anxiety symptoms (apart from occasional muscle tension), as the medication is blocking them. So now it's just the thoughts and a dull sense of dread. What makes it worse is that my grandmother is my last surviving grandparent, and when she goes, it will effectively be the end of an entire generation of my family.

I'm getting my usual anxious thoughts about what happens (spiritually) after death, such as will my grandmother be re-united with my grandfather? Also I'm also getting thoughts again about my own mortality, such as thinking that now that I'm 36, maybe my life is nearly half-over, and that makes me feel down.

I hope that this anxiety is just a blip and will improve with time.