My anxiety journey….

when I look back I realize I have suffered with anxiety most of my life but it came to ahead about ten years ago when I started having unexplainable physical symptoms out of the blue, collapsing, feeling dizzy and faint, feeling like I would die, tingling all over, heart racing, burning sensations in my arms. I had nine months of investigations under the care of a rheumatologist for things like lupus and Lyme disease but it was only when the tests didn’t come up with anything that I started to investigate my symptoms on the Internet and came to the realization that it was anxiety. This came as such a shock as I had always been a confident person in a senior management post and I couldn’t understand it. I felt as if the rug had been pulled from under me and my life was turned upside down. I went back to my GP and he gave me an antidepressant which had a very bad reaction to. At this point I wanted to end it all as I couldn’t see a way out and didn’t want to live like that, my life was so restricted due to my anxiety and I had to give up my job. Ten years on after therapy and other medication I have had long periods when I feel very well and periods when it returns but I am hopeful that I now have the tools and support to live with it. I am learning to be kind to myself and not try to be perfect at everything. It’s nice to have support from people in the MHM page when I’m not having a good day.