Anxiety – Life According to TJ

This past week hasn’t been one of the best. Equally, it hasn’t been one of the worst. But as the week wore on, it became more and more apparent that the only way things were really ending was with a bit of an anxiety induced meltdown.

In the end it turned out to be a really positive experience, as the wealth of support and knowledge that was directed my way was amazing. So many friends reached out to offer support and to share their experiences. Which I suppose is why I am so honest about my experiences – it my help someone else along the way to understand that whilst they might feel completely lost and alone, the reality is somewhat different, there are so many people who are willing and able to help.

I posted about my experience initially on Instagram and Facebook. Almost immediately I received a message from a friend with a link to the NHS mental health website which offered a range of techniques to help manage anxiety. Some I’d tried before, some I hadn’t, some just didn’t do it for me. One I had tried during the week was breathing. Constantly breathing, follow the breath, in out, from the heart, radiate good feelings, find the good feelings, why can’t I find the good feelings, back to the breathing. At which point the technique designed to combat the anxiety was creating its own form of anxiety.

There is an 8 minute Yoga Nidra practice on the NHS ‘Every Mind Matters‘ website which I decided to give a whirl. I’ve tried Yoga Nidra before but only in the yoga studio, so I admit I was a bit sceptical. I didn’t actually realise the 8 minutes was up, as I was so busy concentrating on relaxing the various parts of my body, so in the end I’d probably been lying on the floor for nearer 20 minutes. So, I interpreted that as a positive result. Unfortunately, the Yoga Nidra was followed by the breakdown. I’m not sure if the relaxation had just released all the pent up emotions, or the kindness of a friend or why it happened then, but the meltdown I had worked so hard to avoid all week eventually came. By the bucket load. But I didn’t want the meltdown. I didn’t want to be anxious, I wanted to fix it without reaching that point. It turns out that, as ever, the meltdown was required for me to move forward.

Another technique recommended on the NHS website was to keep an anxiety diary. Sort of ‘What Angelica did today’. I’m not generally a fan of this as I feel I just end up with a really negative journal, a list of everything that is going wrong. I can see the rationale behind it, but I don’t think it’s really for me. Increasingly though, I think it needs to be for me and I need to try to find a way to make it happen. One of the first books I read about mental health was Ruby Wax’s ‘Frazzled’ and in that she recommends naming the different beasts that invade your brain – hence Angelica Anxiety – but to go further than that and give them a persona. What do they look like? How are they dressed? In my head Anglica has wild curly, untamed hair, with the look of someone caught like a rabbit in the headlights. That slightly startled, terrified look of someone who doesn’t know which way to run. The idea is that you start to spot the arrival of this beast, Angelica, and so you can start to smooth her down before things get out of hand. This is where the diary comes in to play.

I started to think about where this particular bout of anxiety had originated. In the moment, I blamed the fact I was doing Sober October for MacMillan Cancer and I didn’t have the alcohol to mask the symptoms. But it dawned on me that this wasn’t really true. I don’t drink all that much alcohol – so whilst I might occasionally use it as a distraction it’s not that much of an influence. As I looked back over the past month or so I could see patterns – that if I’d kept a diary I would recognise by now.

We came back to Albufeira in late August and since then it has been pretty full on. I would say every week people have been visiting the town on their holidays. Some we knew about, some were pleasant surprises. We are incredibly fortunate to have a wide variety of friends that we enjoy spending time with and quite frequently they are only visiting Albufeira for a short period of time and so we like to catch up with them as much as we can. None of them stay with us and appreciate that we live here and so make very few demands on our time. The problem is that I feel we should do all we can to meet up with them and I do have very bad FOMO! Unfortunately, it reached the point where I was struggling to cope with the number of times each week we were going out with other people and the cracks started to show – but at that time I didn’t realise it – or if I did chose to ignore the signs.

When I was a teacher, I worked in a school with two deputy heads who had two totally different approaches to work / life balance. The first appreciated that on a week to week basis he had very little control over the direction his week would take and so the last thing he wanted was additional commitments outside school. He wanted to be able to go home and enjoy that time with his family. The other was determined that school would not get in the way of their out of school activities. So, she could be found at the swimming pool at 9:30 at night, because she liked to swim every day. Or would carry on going to a weekly evening class, even though she was shattered, because school was not going to stop her enjoying her beloved past-times. I tend to fall into this camp. So, whilst all of our friends have been coming to visit I have done very little to alter my life to make allowances. I have continued to meet with other ex-pats for lunch, I’ve taken up bowls, I’ve continued to walk a minimum of 10,000 steps a day, I’ve started to do online fitness classes and even dabbled with swimming in the sea – I’ve even tried to set up a Nordic Walking Group, alongside starting another Open University module. It doesn’t take a genius to work out this was going to end badly.

I know, more than anything, that I need to exercise and eat well to feel good about myself and that it is a major contributor to maintaining my mental health. So that is non-negotiable. The exercise is happening. Thereafter I needed to start to say no. I needed to start to prioritise my own health and to be more selective about how often I went out and which other activities I carried out. Had I kept a diary about my anxiety I would have noticed at this point that I was starting to get ‘fraught’ and a little bit panicky about how I was going to fit everything in. But I brushed it under the carpet. I don’t want to be that ‘anxious’ person who can’t keep up – but the thing is I am and the best way to handle that is to learn to say no. To learn to spot the signs of impending meltdown and put my health and the sanity of my husband before other people. I’m not very good at that – so say yes to everything – then end up bailing on arrangements we’ve made anyway because I am just too exhausted.

In an attempt to tackle the increasing anxiety, I decided to take part in Sober October. In my head, I decided that this was going to solve the problem. But it didn’t. I was still going out just as much as I had been previously, probably 4 to 5 days a week. The only difference was I wasn’t having a glass or two of wine. So, I’d actually gained nothing and still wasn’t addressing the primary issue of over committing myself. I was just doing too much and placing the needs of others before my spiralling anxiety. By this point Angelica was getting a bit more shambolic in appearance and definitely needed a good hair wash to tame those frazzled curls.

One of the tell-tale signs for me that my anxiety is out of control is playing Candy Crush. The time I was spending doing activities that are both productive and calming reduced. The time spent on the games increased. I know this because husband was asking ‘Are you still on that game?’ I know that once he’s started noticing that I’m on the games the situation has got out of hand. And I was spending hours at a time on the games – playing them up until bedtime, which then disrupted my sleep, which then meant I was tired and anxious the next day. Eventually I spotted that I was doing that and deleted them off my tablet. This is a recurring situation. The anxiety increases, I download the games, the amount of time I spend on the game increases, I delete the games as a means to control the anxiety that I’d wanted to control in the first place!

So, as I look back, I can see the triggers were there and I can also see the mechanisms I use to avoid admitting it were there. Had I kept a diary I might have been able to address the arrival of Angelica sooner, more effectively and avoided the meltdown situation. If I’d just written down ‘Downloaded Candy Crush’ I might have recognised that the situation was starting to get out of hand and the other techniques recommended on the NHS website might have worked. Breathing might have worked. Going for a walk on the beach might have worked. Talking to husband might have worked. I’m going to give keeping a journal another try – I just need to find a way to jazz it up a bit and avoid it being too morose.

If you’ve not watched Nadia Hussein, ‘Anxiety and Me’ on BBC iPlayer then I totally recommend that you do. Watch it if you suffer from anxiety yourself, if you have a partner, a child, a parent or a friend who suffers from anxiety. It provided the best explanation of anxiety I have ever seen or heard and put it into a real life context.

I spent the whole programme shouting at the TV, ‘That’s me, that’s what I do’. It clarified a lot of things for me and enabled me to discuss some of the issues that arose with my husband.

Apparently, it’s not normal to have a voice in your head all day, every day, replaying every minute detail of the day that went wrong and how you might otherwise have managed it. Apparently, it’s not normal to have a voice in your head anticipating every last event on the horizon, creating worst case scenarios and how you are going to manage them, in such intense detail. Apparently, it’s not normal to fill every moment of your time doing something, anything, just to try to keep that voice at bay – even for just a little while. Apparently, it’s not normal to miss amazing moments in your life as you create ways in which it might go wrong or why you shouldn’t even be there in the first place. Apparently, it’s not normal to go from a slight problem to impending death in one step!

It also helped me understand why some of the steps I’ve taken to manage my anxiety have not worked. At all. Take flying – those of you who have had the misfortune to be on a plane with me know that I hate every minute of it. I have a very swift reaction to turbulence. Turbulence = death, I am going to die and it will happen shortly. In a way, it was reassuring to learn that it’s not just me that has this instant stress reaction from a minor event to death in half a second!

However, what I have always done about it is one of two things. Firstly, I try to breath into it. Apparently, your body can only do one thing at a time and if it is breathing it can’t panic. What I didn’t realise is this can actually exacerbate the problem – especially as I was breathing into the exact part of the body where I feel anxiety – my stomach and my chest. So breathing into that space makes the situation worse creating a greater sense of panic – so death was a racing certainty!

I have also tried a mindful approach to turbulence. Close your eyes. Feel the contact between your bottom and your seat. Feel the contact between your feet and the ground – but there is no ground – the nearest ground is 37,000 below my feet which are currently shaking because the tin can I am travelling in is bouncing around through turbulence = death. I’ve learned to just cope, and I have got better over the years and I won’t let my anxiety stop me flying – but it’s not a pleasant experience – for me or the people who have the misfortune to be sitting with me!

This week we flew from Bristol to Faro and I tried the technique that I briefly saw Nadia using in her programme – which was to face the panic and not run away from it. Being realistic and logical about this – what actually was happening and what actually was likely to happen – and I guess, what is panicking going to achieve? We were flying through turbulence, the plane was bouncing a bit, the wings were doing their job (I won’t explain the 12 foot flap – just in case you’re a nervous flyer) and we were moving forward. What was likely to happen was that the plane would fly through it, bouncing through the pockets of air, just as a boat bounces over the waves, back into smoother air and then we were going to land. Death wasn’t realistic or logical. I reminded myself that the anxiety is a feeling – it’s not who I am, and to recognise it as the feeling that it is. Giving into the panic was only going to make how I felt worse, both physically and mentally. No the situation wasn’t nice, but I felt I was more able to manage it – only slightly, but a slight improvement is better than nothing at all.

It’s not just flying. OFSTED inspections were a fast track to being sacked, a bad observation = being sacked. Good inspections weren’t an option – under what possible circumstances could I possibly be judged good or outstanding. No, the only outcome from any OFSTED inspection was that I was going to get sacked before the week was out. There is no logic to how anxiety manifests itself in the head and it is always, always negative. Like Nadia I can find a reason to be anxious in pretty much every situation that presents itself. I’ve read several times in the past that if you really want to get a job you should apply the technique of imagining yourself there, what it will be like to work there. I did always wonder why that was a recommendation – I was there, I knew which cup I’d be taking in, everything – little did I realise that this isn’t normal!!!!

Flying aside, one thing that Nadia’s Anxiety did show me was the progress that I have made in the last 18 months. The CBT therapist on the programme goes to lengths to explain that there isn’t a quick fix that you need to work on managing your anxiety every day. It can improve, it can get better, but you have to put the work in yourself, every day to reap the benefits. I realised that I have become better at stopping the voice and bringing myself back to the present – although many times it does get very carried away. I also realised how fortunate I have been in my ability to stand up to it and still do things anyway – I went to live in America at the age of 21, I did an MA although I was too stupid to pass, I went into teaching even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to control a class, I learned to swim so I could do a triathlon (and yes, swimming in open water = death).

I have two things I’d like to work on.

Believing people when they compliment me and not let the negative voice in my head tell me all the reasons why that’s not true and how people are saying nice things because they have to and they don’t really mean it.
I’d like to finish a cup of tea. I don’t think I’ve ever finished a cup of tea – even as a child my mother despaired at how many half drunk cups of tea she threw away! Another aspect of anxiety that came out of the programme was that you can’t sit still, you always have to be doing something. I can’t sit still, I can’t just read a book, I can’t just watch a film, I have to be doing something all the time as that keeps my head slightly quieter. So I’m going to set myself the target of having one cup of tea a day – and doing nothing else other than have the cup of tea. Not read, not look at social media, not crochet, nor knitting, or cleaning – just the cup of tea! I might even try meditating again, now I understand a little bit more about the nature of the voice in my head.