Mental Health – Life According to TJ

Angelica Anxiety

October 24, 2021 Steph 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.

Mindfulness, Well-being

A Journey out of Lockdown

July 19, 2020 Steph TJ

So, here in England lockdown restrictions are now easing. I’m not too sure what the rules are any more, as they change from day to day and there is very little clarity, but that is by the by. All I know is that from Monday 6^th July restrictions lifted to the point that you can now go and visit other households and stay over with them. Result. I haven’t seen my parents since February – just before lockdown as I remember my Dad telling me what a load of old rubbish it was and no-one was ever going to make him stay inside. We’ve been through a bit since then, including my shouting at them to tell them they had to stay in – whether they liked it or not – and all through the guilt of having their neighbours doing the shopping for them because I live two hours away.

So. I booked my train ticket from Bristol to Stoke-on-Trent to visit them, before we fly back out to our apartment to Portugal. I thought it was all fine and dandy. I thought it was OK for me to go and see them. I didn’t see the problem with it, nor did my Mum. I had a good chuckle at the National Rail website which asked me if I was absolutely sure I couldn’t cycle or walk. I guess I should have realised when I couldn’t hire a car, that things weren’t quite as normal in reality as they were in my head.

I always struggle going to stay with my parents. It’s not something I particularly enjoy doing and have a tendency to build it up into more than it is and get myself into a dither beforehand at the best of times. This time I thought I wasn’t doing that. I thought I was managing it all really well. I was doing my yoga and meditation every day, I was reading all the right things and I was trying to live from a viewpoint of love rather than fear, I was trying to maintain a high vibration. Only I wasn’t. I was actually just going through the motions and papering over the issues and thoughts that I probably knew were there, but I was failing to see them – or I didn’t want to see. If I am honest, I was conscious that I was getting anxious – all of a sudden the flat was too messy and it had to be tidy and I do recall a moment of clarity when husband said he could see me getting quieter and quieter and was getting quite worried about me. Sadly, husband has to watch me go through this each time I go to visit my parents as I build it up so much and get myself in such a state. But what I hadn’t factored in this time was the cherry on the top of the cake that is Covid_19.

I knew I’d been living in a bubble. I always knew there would come a point when I had to leave the bubble and it might not go so well, but I hadn’t connected that event to this trip – which in hindsight is more than a bit dim. I wanted to be that person that breezed through the next phase of leaving lockdown without a care in the world.

The trip started out really well. It was great. I arrived at Bristol Temple Meads. Got my water and magazine, found a coffee stand. I should have worked it out at this point. There was only one coffee stand open in Temple Meads – there are normally lots to choose from. I made my way to the platform, which was empty and a bit odd, then got on the train, which was empty. There were probably about 10 people on my carriage – the dream world of train travel – all of the perks with none of the drawbacks!

Then I arrived at Birmingham New Street. If you’ve never been to Birmingham New Street then it is normally packed. There are usually people everywhere. It’s loud, it’s busy, it’s a challenge to get to the platform for your next train within the time frame just because of the number of people. There was nobody. There was nowhere to get a coffee. Nothing was open. It was just myself, lots of staff and a handful of other daft people who were thinking that train travel was a good idea. It was at this point that the panic started to seep in. What was I doing? Why was I here? What was I thinking?

What I was thinking was that I hadn’t seen my parents since February and they were keen to see me and according to the latest rules it was safe to do so. Why I was here was because I’m off to Portugal at the end of the month and won’t see them in real life for another 4 months or so. I thought it was the right thing to do. It was also at this point that I developed a cough. I have hay fever and often have a bit of a tickle in my throat, but all of a sudden the desire to cough increased tenfold. My mind was off. I was taking the virus to Stoke-on-Trent, I was going to infect my parents. All of the coping strategies I thought I had developed went out of the window and all I could think about was the desire to cough and so I started crochet like a mad thing to keep my mind occupied as much as possible. For the first time during the Covid_19 pandemic I had a coronavirus meltdown.

I got to Stoke-on-Trent and I could have cried when I got off the train. The nice lady at the station had let my mum through the barriers so she could meet me on the platform. Nothing quite prepared me for my mum who is of an age when leaving the house with full make up is a must, standing with her mask on. It’s probably the first time I’ve ever thought of her being old – and following the rules so closely that she bumped elbows with me. Although I did have to laugh at all the lipstick smeared all over the mask. We lost Dad – which is fairly tragic in a 2 platform station, but we managed it – and then it really hit me that he wasn’t ready for me to visit. He looked apprehensive, and uptight and not at all comfortable with the situation.

Although he denies it, my Dad has suffered with anxiety all of his life and as I’ve become older I can now appreciate that much of what caused his behaviours and actions as I was growing up were due to off the scale anxiety coupled with OCD. Like me, he also likes to have an element of control – I think we all do, but that means different things to different people. He really likes to be in control and struggles if he doesn’t. I now also see that my main problem as a child was that I wasn’t easily controlled and fought against it at every opportunity. At the minute control for him means cleaning everything to within an inch of its life with antibacterial wipes every day – including inside the car. Going for a walk every day – just to get out of the house and keep himself busy. He’s painting every surface in the house that will stay still long enough. Then he cleans down with the anti-bacterial wipes again. He picked up on my tickly cough within about 10 seconds. ‘How long have you had that cough’? ‘What’s caused that?’ I told him it was hayfever, but by this point my desire to let out a hacking cough every 10 seconds had reached crisis point.

We went for a walk to Trentham Gardens – Dad went for a walk around the Gardens, Mum and I went to look at the shops and had a cup of tea, outside and had a nice chat. She was so thrilled I was there, an unexpected treat. But my head was in full on panic mode by this point – there were too many people and I was going to give the virus to everybody – not just my parents. The thoughts had taken hold of my head and they were rampaging.

I knew it was happening. I knew it was out of control. What I didn’t know was how to stop it. All of the techniques I’ve learned went out of my head and didn’t seem to work. I tried to ‘bag it’ for later, but it was too big to put into the bag. I tried Tara Brach’s RAIN technique – but it was far too out of control for that to work. I tried identifying the dominant fear, but that didn’t help either. I was out of control – like an out of control train hurtling to the end of a very short track. There was nothing for it but to crash. Meanwhile the controlling the cough was becoming increasingly difficult.

The only workable solution was to phone husband, who was still in Bristol. That isn’t ideal, having your wife in bits 125 miles away, but that’s the only solution I had to hand. I know that getting the thoughts out helps. I know that he helps me work through the thoughts and regain some sense of equilibrium – which in this case required some very sensible figures and probabilities around catching and spreading Covid_19 given the current levels in both Stoke-on-Trent and Bristol. Which he did and we decided that the best solution was probably for me to come home after the one night rather than staying for two – what I didn’t consider and probably should have was I could have booked a room at the local hotel, not half a mile away!

I managed the one night. I managed to get through two lots of my parents taking their temperatures, to check they don’t have the virus. I got through a night of repeats of quiz shows, where I knew a surprising number of the answers. I actually slept, which is unusual when I am at their house, I made it through breakfast and another round of wiping down with antibacterial wipes. I managed to control the cough as much as humanly possible. The sigh of relief when I got out of the car at the train station was palpable. Whilst mum was thrilled that I’d been to visit, I’m not sure it was really worth the impact on mine and my dad’s mental health. He was in cleaning overdrive, and I was not in the best place either.

So, what did I learn from this? That I still have my moments when I can’t cope and can’t work out what to do. But now I can spot the moments, and although I was worse than useless, at least I knew it was happening and that I needed to do something. I was listening to Eckhart Tolle with Russell Brand on the train, and Eckhart Tolle said that being aware is a great step in the right direction – it shows some level of awareness. Even if you can’t resolve the situation effectively, being able to see it and know that it’s a situation is a start. I learned that whilst this did happen, the time between this meltdown and the last one is longer – I can’t actually remember the last time this happened, so I know that I have made progress. I learned that I still have to work harder on my coping mechanisms in the moment. This actually sounds more brutal than I mean it to – I clearly have to identify one thing or method that I can fall back on which is more beneficial than others. At the minute I have too many and none worked effectively. I learned that my husband is still my greatest supporter and back room staff all rolled into one. I learned that I need to control the situation as much as my Dad does. Again, according to Ekhart Tolle, the things that most upset you about other people are the things that are most dominant in yourself. Whilst my version of control is very different to my Dad’s, I have been controlling my reaction to Covid_19 as much as he has: I’ve been doing yoga and meditating; he’s been cleaning anything to within an inch of its life, but for both of us, being taken out of that comfort zone when we weren’t quite ready was a disaster in the making. I learned that life has to be a lot more near normal before I try this again and next time, I will definitely hire a car and stay in a hotel, so we can manage seeing each other more effectively for all involved. I learned that train travel on an empty train is a dream.

What of the cough? The one that was going to kill me and most of the inhabitants of Stoke-on-Trent. Within a few hours of being back at home, it had gone.