Wednesday 23 March 2016

Me and Anxitey... hint, we're not friends.

Anxiety is a mental disorder which I suffer with on quite a common basis. It is mentally changeable, but during the time of a persons suffering with this (and trust me, it is suffering) you'd think others would be more understanding and helpful, but apparently not, so i'm here to give you my insight in to what it is like to live with this problem on a day to day basis.

Anxiety can also show itself in the form of attacks, mental breakdowns, day to day living problems, nervous disorders and other more complex issues. My main form of dealing with anxiety is mentally, although it has been known to have an effect on my breathing and mood.

So when I wake up in the morning, I will look at my phone. While I swipe through the messages and emails and notifications in general, my mind will always look at who has contacted me and who hasn't. Who hasn't replied to a message I have sent them and why. Mental Anxiety will make me think first off that somebody hasn't replied to a message because they do not like me, that I must have done something wrong. If not controlled at this stage, my brain will go on to thinking about previous comments I have said, any past arguments, fallings out etc and this can be draining on you to be thinking all these thoughts first thing in the morning, and it really does slow you down.

Now at this stage, I will drop contact with people who haven't messaged me. This isn't because I dislike them for not messaging me or anything, but it is to stop me asking them what is wrong all the time and while my brain is thinking there is a situation, it is to stop that situation from getting any worse, a sort of protective measure for both sides, if you please.

I will explain to you about how my brain reacts when plans change, because this involves physical stuff and that can also have an impact.

So last week, me and a friend who haven't met up much recently made plans to meet up and go for a meal, maybe a walk around a local town and most of all, a good talk, I mean, friends are there for you to chew their ear off right? We had all the plans set into place. In the morning of that day I had other stuff to be getting on with, which causes me mental stress anyway, but in the afternoon I made contact and said basically "i'm ready, what's the plans" which were met with "I'm not in the mood for going... hope you find something else to do".

Now for me, that instantly sends the message of... I've done something wrong, so what is it, and it's hard to find an answer when I could be creating a situation in my head that doesn't exist in real life. Since then, there's been no contact between the two of us. My brain keeps thinking that I must have done something wrong, that maybe I didn't come across as excited enough for the other person to be happy about going etc. You do after a while begin to change thoughts, so mine went to thinking maybe she wasn't in the mood for going, maybe there's nothing wrong... but then social media plays it's part when you see that same friend going out with other people, where they could have been going out with you, you see status updates about phone calls they could of / used to have with you, and that just sends me mentally back to stage one.

It really does weigh you down eventually to where you don't feel like you can take much more and so you begin to cut ties with people after a while, to try and cut down on the mental stress you have to deal with on a daily basis, but sometimes that doesn't help. If anything, it can add to the amount of problems you have, because you wonder what sort of friendship you are missing out on and what could have been had you not cut ties with them in the first place.

Mental Anxiety is a very difficult thing to try and live with, like I said before, you would think others would be more understanding, but because mental health isn't spoken about openly by most people, nobody knows how to handle you.

I did hear not too long ago that there's set to be a million pound push on mental health services within the UK, bringing not only better treatment, but awareness to different mental health issues, I cannot wait for this to happen, because maybe then, more people will know what i'm going through and how to handle me.

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