Anxiety, anxiety everywhere

It’s been around 10 years since I’ve being dealing with anxiety, besides my beloved hypothyroidism. As you can see I’m kind of a problematic kid, but maybe that’s my superpower!

It’s been an adventure: early stages of depression, panic, weird feelings, attacks, denial, fear, realisation and therapy. I’m still fighting and that’s one of the reasons I came to London - create defences, all by myself. Gladly, they got stronger, and so did I.

Anxiety itself is just a normal emotion, coming with a nervous behaviour. Thing is, if you add other hyper-emotions to this disorder, then we have an issue. When the nervous act is added to a concoction of fear, heart racing, shaking, dizziness and worry about what is to come next it tends to spell trouble. That’s when it becomes a category of mental illness meaning that it interferes in your ability to have a normal life.

Mine started with a fight and has manifested through experiences of my life; like my mom going away, my grandmother and father loss and, the ever depressing, love dramas. It got worse with my pulmonary embolism previous symptoms, and now the hypothyroidism doesn’t make it any easier.

There are different types of anxiety disorders, such as:

• Panic disorder: with no warning you have feelings of extreme fear; and symptoms of chest pain, palpitations, lack of breath and some thoughts that make you believe you’ll die or, at least, that you are going insane. Agoraphobia is also a disorder connected with panic, that happens when you’re in a place or situation that is difficult to escape or where help is not easily available. Once this happens in a specific situation, you’ll avoid it in the future. For example, it happened to me, back in Portugal, when in a regular basis, that started to happen when I was going by train from my city to Porto alone, and since then it happens all the time, therefore I avoid to go alone, every time I’m there. So, inevitably, this reinforces the fear.
• Social anxiety disorder: aka social phobia - it’s a fear and avoidance of people’s judgement; humiliation; social interaction itself, basically worrying in everyday social situations.
• Obsessive/compulsive disorder: when you have a few repetitive obsessions with something, living with the same thoughts about it all the time; and compulsions, when you have the urge to perform some rituals that are specific to you (this happens to me in many different ways, for example, there’s something I have to say when someone of my family travels and I’m scared that something happens, so I do it believing that might avoid it). This causes you a lot of stress because you can’t stop thinking about it or you feel scared if you can’t perform your rituals.
• Generalised anxiety disorder: when you have excessive stress, worry and fear for no reason, and to provoke the anxiety you need only a little or actually most times nothing at all to start it. This makes you a walking ticking time bomb, able to explode at any time without warning, where the most damaged will be yourself.

This disorder can be caused simply by problems in the brain function, where the fear and emotions are controlled. Excessive stress is capable of changing the way cells transmit information from one to another through some trauma you may have suffered (violence, rape, divorce, loss, etc.).

It can easily run in the family. The symptoms change from person to person and depend on the level of the anxiety. They include heart palpitations, panic and fear (excessive), making it impossible to remain calm. Shortness of breath (for me this is the one who causes me all the panic) can occur. Dizziness, tingling on the hands or feet (sometimes both), nausea, numbness, thoughts and images that make no sense, problems sleeping, and many more. This can quickly lead to depression.

Studies show that in America this illness is affecting 40 million adults aged 18 and older, or 18% of the population total. In Europe the lifetime prevalence of social anxiety disorder in the general population is around 7%. The UK has the most prevalent mental issues with an estimated 2.6% of the population experiencing depression and 4.7% with anxiety problems. 9.7% suffer mixed depression and anxiety. This occurs more often in woman and usually begins in childhood, adolescence and with early adults. Truth being told, it’s scary.

There’s no such thing as cure itself, just methods to make you feel better, controlling the situation. Therapy, medications and experience can help you find your own personal techniques to deal with the situation. I advise to avoid medication but apparently that’s the last option according to the doctors. To be honest I have a pill that I take with me wherever I go, and I do take them but only in SOS situations. I call it a ritual and since I have it with me in my purse it decreases my attacks or increases my ability to control it by myself. This became my technique. Therapy is very important to figure it all out and learn some methods that will help you in the future, I did it too for 1 year and I still keep in touch with my therapist.

Advice: Mindfulness (attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations in moment, by meditational practices). Get active, get good rest, avoid caffeine, stay positive, get hobbies, therapy, avoid maximising stress, and more importantly, accept your condition. And when it comes don’t worry, panic attacks don’t take more than a maximum of 20 minutes, and you will not die. You have to breath, think about positive things and call someone that will distract you.

You can either let it make your life miserable and sad, or say ENOUGH! Learn your tricks, because as hard as it gets, you can always play tougher!