2023 – A Summary

As ever, people are sharing the accomplishments they’re proud of for the year and as ever, I tend to struggle because I haven’t done any of the typical stuff. However, I have done things and I don’t want to ignore them so here’s a short post about what I’ve done.

This year, I’ve spent lots of time supporting someone close to me who’s been going through a really difficult time. After struggling so much last year and fighting what felt like a losing battle with my anxiety, I’ve been able to regularly visit my Dad again and have visited my Nana 4 times too after 18 months of being unable to. I organised a party for my Dad and his sister at his house for our relatives, nearly all of whom I’ve not seen for over 10 years and it was a huge success and despite nearly throwing the cake layers in the bin after accidentally making them different sizes, I made the best cake for them that I’ve ever made (photos below).

I’ve spent a year showing up for therapy and giving it my all, despite it being really hard, despite it being painful, and despite all of my previous bad experiences. And I’m making small steps towards progress.

I’ve been outside more this year than probably the last 3 years combined and it meant that this year’s photo calendar that I made only included photos actually taken this year, unlike last year’s which included just 1 from that actual year because I’d been so unwell (photos below).

Despite it being one of my biggest anxieties, I’ve tried to tackle my health problems this year and probably the thing I’m proudest of is that I’m tackling my needle phobia. Ever since my first blood test when I was 9, I’ve been completely phobic of needles, can’t look at them, hear about them, have nightmares for days ahead of having tests and I’ve cried through every single blood test. In the space of 6 weeks this year, I had to have 3 blood tests and thanks to advocating for myself and making sure my needs were met, I’ve successfully had all 3 without shedding a single tear. That might sound pathetic but beginning to conquer that fear just before I turned 33 is something I’m so proud of because I actually never thought I would, such was the level of my phobia.

Finally, I’m proud of the lived experience work that I’ve been doing with Samaritans. It’s hard to find opportunities when you’re severely Agoraphobic and they’ve been absolutely brilliant at accommodating me and bringing the best out in me. I’ve worked on their Online Harms programme for nearly 2 years, I helped create practitioners guidelines and will soon be helping conduct research into the efficacy of this and I successfully applied to join their in-house research ethics board as a lived experience advisor as well, something I absolutely love as it combines my passion for mental health and suicide prevention with my academic interest in research. It’s been such a confidence boost being able to work with others on projects that will change and save lives.

Oh and I’m learning to knit. My Mum and Grandma tried to teach me when I was a child and I was absolutely awful at it. I could only make scarves and every single one of them had a hole in because I dropped stitches and didn’t know how to pick them back up. I’ve been desperate to knit for a few years because there are certain things that don’t really lend themselves to crochet and after finding an epic pattern for a knitted dinosaur skeleton jumper I realised I needed to learn to knit. It’s early days but I’m well on my way with this cableknit scarf (photos below). I’m hoping cableknit jumpers are in my future and I’m hoping to learn to make socks, hats and jumpers soon, just as soon as I’ve learnt to cast off, increase and decrease. I don’t do things by halves!

As many of you know by now, I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions or wishes or plans, so I’m going to keep doing the things I’m enjoying, keep seeking answers and solutions to my health problems, and keep spending time with the people who know me best and bring out the best in me. I’m lucky enough to have some very lovely cheerleaders around me who know when to boost me, who remind me that I’m enough, who remember all the things I’ve achieved and the skills I’ve amassed when I feel like a useless potato and possibly most importantly, who accept me for who I am, with all of my quirks, failings, deficiencies and all of the not enoughness and too muchness (often in the same 5 minutes) and love me anyway, despite all of those things and according to them, because of those things too. They’re the ones who keep me going, who believe in me when I don’t and who help me find a path when I can’t see one, they’re the ones most of my achievements this year are because of because without them I wouldn’t have had the confidence or courage to apply for positions, go outside, pick up knitting needles, rescue my cake, or start tackling my needle phobia so it’s thanks to them and the bravery they instil that I’ve been able to push myself and do things I’m proud of.

Wishing all of you a very happy new year with things to look forward to, things to be proud of and people to support you when you need it, we could all do with plenty of that!

Four types of anxiety and how to cure them – What a load of bollocks!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29835995

Having read the above linked article, I was left feeling angry and let down, yet again, by the media. Ignorant people should not be allowed to write articles or talk on the radio about things that they have clearly not understood or experienced.  While this writer does describe somewhat effective methods for reducing normal anxiety, these methods are by no means a cure and will not prevent these anxieties from occurring.

The title itself is what I feel is most damaging to read. Anyone scrolling through the BBC website will have read it and it will have implanted in their subconscious. Headlines like this are really dangerous and offensive to those of us who suffer from anxiety disorders. The anxiety we suffer is not normal level and cannot just be ignored or, as suggested in the article, thought of in terms of odds or just accepted. The anxiety we experience is so intense and complex that it takes over our lives and stops us from doing anything related to the thing/s we fear. The idea that we can just think ourselves out of it or just stop worrying when we choose is absolutely ludicrous! It’s a disorder not a lifestyle choice! I don’t put on my anxiety disorder in the morning like I would a favourite dress and then wear it out for the day and then not wear it for a few weeks. Having an anxiety disorder is like having your mind hijacked. You’re forced to think things that you’ve never thought before. You worry about things that are ridiculous and make no sense and yet there’s no escape from them, no relief, and nothing you do stops the impending feeling of doom or the panic rising up inside you.

I graduated from my Psychology degree just over a year ago and to the best of my knowledge there is no known “cure” for anxiety. There are medications that can lessen it and talking therapies (if you’re lucky enough to be given it on the NHS or rich enough to self-fund), but I have been advised by my psychiatrist that it takes a great deal of time, effort and seemingly luck for the person with the disorder to recover back to full functioning. Articles like this just belittle my experiences and those of every other anxiety disorder sufferer. If it were as easy as he implies then surely psychiatrists would be redundant, there would be no anxiety disorders named because none would exist and we’d all just look at life in terms of odds in a card game or we’d learn to just switch off the news.

I’m a needle phobic and am so severe that when working in a psychiatric hospital as a nursing assistant I couldn’t go down to the far end of one of our store cupboards because that’s where the hypodermics were kept. While I know that the pain and suffering I would go through with any of the diseases we’re immunised against would be horrendous, the idea of having an injection leaves me plagued with thoughts that I won’t cope for weeks leading up to the appointment and leaves me unable to sleep or dreaming about it for the few nights before the injection. Despite being 23 I cry every time and have panic attacks if I have to have a blood test. I literally have to panic out all of the anxiety so that I’m left with so little energy that I can’t be as anxious anymore and then I’m able to keep my arm still enough for them to steal my blood and I cry and panic and fuss throughout that part too. Afterwards I’m left feeling utterly stupid and embarrassed wondering why I made such a fuss because yes it hurt a bit but it really wasn’t that bad and yet I still go through the same process each and every time. That’s how phobias and other anxiety disorders work – just knowing something isn’t threatening or dangerous isn’t enough to stop you feeling very intensely that your life is somehow at stake.

His blanket statements that medication works at treating “free-floating anxiety”, it can be accepted and you can learn to use it are lovely but they’re not true. He suggests that it’s better to be driven by these anxieties than be forever drugged, a huge judgement on those who are reliant on medication to remain functioning and again, who said medication works for everyone or that anxiety can just be turned into drive? He describes himself at the beginning as a chronic worrier but if this man were ever diagnosed with an anxiety disorder he’d eat his words overnight and hang his head in shame at how wrong he was. He suggests that if you can just “take control of the other three anxieties” then “we will have the mental space to seek out pleasures rather than focus on unfixable problems”. If it were that simple I’d have done it by now but alas I’m left virtually housebound because of anxiety reading articles like this feeling utterly frustrated that such an ignorant voice is allowed to make such vastly inaccurate statements about something he doesn’t understand. This article has fed into the already astronomical amount of stigma we have in society about anxiety disorders which is clearly shown in the comments section which I read in despair. Hopefully not everyone reading the headline, or indeed the rest of the article, will believe that there is a “cure” for anxiety but I fear that damage will have been done.

In short, four types of anxiety and how to cure them – What a load of bollocks!