Anxiety 1.0

I remember one day standing at my back door, looking out into a sunny garden with a cup of coffee in my hand, I wanted to go out and sit on the garden bench, but I couldn’t. No matter how I tried my body wouldn’t let me walk out of the door and sit in the garden. I don’t know why even now, I wasn’t scared, I wasn’t afraid of anyone or anything, I just couldn’t go outside. Now for me, someone who has travelled around the world, taken flight only trips to Australia and the Greek islands, been around Europe on the unlimited train travel ticket known as Inter-rail, staying at cheap hotels and hostels in whatever country we ended up in, with no itinerary at all. To suddenly be faced with not even being able to go into my own back garden was a shock

The side effect of this is that my short term memory has suffered. When I was ill I noticed that certain functions were impaired, my short term memory and concentration being the most obvious. Fortunately when I was ill I had a very good doctor, he was patient and understood mental illness much better than most. He told me when I was off that the only person who could determine I was better was me. This is very true, originally I was only signed off work for 2 weeks, this led to greater anxiety when the 2 weeks was nearly up, in fact it was almost panic! I was then off for a month, this gave me much more time to unwind and breath but once again approaching the end of this period panic set in again

Eventually after 4 and 1/2 months I was ready to go back, in fact I was eager. There was some trepidation obviously and that first walk into work required me to steel myself and push myself through the front door. I was however ready, by now I was sick of the sight of my living room, those 4 walls were closing in! Although my house was a haven of safety I was fed up of my living room and daytime tv, I used to spend days in other rooms to break up the monotony. But now I was ready to go back, to interact with friends and colleagues once more

During my illness I had other odd side effects that I only realised after a while, the fact my balance was affected too, I had to sit down to tie my shoe laces. Obviously I couldn’t drive either, although I had been driving earlier until my doctor rightly pointed out I shouldn’t, my mind would wander as I drove and although never in a dangerous situation as I live in a rural area so I could avoid motorway driving and cities or large towns and still get all I needed, but if I had continued I couldn’t have guaranteed it wouldn’t have been dangerous. Although intrigued I didn’t web search my illness or it’s affects, I was in the mindset where I wanted to get better and do it quickly, I was worried if I read of further side effects I’d then develop them or worry about them more than the core issue

People often ask if I mind taking about my illness but I really don’t, as I have memory loss of the majority of this period, it almost feels like it was someone else and not me. I also find it quite interesting the way your mind works, you don’t realise how powerful your mind is until it stops working correctly. But I still get memory issues along with some anxiety and I’ve also realised a bit of OCD (though you it may be you can’t just get a ‘bit of OCD’) but I can now recognise these symptoms and live with them. I have to adapt sometimes and take them into consideration, but sometimes I think it helps with my creativity and ability to do ‘blue sky thinking’. It sometimes means I obsess with things, and this can be good, a bit of perfectionism doesn’t go amiss, though sometimes I obsess and then just drop the subject entirely as I am I bored of it which can also be dis-advantageous. However as with anything – play to your strengths!