New Year’s Eve 2019, as the clock ticked down to the last seconds into the new year, I grabbed my partner Nic and cuddled him saying
“this will be there best year yet!” He replied “Definitely! I can’t wait to see what happens.”
We both did not expect to be racing down to the emergency room on New Year’s Day, the 1st day into 2020.
I’m going to go back a few months, to around October 2019. Nic and I were meeting some friends at a beer festival, that was held 10mins walk from where we live. We were both pretty excited to go. These days neither of us are really interested in going out…getting shitfaced, nursing a hangover and feeling like crap for 2 days. I guess, we’re grown up now haha! Anyway, we both had a fantastic day dancing and drinking in the sun. We ended up having more drinks back at our place along with our friends. It continued into the early morning, so pretty obvious to say, I was wasted! .
this the start of my anxiety going into overdrive
It was around 10am that morning that I started feeling off. Obviously, I was hungover and hadn’t slept. I started getting my usual anxiety symptoms when I’m hungover – pins and needles in my hands and general discomfort of anxiety. I had a banging head ache and my stomach was not happy.
At this point Nic was already snoring next to me. I wake him up to tell him I’m feeling really anxious, something he was quite used to. He got up and grabbed me some water, put on an animal documentary and tried to sit it out with me. Usually when I’m hungover and anxious like this, it passes within 2-3 hours, where I’m exhausted and just fall asleep. But this didn’t happen. In fact it got worse. The pins and needles in my hands spread to the arms, then my feet followed. My legs and my hands started to cramp in on themselves, to the point that Nic had to feed me water because I couldn’t hold the cup. These have all happened before in the past and is extremely frightening. My lips and teeth felt like they were going numb and I thought I was going to die…literally. I knew I had to concentrate on my breathing, to help calm myself down, but at the same time it felt impossible because my whole body was tingling.
This went on for hours….
It was an unnerving experience. I put on mediation music and concentrated on my breathing. This went on for hours. It was around 5pm that the symptoms finally started to ease. That night I had decided I was going to see a doctor the next day.
So, the next day arrives, I’m still feeling anxious but no pins and needles…thank god! I see the doctor, explain everything that had happened the day before and a brief outline of my anxiety since the age of 17. She was amazed that I had gone all these year without medical help. She suggests prescription medication, which I new was coming. I said I needed to think about.
I was one of those kids who for an early age hated medication of any kind. It would become a huge thing if I needed to take any, always ending in tears and then I would usually vomit it up. I couldn’t swallow tablets until the age of 25!! So to me medication didn’t seem like a option, I wasn’t interested!
A week later I find a little lump on the left side of my neck, around the size of an almond. I freak out causing my anxiety to start spinning out of control. I’m back at the doctor, thinking its cancer or something life threatening. I get an ultrasound done, which concludes it is a lipoma -which is a fatty non-cancerous lump, which is actually quite common. Even with the diagnosis, I still think it cancerous and that I will die.
For the next two months I feel on edge, constant feeling of restlessness, paranoid something‘s wrong with me. I just could not relax. I still had to go to work with a smile on my face, pretending like everything was absolutely fine, while I was a complete nervous wreck on the inside.
In December, my family flew over to spend Christmas with Nic and I. It’s amazing how anxiety works. Those weeks that they visited I felt great…normal actually! I was distracted with the good feelings that come when you’re surrounded by the people you love. I also kept a mental note not to over drink alcohol like I would normally with my brothers and sister…trying not to do anything that would trigger my anxiety.
Above: Pre Drinks, New Year’s Eve, sister Lynnette (left) Me (right), Top right, Nic & I Xmas break, bottom right, Familiy! Xmas break.
It goes to show, that someone can be suffering with anxiety and look completely fine on the outside.
New Year’s Eve arrives. My brother, sister and her partner are still visiting. They get a cool air bnb in the city and I meet them for pre drinks before we head to an event that Nic is working at. During the night I get offered some drugs, which I am extremely hesitant about, but at this point I’ve drunk quite a few gins and think errrrrrr, fuck it, I’ll just have a tiny bit, its new year’s…what the hell!!
WORST MISTAKE!!
At the time I was completely fine, but it was early the next morning that my anxiety was in full swing. Everyone else had gone to bed around 4am, but I was wide awake with anxiety. I had the usual pins and needles but I also felt like my vision was blurry. My legs felt like lead, I felt like I was going to pass out when I tried to walk and then I started to feel like I couldn’t breathe properly, my chest felt heavy. I tried drinking water but even that felt hard to swallow. I tried having a hot shower, but that lasted five minutes, I became paranoid, thinking I might pass out with the door closed and no one would hear me.
I woke my sister up, telling her I was feeling really weird, she sat up with me and waited for Nic to come home from packing down the event. It was now 7am. Nic arrives and tries to help calm me down. It was around 8am that everyone else wakes up. I kept touching my neck and checking myself in the mirror. I kept thinking my neck was going purple. My brother asked what was wrong and I told him I hadn’t slept yet and I felt like I couldn’t breathe clearly, which obviously startled him. Finally, I asked Nic to take me to the hospital. I was so scared I would stop breathing.
So here we are the 1st of January 2020 sitting in emergency. I felt really guilty looking at Nic who had fallen asleep next to me. He had just finished a 15hr shift. I explain everything to the nurses and doctors. They check me over fully. I get ECG test done, they check my air ways to make sure nothing is stuck and…..NOTHING! Everything looks normal. I was so exhausted, embarrassed and confused…I didn’t know what to do but cry. They were all so kind and reassuring that I would be fine. The doctor explains to me in the nicest way that I should seriously consider medication because these attacks could happen continuously. I’m given 2 diazepam and within 30 mins I’m feeling okay. The anxiety fog has lifted!
I would love to say that everything improved from there, but it didn’t.
The following day (the 2nd) I had organised a beer tour….(no…I’m not that crazy, I had pre organised months in advance!!) my family were leaving back for Adelaide, so it was supposed to be one last fun thing to do. I didn’t drink the whole day. I tried to get involved and have fun but I had the sensation of not being able to breath. Being an asthmatic most my life I just thought I would use my inhaler which would help, not knowing that it can actually make anxiety worse. I also started to think that I would choke if I ate, which sounds ridiculous…I’m an adult!!…I know how to chew my food!! But I couldn’t get the thought out of my head.
For the next two months I struggled badly with my anxiety. I couldn’t hide it from my work mates and often would need to leave for 20 mins to try calm myself down. I’d feel so embarrassed and would stand in the toilets crying. I just didn’t know what to do….I felt like I had no control over my own body. I started having panic attacks, something I had never experienced before. the attacks happened daily, even multiple times a day. I was constantly scared about the next one. The feeling of a heavy chest and difficulty breathing used to drive me insane. I started doing this cough thing to try clear my throat, but really, there was nothing to clear so I would end up with a sore throat. All day, every day I just had the word “ANXIETY” repeating in my head….I couldn’t think clearly.
I would get home from work and lie on the couch for hours, starring at the clock waiting for Nic to come home, I had not energy to do anything else. Then I would get angry at myself for being so lazy. I started walking around the block, and for a few weeks it really helped calm me down, Nic would walk with me every time. It became compulsive, sometimes 5 times a day. A few times we went on hour and a half walks through Fremantle, when my anxiety didn’t seem to ease with the small walks. Sometimes the walks helps, others times it didn’t.
I would call my mum daily, crying. Telling her I couldn’t breathe, which I think would scare anyone to hear that. My mum had also suffered from anxiety in the past, and had experienced some of the symptoms I had. Being a nurse herself and my mum, she always made me feel a little better, but I also knew I couldn’t keep ringing her like this. She told me to go to the doctor and ask for a care plan*. Everyone knows mums know best! So I made an appointment with my doctor.
Still not wanting to try medication, my doctor organises for me to see a psychologist. I see my psychologist once every two weeks, where she teaches me new ways of dealing with my anxiety and ways to better understand what my body is doing.
I learn tools like:
- Meditation & Mindfulness, Start with self guided meditation for 5 minutes, then slowly increase
- Keeping a gratitude journal, Keep track of the good things that happen…like eating a delicious meal, having a good laugh, playing with your pet, a good funny article.
- Keeping a journal of the not so good things, When was I feeling anxious? What did I feel? How did I react? Where was I? What were my thoughts?
- Face my fears , Have I ever stopped breathing? No…Have I ever passed out? No….. ok so the chances are highly unlikely, try to move the negative head space.
- Exercise, A simple walk around the block, feel the breeze on your face, notice what you see, clouds in the sky?
- Breathing techniques, Deep breathing, belly breathing, 4-7-8 breathing.
- EFT Tapping, Acknowledging the issue and acceptance, butterfly hug, tapping sequence.
Even with help from my psychologist , every day felt unbearable. I couldn’t seem to get to the point where I was able to practice the breathing techniques, in fact they made my anxiety worse, they became a trigger.
Eventually I decided I needed to try medication; this decision was a hard one to make. I felt like I had failed myself, but I needed to try, I couldn’t put it off any longer, back to the doctor….
TO BE CONTINUED….
* For those of you who don’t know what a care plan is, it’s a plan that everyone is entitled to. If you have any chronic conditions i.e. arthritis, diabetes, asthma, chronic pain, anxiety, depression… the list is actually quite large. You can ask your doctor to put you on a “care plan” where they assess your condition and if you qualify, they then manage your condition over a 12-month period. They then organise a list free or part paid sessions with the medical assistance you need, which you then choose.