Anxiety - a battle with your mind and body

It’s not even REAL!

Yet it SEEMS very real.

I still remember very vividly telling my friend that it’s all in her head. And it is. The problem is that once you get trapped in the downward anxiety spiral it is really hard to tell your mind to stop working overtime and you body to chill, as there is no impending danger around the corner.

Mind turns into a monkey that repeats every stupid thing it hears, reads or remembers.

Even if those things are ridiculous.

Even if most of them are offensive to yourself and all the good and valueable parts of you.

Body becomes your enemy.

Fight or flight mode is great. When there is a lion chasing you. Not when you wake up, go to work and try to concentrate on what you’re doing. Not when it lasts for weeks or months on end.

First time I experienced accute anxiety was around spring time last year. I’ve lost all the money I could and couldn’t afford to loose in iffy crypto projects and I collected £1000’s of debts that needed to paid off monthly.

My dream of becoming self employed and being my own boss could no longer be persued and I had to start looking for a JOB in corporate world which I only just managed to escape a couple years earlier.

The mere thought of getting up early in the morning and following the orders of some new boss have throw me into a downward spiral which caused my body to freeze and panic at each and every little task I had to do.

Funny thing was that at that point I already secured the positions in 2 companies and in theory there was nothing to worry about, but making a decision between the 2 companies seemed like an impossible task to do and one thing I was looking forward to, to relax and be happy for a few days was cancelled due to strikes on Dutch airports.

That was the last straw. I was on my knees when I called my doctor to ask for something for anxiety. She prescribed a mild antidepressants and I took the first one already on the carpark, right after picking up my prescription.

I’m not a fan of prescription meds, but at that point I knew I just couldn’t make it without some help. No walks, meditation or playing with plants in my garden helped in calming down my overreacting body at that point. I was freaking out and I knew I need a crutch for a while.

Cause crutch is all the medication is. It doesn’t help for extended periods of time, unless you increase the dosage. It doesn’t solve the underlying issue that causes you to be anxious. It doesn’t heal. It’s just a crutch that helps you walk for a while.

My plan was not to escape the root cause of the issues that have been surfacing. It never is. I did however have to get my shit together to be able to work or else my house would be at stake. I needed that crutch for some time to get me going.

I read the leaflet of my meds carefully and knew that I’ll have to take it for a minimum of 6 months and that’s what I committed to. Every morning, like on the clock I was swollowing that tiny pill. My doctor told me to double the dosage after 2-3 weeks, once my body is used to the medication, but I never did. The initial tiny dose was all I ever needed to get my head above the water and cope with my new reality.

I started feeling better, loved my new job, was able to afford going out dancing again and soon enough I was feeling much more like myself again. I wanted to stick to the plan and take the medication for a minimum of 6 months to avoid a quick slide down.

7 months later, in January I stopped taking medication and I was ok for maybe couple of months. Then my reality started to change again. I got a new boss and I despised him from week 1. My nice job was no longer so nice and I got more and more stressed every day.

Newly prescribed hormones made me put on weight at an allarming speed, which in turn made me feel shit about myself.

To relax I went to work on my allotment, only to find out that it was taken away from me and somebody else has already started working on it, since I forgot to pay rent for it. I had to fight to even get my gardening tools back.

My own garden looked like nobody lives there and another storm broke even more panels of my fence, making me feel miserable whenever I looked out of the kitchen window.

My ex partner who I was still seeing every now and again and deep down thought we’ll get back together one day told me that he’s seeing someone else…

There was more… much more hits and ‘NO’ answers wherever I turned, but the situation with my ex was really a nail in the coffin.

One evening I came back from yoga and heard a loud noise. It was the air coming out of my tyre at such a fast speed as I’ve never seen/heard before. I wanted to sit down and cry, but I had to fix this, as I needed to drive to work the following morning. I had no idea how to change a tyre. I suddenly felt as alone as never before.

The tyre was replaced by my friend’s bf and fixed in a local tyre place at my lunch break the following day, but for my own self that was just a beginning of a full-on breakdown. Just as fast as the air was coming out of that tyre, the life came out of me at the same speed in that very moment.

I turned into a bundle of nerves.

The thoughts of being alone started dominating my mind and every day life seemed unbearable. While I already increased my daily activity, my long walks were a perfect opportunity to go over my whole life, regretting and/or questioning every decision I’ve ever made.

My thoughts have become darker and darker and my mood followed.

Body took a little longer, maybe a few weeks before I suddenly started becoming allergic to what seemed like everything around me. Hives, swollen body parts, various injuries, diarrhoea, you name it! My body has simply became allergic to life just as fast as I lost the will to enjoy it.

My doctors were giving me more and more meds - mainly antihistamines and antibiotics to which I became allergic too!

What now? - I asked myself.

Should I get the crutch again? - I wondered after a few weeks of this madness of daily fight and flight mode that was wrecking havoc in my life.

My friend has just started taking new meds and was swearing that it helped tremendously. Sure, I could do that too, but I also knew I don’t wanna walk around on the crutch anymore.

I’ll wait till the end of the summer. I’ll try whatever I can find to deal with it without any meds and if nothing works I’ll go and get that crutch again - I told my friend.

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How did it go? Those of you who read my Actifit reports might already know how many things I tried and those who don’t? I’ll continue this topic in another post.

One thing I can say is that there is no easy way out of anxiety and no magic pill that will make it go away. My friend who was swearing by her pills has since increased the dosage multiple times, because once your body gets used to it, the current dosage no longer quiets the mind.

The way out is there, but it’s hard and requires a lot of work. About that next time…

Until next time 💙

Camera:	iPhone11
Photographer:	@fantagira