boltonreddave
10-07-2015, 02:09 AM
Hello Everyone,
Most of what I will say in this in this post will have been covered in lots of other posts but I feel the need to describe my own anxiety journey so far and hope that it will help others to understand that what they are experiencing is quite ‘normal’
When this began I was 37 years old, a bit overweight and a smoker.
In early April 2013 everything in my world was great, I had a good job, a beautiful loving wife, a house and we were expecting our first child later that month. I was about to make an Internal move at work and had requested that this did not clash with the birth of our child as I didn’t want to be too distracted from. Unfortunately this fell on deaf ears and I started my new role a week before our daughter was born on 25th April. I was so happy, but I can also point to this as the start of a long journey.
It began on the evening of the 25th April as I was driving my mother home after she had been to the hospital to see our new child. Driving along the motorway I felt a sudden and loud ringing in my right ear as though it had popped, like on a plane, but much more severe. I carried on but thought ‘what the hell was that’. On the return trip to the hospital I began to feel a tingling in my face and almost immediately I had convinced myself that I was having a stroke. I rushed on, eager to get back to the hospital (what a great place to be going anyway if you are having a stroke!) all the time looking in the rear view mirror for signs that one side of my face was dropping.
Of course, I made it there ok, felt a bit odd and was tired because we had been up all of the night before. So, I said goodbye to my Wife who was staying in overnight and headed home, happy, tired but feeling not quite right.
The next few days were all a blur and seemed fine, then, about a week later, on the drive to work I felt a warmth coming over me, almost closing in over me like a wave. I was light headed, y arms felt heavy and my hands tingled. I felt as though I couldn’t breathe. I thought Oh my god, I’m having a heart attack! As luck would have it, where I pulled over was right outside an ambulance station. I pulled over, dialled 999 and 2 minutes later the ambulance pulled out behind me. I had electrodes put on my chest, oxygen and pulse taken and was asked a battery of questions. The Paramedic said it straight away ‘it looks like a panic attack, you certainly haven’t had a heart attack or a stroke’. Regardless, I was taken to the hospital to be checked out. I was given an ECG which was all fine and was sent on my way with a dozen Diazepam.
At this stage I was more relieved than worried, great I though, panic and not something worse, phew! Then over the course of the next few weeks the attacks hit me relentlessly. Almost every day. I began to feel real fear, what if they missed something? Why does this keep happening? My behaviour began to alter. I avoided motorways and stuck to A roads (an ambulance might take longer on a motorway), my route took me past hospitals, I couldn’t leave the house without my phone (in case I needed to call an ambulance!), I wouldn’t take the dog for a walk in rural areas and on and on.
At this stage there were no constant underlying physical symptoms, just a general state of fear in my mind and wave after wave of attacks. I thought, ‘I can’t go on like this, I have to do something’. Luckily I had a great employer who offered counselling to its employees. I signed up and over the course of 8 weeks or so went through counselling based on CBT. This taught me to normalise my feelings, to understand why I felt the way I did and eventually so that I learned not to panic. I could control my fear. I even got to the stage where I could bring a panic attack on, feel it, control it and then send it away! Amazing! Then over the next weeks and months, I simply forgot about panic and anxiety, it all went away! Until…..
Thursday 23rd July 2015.
So, here we are two years down the line with my fears well behind me. I am in a new job now, with a different company. Let’s just say I don’t enjoy it and leave it at that. Then an hour or so after lunch I am sat at my desk, typing away as usual when I feel a bit odd. I feel this wave again and a warmth coming over me. I feel weak, my arms are heavy. Oh no, was that a big twinge in my left arm? I stand up, my legs are really weak, I’m going to pass out, I’m having a heart attack! Sound familiar?
After two years I had forgotten about this feeling. My first instinct was to get down 3 flights of stairs to the main admin floor where I knew there was a defribrillator. I made I it of course and sat down in an office and asked for a First Aider. I really didn’t feel well and was struggling to catch my breath. I couldn’t remember it being like this last time. Off I went to see a doctor, who listened to my chest, took blood pressure, pulse and said that she knew that there was nothing wrong with me when I walked in. I didn’t feel ‘right’ but drove home and had a rest and dindn’t die.
From here on is where my first and second experiences differ wildly. Whereas the first time round I had a wave of attacks with nothing in between, this time I have had no more attacks but a constant stream of symptoms and a general feeling of being not well and not with it.
The most constant symptom has been a feeling of not being able to get enough air, with a constant need to yawn in order to draw a deep breath. This feeling is with me almost every waking hour. However the rest of my symptom appear to have evolved over the last couple of months.
Initially I felt an ache right beneath my breastbone, like there was a blockage. This made me think I was having heart problems. Then I started to get aches on the left and right under my ribs. It felt like my internal organs were being battered. Next it was a dull pain in the right elbow that came and went, then in the left elbow. Next came the lower right back, really tender under the lowest rib. Then that went away and now it is mid upper back. It feels like there is a pressure, especially when I lean back on something, that is being put on my lungs.
Throughout the last two months there has also been the usual sweaty palms and feelings of fear and a serious underlying illness. Indeed, with the changing symptoms above at first I thought that there was something wrong with my heart (ruled out by an ECG), Liver Cancer with the tenderness in the lower right back, and now it is Lung Cancer with the aches and pains in my mid upper back and with the shortness of breath. And I jump at every little noise! God am I jumpy!
The really annoying thing is that I KNOW that this is anxiety and that from the previous counselling that I should be able to deal with it, but I can’t, it consumes me every hour that I am awake. I feel every signal that my body sends, I concentrate on breathing which is the opposite of what I should do, I worry, I zone out of conversations to think about how and what I am feeling, I feel more and more depressed and a greater desire to feel ‘normal’ every day!
Even more annoying is that while all of this has been going on (and before, since May), I decided that I needed to get fit and lose weight so I joined a Gym, started running and stopped eating rubbish. Not a diet, just stop eating rubbish. And its working! And, despite fear of a heart attack and all the rest, in September I ran my first 10k in 58 mins. I was thrilled. I still felt crap, but I did it and I didn’t die! Woo Hoo. I have lost 20lbs so far.
So here I am today, sat writing my anxiety journey. Last night I ran 5 miles on a treadmill at the Gym, I felt great doing it, then I got home and felt terrible. My heart wouldn’t slow down, I felt generally not well but nothing specific, so of course I thought that I was going to have a heart attack. Today I have an ache in my back, my breath isn’t so bad and but otherwise ok. What am I scared of now? Well, o Saturday I am taking on the Yorkshire 3 Peaks Challenge Walk, 26 miles taking in 3 great big hills with a total climb of over 500ft. SO I think that I am going to have a heart attack and die out in the wilderness. I also know that I will get round it, just like I did with the 10k, just like I do at the gym. I know I will also feel crappy.
So I challenge my fears, and I come through them, I carry on at work thinking I should ignore all my symptoms, but yet they consume me. And, the fact that I know all this and that the symptoms are still there makes me feel that there really is something wrong! Lol, it’s like ever decreasing circles!
What am I going to do about it? Read, educate myself, I have had 2 acupuncture sessions and I am going to pay for counselling as my current employer does not offer such a service. I will do this challenge on Saturday even though I am absolutely dreading it, then I will set myself another goal.
I hope my story so far makes a few others feel a bit more comfortable, as although like a lot of you I do have the feelings that something more serious is wrong, most of me knows that this is not true. I feel that we need to re-train ourselves in our approach to the signals from our bodies and our environment. I hope to re-learn this through the counselling to put this awful episode to bed once and for all.
Thanks for reading
Dave
Most of what I will say in this in this post will have been covered in lots of other posts but I feel the need to describe my own anxiety journey so far and hope that it will help others to understand that what they are experiencing is quite ‘normal’
When this began I was 37 years old, a bit overweight and a smoker.
In early April 2013 everything in my world was great, I had a good job, a beautiful loving wife, a house and we were expecting our first child later that month. I was about to make an Internal move at work and had requested that this did not clash with the birth of our child as I didn’t want to be too distracted from. Unfortunately this fell on deaf ears and I started my new role a week before our daughter was born on 25th April. I was so happy, but I can also point to this as the start of a long journey.
It began on the evening of the 25th April as I was driving my mother home after she had been to the hospital to see our new child. Driving along the motorway I felt a sudden and loud ringing in my right ear as though it had popped, like on a plane, but much more severe. I carried on but thought ‘what the hell was that’. On the return trip to the hospital I began to feel a tingling in my face and almost immediately I had convinced myself that I was having a stroke. I rushed on, eager to get back to the hospital (what a great place to be going anyway if you are having a stroke!) all the time looking in the rear view mirror for signs that one side of my face was dropping.
Of course, I made it there ok, felt a bit odd and was tired because we had been up all of the night before. So, I said goodbye to my Wife who was staying in overnight and headed home, happy, tired but feeling not quite right.
The next few days were all a blur and seemed fine, then, about a week later, on the drive to work I felt a warmth coming over me, almost closing in over me like a wave. I was light headed, y arms felt heavy and my hands tingled. I felt as though I couldn’t breathe. I thought Oh my god, I’m having a heart attack! As luck would have it, where I pulled over was right outside an ambulance station. I pulled over, dialled 999 and 2 minutes later the ambulance pulled out behind me. I had electrodes put on my chest, oxygen and pulse taken and was asked a battery of questions. The Paramedic said it straight away ‘it looks like a panic attack, you certainly haven’t had a heart attack or a stroke’. Regardless, I was taken to the hospital to be checked out. I was given an ECG which was all fine and was sent on my way with a dozen Diazepam.
At this stage I was more relieved than worried, great I though, panic and not something worse, phew! Then over the course of the next few weeks the attacks hit me relentlessly. Almost every day. I began to feel real fear, what if they missed something? Why does this keep happening? My behaviour began to alter. I avoided motorways and stuck to A roads (an ambulance might take longer on a motorway), my route took me past hospitals, I couldn’t leave the house without my phone (in case I needed to call an ambulance!), I wouldn’t take the dog for a walk in rural areas and on and on.
At this stage there were no constant underlying physical symptoms, just a general state of fear in my mind and wave after wave of attacks. I thought, ‘I can’t go on like this, I have to do something’. Luckily I had a great employer who offered counselling to its employees. I signed up and over the course of 8 weeks or so went through counselling based on CBT. This taught me to normalise my feelings, to understand why I felt the way I did and eventually so that I learned not to panic. I could control my fear. I even got to the stage where I could bring a panic attack on, feel it, control it and then send it away! Amazing! Then over the next weeks and months, I simply forgot about panic and anxiety, it all went away! Until…..
Thursday 23rd July 2015.
So, here we are two years down the line with my fears well behind me. I am in a new job now, with a different company. Let’s just say I don’t enjoy it and leave it at that. Then an hour or so after lunch I am sat at my desk, typing away as usual when I feel a bit odd. I feel this wave again and a warmth coming over me. I feel weak, my arms are heavy. Oh no, was that a big twinge in my left arm? I stand up, my legs are really weak, I’m going to pass out, I’m having a heart attack! Sound familiar?
After two years I had forgotten about this feeling. My first instinct was to get down 3 flights of stairs to the main admin floor where I knew there was a defribrillator. I made I it of course and sat down in an office and asked for a First Aider. I really didn’t feel well and was struggling to catch my breath. I couldn’t remember it being like this last time. Off I went to see a doctor, who listened to my chest, took blood pressure, pulse and said that she knew that there was nothing wrong with me when I walked in. I didn’t feel ‘right’ but drove home and had a rest and dindn’t die.
From here on is where my first and second experiences differ wildly. Whereas the first time round I had a wave of attacks with nothing in between, this time I have had no more attacks but a constant stream of symptoms and a general feeling of being not well and not with it.
The most constant symptom has been a feeling of not being able to get enough air, with a constant need to yawn in order to draw a deep breath. This feeling is with me almost every waking hour. However the rest of my symptom appear to have evolved over the last couple of months.
Initially I felt an ache right beneath my breastbone, like there was a blockage. This made me think I was having heart problems. Then I started to get aches on the left and right under my ribs. It felt like my internal organs were being battered. Next it was a dull pain in the right elbow that came and went, then in the left elbow. Next came the lower right back, really tender under the lowest rib. Then that went away and now it is mid upper back. It feels like there is a pressure, especially when I lean back on something, that is being put on my lungs.
Throughout the last two months there has also been the usual sweaty palms and feelings of fear and a serious underlying illness. Indeed, with the changing symptoms above at first I thought that there was something wrong with my heart (ruled out by an ECG), Liver Cancer with the tenderness in the lower right back, and now it is Lung Cancer with the aches and pains in my mid upper back and with the shortness of breath. And I jump at every little noise! God am I jumpy!
The really annoying thing is that I KNOW that this is anxiety and that from the previous counselling that I should be able to deal with it, but I can’t, it consumes me every hour that I am awake. I feel every signal that my body sends, I concentrate on breathing which is the opposite of what I should do, I worry, I zone out of conversations to think about how and what I am feeling, I feel more and more depressed and a greater desire to feel ‘normal’ every day!
Even more annoying is that while all of this has been going on (and before, since May), I decided that I needed to get fit and lose weight so I joined a Gym, started running and stopped eating rubbish. Not a diet, just stop eating rubbish. And its working! And, despite fear of a heart attack and all the rest, in September I ran my first 10k in 58 mins. I was thrilled. I still felt crap, but I did it and I didn’t die! Woo Hoo. I have lost 20lbs so far.
So here I am today, sat writing my anxiety journey. Last night I ran 5 miles on a treadmill at the Gym, I felt great doing it, then I got home and felt terrible. My heart wouldn’t slow down, I felt generally not well but nothing specific, so of course I thought that I was going to have a heart attack. Today I have an ache in my back, my breath isn’t so bad and but otherwise ok. What am I scared of now? Well, o Saturday I am taking on the Yorkshire 3 Peaks Challenge Walk, 26 miles taking in 3 great big hills with a total climb of over 500ft. SO I think that I am going to have a heart attack and die out in the wilderness. I also know that I will get round it, just like I did with the 10k, just like I do at the gym. I know I will also feel crappy.
So I challenge my fears, and I come through them, I carry on at work thinking I should ignore all my symptoms, but yet they consume me. And, the fact that I know all this and that the symptoms are still there makes me feel that there really is something wrong! Lol, it’s like ever decreasing circles!
What am I going to do about it? Read, educate myself, I have had 2 acupuncture sessions and I am going to pay for counselling as my current employer does not offer such a service. I will do this challenge on Saturday even though I am absolutely dreading it, then I will set myself another goal.
I hope my story so far makes a few others feel a bit more comfortable, as although like a lot of you I do have the feelings that something more serious is wrong, most of me knows that this is not true. I feel that we need to re-train ourselves in our approach to the signals from our bodies and our environment. I hope to re-learn this through the counselling to put this awful episode to bed once and for all.
Thanks for reading
Dave