Originally Posted by musical-milk
I'm not very good when it comes to talking about this stuff. But I suppose I should feel relatively safe here as we all know what it's like having to deal with this kind of stuff. I've decided it's about time to seek out some support from people who can actually understand what I'm going through, as I've never known anyone who has anxiety/depression issues. So here it goes, my life story.
I think it all began at a very young age. My earliest memories are of me sitting in my room at night obsessing and terrifying myself over the concept of death, and not existing. And also having lots of nightmares, and for some reason being afraid my eyes would fall out. Fast forward a few years, and add in being scared of someone breaking into my house everynight, though I still slept relatively normal (except for nightmares). I was also very paranoid that my mother was trying to poison me (we didn't get along very well, but she'd never do something like that), so sometimes I'd refuse to eat anything. At some point during my childhood apparently I almost drowned, but my brain has blocked out that memory. I have a fear of going underwater because of it. Fast forward to when I was about 10, I developed a fear of choking. I'm not sure why this happened. From then on I've had a lot of trouble when it comes to eating. It's been okay the past few months actually. But for most of my life after I got that fear, I've had issues with swallowing. These days when I'm by myself I find it pretty easy, though when I'm with other people I still get anxious about it and pretty much just can't eat anything. Also around that time I started doing weird things which I just couldn't avoid for some reason. Such as having to walk equal amount of steps with each foot in each section of floor (As in, different types of floor, or concrete with lines in them, each would be their own section, and in each section I'd have to step equal times with each foot in each section.. I hope you can understand, it's hard to explain), and having equal amount of food in each side of my mouth. I became pretty obsessed with symmetry, and neatness. Though this conflicted with another part of me, the artistic, messy, working on 50 projects at once with everything everywhere heap of chaos part that comes out occasionally, which call my 'highs'. I also experienced my first anxiety attack around this time, after a running race for a joint school sports day thing. (I loved running back then, and sports). Around when I was 12 I moved to the other side of the country, into a new school etc. I won't get into details, but I wasn't really accepted there by anyone, so it wasn't too great. I had a lot of chest pains and stuff, which I felt too embarrassed to talk about, which I now believe were part of anxiety.
Then when I got into highschool things went sort of downhill. I had a few sort of friends, but I lost interest in being near people. In fact I spent a lot of time alone, hiding away. I spent time hiding behind the library shelves and in one of the music rooms whenever one was free. I pretty much lost any interest I had in sports and that love I had for running, I felt like my social skills were slowly deteriorating. My second year there I got attacked for no reason. Out of the blue someone decided to pick me to beat up because of whatever their own problems were. Though later on I found out it was some scheme by a bunch of girls who hated me for who knows why. Probably for being perceived as a bit of a loner. I think it did affect me a lot. The year after that (grade 10) I had to change schools as my current one was to be turned into a middle school. I had a few friends, and a lot of 'those' kind of people (mostly girls), who were making it obvious they were talking about how weird or ugly I was, or whatever. That sort of stuff made it very hard for me to befriend any females (even though I am one), as I sort of developed a bit of hatred towards them all. Until I realised hate is a waste of time, so instead I just felt sorry for them that they didn't have anything more interesting to do with themselves than to put down some random they know nothing about.
By this time I pretty much had 0 self esteem, would come home everyday and cry myself to sleep in my room. I also began self harm, and I had no idea what was going on in my head, I thought it was just myself as a person. I had so much frustration and confusion, and I had no outlet, except to hurt myself. Not sure how I came to that conclusion. I got pretty addicted to that, and did it more often over the years of highschool. During the last two years or so of my schooling, I had severe sleeping problems. My anxiety at night time got so bad, I'd spend entire nights patrolling the house, checking locks over and over, panicking over the tiniest sounds. Even the rare nights that I wasn't getting anxiety, I just couldn't sleep anyway. I'd sleep once or twice a week, and when I did, I always got woken up by nightmares. So I made up for it by falling asleep during class. I'd get in trouble, but it seriously couldn't be avoided. I tried my hardest to keep my eyes open during class, but all of a sudden I'd be somewhere else, thinking, how'd I get here? Then realise that I'd somehow started dreaming and would wake myself up.
My closest friend then started copying my self harm behaviour once she found out about it. It's like I was slowly sucking her down with me, and because she is so stubbornly loyal to her friends and would never willingly stop being around me, and wouldn't stop hurting herself unless I stopped, I decided to make her hate me. Which worked after a while, and she went back to hanging with her other friends, who did her good. Then after a friend of mine died in a car crash (who was also my old friend's brother), I got a bit of a fear of being in a car, or people close to me driving. She also contacted me so I could be with her to comfort her. As soon as her better friends got there I left to go to my own thing. I wanted to be there for her, but I was too bad of an influence on her. She hated me even more after that I think. Which was for the best.
During that last year of highschool, my teachers noticed that I didn't eat (not that they saw, I ate a bit, but when having lows I had no appetite at all) and because I'm skinny, assumed I must be anoerxic. So the school counsellor talked to me, I lied a lot to her and so she said I must have ADD. My parents took me to the GP, and she diagnosed me with depression and OCD, and just put me on drugs (lovan). Which did nothing for me. I then saw a psychiatrist once, who said the main problem is anxiety disorder. It was such a relief to know I wasn't the only one out there like this, the panicking, worrying etc. I never got to see her again though. I also went off the lovan after a month or two.
I started seeing a counsellor (Headspace), who tried helping me with some cbt. I haven't been able to see her in a while, but I've managed to stop self harming all together pretty much, and channel my low moods into music and art. It's never easy, and sometimes it doesn't work and I do nothing all day, but mostly I can help myself when in a low. I tend to get highs also, where I want to do everything at once, have so many ideas, get so motivated, happy, lots of thinking, feel grateful to be alive, find everything amazing and beautiful etc. I love these. I do have inbetweens when I feel neutral, and in a day it can vary all over the place.
However lately my anxiety has been not so great. I always have paranoid thoughts, but after dealing with it most of my life, I've learned to be able to send them away usually. Except the other night I had a full on crazy thing, where I was convinced the people I'm living with (not living at hoem anymore) were poisoning me, that they were trying to kill me (I've been sick for some time now, which is probably why I got paranoid about that). I completely believed it, and was panicking, freaking out. Luckily I have a very supportive partner at the moment, who did his best to try and calm me down, which was hard as I believed he was in on it. I felt like I was completely losing my mind, like it was slowly slipping out of my head, and I'd be stuck here, a body, completely insane.
It sounds silly, but for those that have experienced it knows how scary it can be when you genuinely believe that you're losing your.
I've probably left out bits, but I'll probably keep posting in these forums about stuff over time, in order to help myself and hopefully others. I'm just tired writing about myself. I think you get the gist of it anyway, if anyone read this far.
I'm going to start trying out mindfullness, as I was lent a CD of voice guided mindfullness. I might keep some kind of diary to let myself and others know how it goes for me.
