For the past 8 months of my life I’ve been battling with anxiety attacks. And you’re probably all thinking “Oh that’s not bad.” Well it isn’t to be frank, not as bad as some things. But the random waves of nausea I get when having a attack have developed into something else.
I have a terrible fear of being sick. Vomiting. There will be days when I am so scared I’ll stop eating for fear I’ll throw it back up, I won’t drink, I’m afraid to go to bed in case I wake up and be ill and I am afraid to get up in the mornings. I’m kinda in a void. I think of it as a ‘grey area’ – I don’t want to die but at the same time I am terrified of being alive. I’m stuck in some half way house where I’m not happy with anything at all about my own existence because it all seems fairly grim from where I am standing. I simply have no passion to do anything but sit in this void, this grey area and await whatever fate has for me.
Now this will probably be a self-induced rant. I’m sorry. But I kinda need to clear my head of things and I feel writing it all down will somehow clarify things to myself.
I’m not as bad as I used to be in a conscious sense. Consciously I am battling my fear, looking for inspiration from people I know and in people I admire. But sub-consciously, well…I don’t think it’s going so well.
People used to get annoyed at me for being this way. They’d tell me it’s stupid and to make my fear go away all I need to do is stop thinking about it. Well the problem is I can’t. My mind is constantly racing, thinking, deliberating and making up scenario’s in which all consequences are illness – all options are to be ill. There is no healthy option.
And over the past few weeks I’ve been thinking, “I feel better. I’m laughing again and I am doing things again.” I’ve been offered counselling and I was starting to wonder if I really needed it. I felt so much better.
The problem is I don’t think I am. There was a news report on TV today about a stomach bug going round. Usually I’d burst into a panic. But I didn’t. I sat and I watched it and I bared it. It was later that I developed a stomach ache and felt ill. And later when my parents moaned at me that the panic set in. I started to cry. I didn’t know what to do. This bug was going to get me and I was going to be ill and for me that’s terrifying.
And it’s then I realized, Have I done the one thing you’re not meant to do with mental illness?
That one thing is pretend it’s not there. My friend had counselling a while ago for a problem and she was told never to hide it in, if you feel sad then feel sad but don’t put on a facade for everyone. You need to deal with your problem – not hide it.
I’m starting to wonder if I’ve done that. Rather then deal with my fear I’ve pretended it never existed. I pushed it as far in as I could and smiled for everyone. And so when I get too stressed or too tired it leaks out slowly. If I am told off or moaned at I get stroppy, I then start to feel ill and the panic and the fear return and I refuse to eat for days and then I feel worse which discourages me to eat yet again.
I thought I was getting stronger. Fighting it. But I’m not. I’m shutting my eyes and singing to myself – to be frank. You know the whole “LALALALALALA I’m not listening to you.” And it’s starting to show itself in different ways.
I can’t even control it anymore. It’s not on my level of consciousness. It’s almost become its own being inside of me. This fear.
And while I am writing this I’m starting to think – My god I really need this counselling.