Anxious Mum

Oonagh O'Hagan - 24 Sep 15

 I look around the waiting room and wonder how I ended up back here. The girl in the corner with an obvious eating disorder clings to the edge of her chair with her head down, hair covering her eyes. The guy in his 20s with baseball hat and ‘drug dealer’ vibe slouches in his chair and eyes me with suspicion.

I suddenly feel very conspicuous in my suit jacket and want to mess up my freshly blow dried hair. Maybe I will be okay without this, I tell myself. I am not like these people. I have a successful career and have two young children at home, of course I am feeling anxious!

I battle with the urge to flee for too long and then my name is being called. At least it’s a doctor this time, I think, as he introduces himself to me. But wait, he is about 12!? A short conversation confirms that, yes he is a doctor, but a studying to become a psychiatrist.

He wants to know all about me, start from the beginning. I launch into the story that I have become bored with; Anxious, depressed, content at times, happy often, emotionally incapacitated at the most inconvenient times. Yes I have been treated before, the first time you were probably in preschool. It’s not his fault, he is trying to help, even if a successful case study for his qualification is his main goal.

The plan of action this time is Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. I’m pretty sure I have done it before, but he assures me I have not. When I ask for very early morning appointments to fit around work he looks at me as though I have gone mad (conveniently in the right place). Apparently a 12 week CBT course at 10am, 45 minutes from work is a perfectly reasonable thing to do?!

We settled on 9am and I leave slightly triumphant but ultimately deflated with the whole process. I pass the ‘crazies’ in the waiting room and feel a pang of guilt. I am no different from them. No better, no worse. Yes I work full time and am a mum to two young children, but obviously I am not well enough to cope without help.

I think about the future while driving to work. The waiting room hasn’t changed in many years, the CBT will be the same as before and my medication will always be needed unless something else changes. I need to take control of my future as well as my present.

I have always had a desire to write, to tell my story, mostly as therapy for myself but to reach out to anybody else who has struggled as I have. I don’t want my writing to be a depressing, whiney rhetoric of life with anxiety, so blogging might bring out the positivity in my life and you might even find stories about my two angels/devils amusing.

I aim to document my struggles with mental health, my life with my husband Ciaran, Rose (4) and James (20 mths) and my journey through CBT. And I hope to entertain you along the way.

Oonagh xx

Oonagh O'Hagan

I am a 33 year old working mum to 2 young kids. I love my family and love my job and try to give my best to both (not always successfully). For many years I have battled with my mental health and while I don't want it to define me I have resolved to embrace it as part of me. While having children increased my levels of anxiety they have also given me a reason to enjoy life to the full. They make life worth living.

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