Anxiety….you wily Minx, you.

Laura Morris - 15 Nov 18

Hey You Guys! (Said in the style of the Goonies…for no reason other than I’ve had 2 glasses of wine.) 🖐🏻

I hope you’re all doing awesome….well, doing well….well, surviving. As let’s be honest, there are {many} times when we all just feel like the latter. That we are just surviving. Coasting. Work, sleep, work, sleep, cook food, iron, blah blah boring stuff blah….

I’ve had a great few weeks, and I’m telling you this because I genuinely feel great..I kinda feel like I’ve not only got my mojo back, but I feel like I have my so called sh*t together. (I’m going to start using asterix-es because my lovely mother and husband think I swear too much in my posts. 😒. Kn*bs. 😂). Anyway. I digress.

So yeeeeaaassss. All is good in said hood right now. Or so I thought. Keeping detail to a minimum, I had a fright of my life a few days ago, waking up in the middle of the night, unable to breathe. Long story short, tests were done, results were clear.

Simple as that.

Although, it’s not, really, is it. If I’m logical about what happened, with all tests being clear, all arrows, all large, neon illuminated arrows point to an anxiety, or “panic” attack. Which confuses me, as I had no trigger. And if any of you suffer with depression/PND/PTSD/Anxiety, you’ll know there’s usually a trigger.

But nope. No trigger here. I mean, my weeks are always busy, but nothing out of the ordinary. I’ve cut out alcohol for most of Oct, so no excessive drinking, no trauma, no excess stress, nothing. But boom. Here we are at 2am. *Sighs and says FML*.

🤦🏻‍♀️

I had a conversation about anxiety recently. With someone who I didn’t think suffered. But they did/do (I don’t think you ever really stop suffering, you just learn to manage it as best you can) and it made me think that most people you meet, whether they choose to label it or not, either suffers or has suffered with anxiety of an annoying level.

It goes straight back to the stigma of mental health I think, where there seems to be a massive focus on labelling…you’re “depressed” you have “anxiety” you suffer with “mental illness” and while yes, mental illness is a very correct and accurate term, more so the illness part, i think it can stop people accepting that they are “suffering” and just put the way they are feeling down to a busy schedule, being tired or just being a bit bonkers.

Side note: I remember when I was diagnosed with PND, G was months old, so I had “suffered” for 9 months, thinking I was just “bonkers”…the same reasons as above. Once I had finished the PRAMS support sessions, which were amazingly helpful may I add, I was transferred to General Mental Health to be discharged, as PostNatal Mental Health only covers you until your baby is 1 year old.

During my one and only appointment with the young, male doctor…I feel this point is important…he said the following to me, and it will stick with me for the rest of my life:

“Miss Pomeroy, how do you feel? If I’m being honest, you don’t look like you’re depressed. Maybe you’re just tired, you know being a new mum with a young baby. It can be very tiring and demanding”.

Whhhoooooooaaaaahhh now sunshine…..

No1. Just because I didn’t look like I was struggling, doesn’t mean I wasn’t. Did he want me to go in with one shoe on, unbrushed hair, food smeared over my face and child, mismatched clothes, a ripped jacket with a screaming, un-bathed child? *starts to get angry*

No2. I wanted to get out of there ASAP and not go back…which was why it was my only appointment. He undid all the work the PND group had done with me accepting that the previous 9 months were not normal.

No.3 I was FURIOUS. How dare he. The w*nker.

End of side note.

I suppose the point I’m trying to make is that anxiety seems to have become a “normal” part of life. Pretty much everyone you come across suffers with some level of anxiety, whether they chose to label it or not.

Some choose to ignore it. Some choose to cope. Some choose to know it’s there but ignore what it is. Some accept and carry on with life taking the ups and downs.

I suffer. I don’t label it usually, but I have it and I’m ok with it. I’ve accepted it and have my ways of coping. My strategies.

But it’s really opened my eyes in the past few weeks/months/year or so how many people actually struggle with this on a daily basis. It really feels like a natural part of life, to go through this on a daily basis. And it’s super sad.

Do you think we’ll ever get to a place where this type of thing doesn’t happen? I don’t. I think there’s so much pressure for people to be strong and to cope and life is 300mph and it doesn’t stop and neither do we and we get tired and fed up and angry at having to try and placate people and keep people happy and people that don’t actually matter but create a big whooo-haaa about stupid things and my god I’m tired just writing this without punctuation. But that’s how things feel for me sometimes. And I forget to breathe. And take a breath.

So if you’re reading this now, please, do me a favour. Put your phone down and just take a minute to breathe. Deeply.

And if you relate to this, start being selfish! Start thinking about you. And start doing what feels good, rather that what you think you should do!

As always I’m super grateful to you for reading my blogs. It’s such a therapeutic hobby for me, having a little type, a little rant. What I am going to do on this post though is link 2 books that honestly, have changed my life. Very thought provoking content. Very eye opening. And pretty good reads too. 👇🏻

Happy by Fearne Cotton

The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

Until next time everyone. Thank you again for reading & I’d love to know your thoughts. ❤️

XXX

Laura Morris

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