My Health Anxiety Story

I thought it was about time I told my story, especially still being in the midst of a Global pandemic- it seems rather apt.

Where it all began.

My story starts way back in September 2018.

This was a particularly tremulous year for me, I started a new job which I hated and totally affected my mental health and self esteem. I then found out my boyfriend had a throat condition and needed to be operated on and then in the summer of that year my Dad had a heart attack. It was A LOT.

One Friday night in the September I was dying my hair and chilling in the bath, reading a few magazines. I leaned over the edge of the bath to get another one and all of a sudden I was having MEGA heart palpitations. This then panicked me that I was having a heart attack and I leapt out of the bath. I called to my boyfriend and said I felt really funny and I didn’t know what to do. I was flapping my arms around and pacing across the landing. I think I may even have said that he would have to call me an ambulance, I know it sounds dramatic but I couldn’t calm down. Even as I went to bed that night I still felt on edge and ‘funny’ as I would say.

What is a panic attack?

Some people on this earth are SO very lucky that they’ve never experienced anxiety or ever had a panic attack and I know it can be hard to understand what it feels like or how it can affect you but I thought Id try and explain it.

In my case a panic attack feels to me like what I imagine dying to feel like.

I just feel really odd, my arms feel all tingly and a really out of body type feeling washes over me from head to toe. It almost feels like I’m drowning but without being underwater. I struggle to breathe, I’m gasping for breath and I cant find my way back to the surface, until all of a sudden it’s gone and I am overcome with emotion and I start to cry.

Anyway, back to the story.

The next day, I expected to wake up feeling better but, I didn’t. I still felt really funny, almost like I had an impending sense of doom. Like something really bad was going to happen to me. I went and met my friends and kept the way I was feeling completely to myself even though internally I was fighting with these catastrophic thoughts.

On the Monday I went to work, I used to drive about 45 minutes on a motorway and then a single road to get there and whilst stuck in traffic I had another panic attack, only this time I was convinced something bad was going to happen to me-like I was going to have a heart attack and because I was stuck in traffic an ambulance wouldn’t be able to get to me and I would die. These thoughts were on a constant loop in my head.

Gradually, each day the panic attacks became more and more frequent on my way to and from work and also more frequent whilst I was at work. I would be sat at my desk and I would have a pain in my leg, I had convinced myself I had a blood clot and was going to get DVT. I drove home and the pain was still there so I told my boyfriend, I remember we were watching The Bodyguard, with that super hot guy in it- Richard Madden-you know the one, but I couldn’t concentrate because I felt really panicky and funny yet again.

I decided to get in touch with the doctors and talk about my heart palpitations and it was recommended I go for bloods and an EKG.

A few days later I had a MAJOR panic attack at Southampton Boat Show and my lovely friend Louise took me to A&E. I had to have loads of tests done and ended up being there for 8 hours. Everyone was so lovely to me but they explained that because they couldn’t find anything physically wrong me with they would put it down to a panic attack but that if I fainted or had bad chest pains to go straight back in.

I thought I’d feel better after I had had it confirmed that there was nothing officially wrong with me but I still didn’t and every day I struggled with my thoughts.

My parents decided to take action and pay for Hypnotherapy for me. I started sessions at Botley Hypnotherapy with Ian and he was wonderful.

I remember going in there and just crying at him and he held my hands and said he would love to be able to give me a hug but that was the best he was allowed to do and he just sat with me and let me cry.

My sessions with Ian were always 100% about me and for that hour each week I was able to relax.

He taught me some breathing techniques which I still use today. My favourite being breathe in through your nose for say 6 seconds and breathe out through your mouth for longer for maybe 8 seconds and do this for two minutes. It stops the body from going into fight or flight mode.

In the October I caught a sickness bug, but actually that helped me to be pre-occupied as all I could think about was how nauseous I felt and how sick I was and for that weekend I was almost ok again.

Until I wasn’t.

The panic attacks continued and got consistently worse, in one instance I remember having some holiday from work and my friend coming round to see me. I remember when she was there she was chatting away to me and I just couldn’t concentrate on what she was saying as I was far too busy thinking about how ‘funny’ I felt. I kept going upstairs and secretly smelling my Olbass oil because smelling things helped in some weird way.

Another instance I remember is having my hair extensions taken out and put back in. I went to the ladies house and the whole time I was there I was having panic attack after panic attack but I had to keep it all to myself-I mean, I’d never met this woman before and what would she think of me?

I continuously had them at home too and it was so hard for my poor boyfriend to understand how to look after me or to make me feel better. He always said to me “do your good breathing” and tried to get me to lay down and relax but it wasn’t always possible so I decided to make another doctors appointment.

The morning of the appointment I was getting ready to leave the house and the front door was locked. My boyfriend had locked it from the outside (without thinking) and had locked me in. I was starting to panic, I tried to climb over the back gate, I called him but he worked in Salisbury so wouldn’t get back in time, I SO badly wanted this appointment I needed to get help but I was going to miss it and I couldn’t wait any longer.

Eventually I saw a neighbour out my kitchen window and shouted to her, I threw my keys out and she managed to let me out but my appointment was long gone. Luckily my wonderful boyfriend had called the doctors and explained what was happening and managed to reschedule the appointment.

So, I saw the doctor. I was given Propranolol slow release tablets ( beta blockers ) and citalopram (anti-anxiety medication) and sent on my merry way.

I went back to work and slowly started to bring up the topic of mental health and why I had missed half of the morning to go to the doctors. I had previously been scared to say ANYTHING for fear of losing my job but I decided to try and casually drop it into conversation. I was proud of myself for going to the doctors and starting the journey to getting help. Although, to be honest I think it fell a bit on deaf ears.

The tablets made me feel like absolute wank. I felt so very unwell and that started to contribute more to my thinking that actually I really did have a serious illness and I was going to die.

Eventually, one Friday in November I got to work sat at my desk and my colleague Louise said those fateful words ‘Are you OK Jess?’ and I BROKE DOWN.

I cried and cried and cried. I just couldn’t stop. Louise drove me to my parents house (luckily they lived near work) and I went inside and cried some more. Together, we decided I should call the Doctors and we sat and waited for one to call me back.

At this point it was decided I would stay at my parents for the weekend so that they could look after me.

The doctor called me back and asked me to go in for a face to face appointment and also signed me off for a week.

This part is a little hazy but I think I had maybe 2 or 3 actual face to face doctors appointments where I was sent to the hospital for blood tests etc.

I would be sat at home googling my symptoms and reading stories about people with cancer. I was also continuously weighing myself and if I lost any weight then I thought I must be ill.

I actually did lose loads of weight through the stress too I went down to 8st 4. Which isn’t a healthy weight for me at all. I stopped going to my Zumba and Slimming World classes and I became a total recluse.

I couldn’t leave the house and I couldn’t be left on my own because I was terrified something bad would happen to me if I was.

I also downloaded a heart rate monitor to my phone and at least 3 times a day I would be checking my heart rate.

I started spending a lot of time with my boyfriends mum and she started teaching me to knit amongst other things which was a good distraction technique although it only worked on a short term basis. I was lucky to have lots of loving people around me.

Between her and my parents throughout the December I was taken out to various garden centres and places just so that I was getting out of the house, although that was a struggle. Most days I wanted to stay behind close doors and cry.

I was a total shell of my former self, I felt scared, lost and hopeless.

Throughout this time I was also having conversations with work. My directors came out to visit me and my dad went in to see them and we agreed I would do a phased return in the January.

Then on the 17th December I was walking from the car to Whiteley shopping village (Dad was getting me out of the house) and my phone started ringing. I thought it was my director calling me to discuss my return to work but actually he started the call with “I have some bad news” and I thought it was going to a joke at first but then he said “We’ve had a company meeting and head office have decided to terminate your contract due to you having too much time off during your probation” and honestly that was a kick in the teeth. I broke down again and walked over to my dad tapped him on the shoulder and mouthed ” I’ve lost my job” to which he took the phone off me and spoke to my director. I can’t remember what he said but I remember him being cross.

That evening I called Italk again ( I must have called them before but I cant really remember it) and explained to them that I had lost my job and that I was struggling profusely with every day life and my mental state. I didn’t hear from them again, until March of this year 2020 offering me an appointment.

Whilst I understand that NHS mental health services are massively underfunded I feel like that is FAR TOO long to wait. Anything could have happened to me between then and now. Thankfully it didn’t but you just never know..

So, that was that, amongst everything else that I had going on 8 days before Christmas, I’d lost my job.

Starting to feel better.

We were due to hold our friends Christmas gathering that year ( we take it in turns ) and I really didn’t want to miss out so I left my paernts house and returned home so we could organise and prepare for it and actually it was the first night for ages that I didn’t feel worried or ‘funny’ .I was starting to get better.

Or so I thought.

Christmas Day 2018 I had a panic attack and spent some of the evening in tears. A few days after that I began to get a pain below my ribs so we went back to the doctors who felt around and did some tests and gave me some lansoprazole for acid reflux. This gave me an extremely upset tummy so I called the doctors again and was given omeprazole which helped initially but honestly the pain was horrible it went right the way up to my throat and felt like someone was strangling me. It happened at the same time every day and it was really unbearable.

Getting worse again.

After Christmas I couldn’t face going home and I ended up staying on at my parents house. I went back to the doctors again ( they must have been sick of me) because I had absolutely convinced myself that I had stomach and/or pancreatic cancer due to the stomach pain and again they sent me for more bloods.

This time I was a MESS waiting for the results I was hyperventilating, pacing up and down, flapping my hands around and crying at the doctors receptionist because they hadn’t come back yet.

When I finally got the results one of my bloods was ever so slightly up and well, that just threw me into panic overload, I literally went mental.

Whilst this was happening I couldn’t sit still long enough to watch something on tv or read a book. If I attempted to do that my mind would start wondering and the thoughts would reappear again ‘you’ve got cancer, you’ve got stomach cancer, you are going to die. ‘ Honestly it was never ending.

In between all this I has a morning where my dad actually took me back to A&E and I saw a doctor there who said that she couldn’t feel my pancreas and there was no swelling so it was most likely I had costochondritis of the ribs. I had many a day where I felt really rough and I begged my parents to take me to the hospital. I also spoke to a paramedic on the phone and they were going to send an ambulance but decided not to.

I even called the NHS 111 line and they put me through to a mental health nurse. I was in tears every single day all day. It really felt like no-one was helping me and I was so scared I would feel that way forever. I simply could not see that light at the end of the tunnel.

To emphasise how ill I was my periods totally stopped for 3 months. That’s HOW stressed my body was.

As this went on, I got worse and worse to the point where I wasn’t sleeping at all for whole nights on the trot. I had started to do this thing called hypnogogic jerking which is when your just dropping off you breathe and jerk yourself awake but in my it brain it was my body stopping breathing when I was going to sleep so that meant that sleep terrified me too. It was a viscous circle. I so badly wanted to sleep because when I was asleep I was thinking about how I was feeling but I was also petrified to go to sleep in case I died.

It ended up in the doctors giving me Zopiclone to help me sleep but I was only allowed I think a max of 5 tablets because they are so addictive they don’t like to give them to you in large doses. I remember mum and dad called them my happy pills because as soon as I took one in the evening it was like I became a different person. I was relaxed and happy and wasn’t having panic attacks.

My boyfriend would come and stay at my parents for the weekend and often I would sit there crying the whole time, I just really wasn’t fun to be around. I’ve looked back through our WhatsApp conversations and there are a lot of apologies from me about my behaviour and just wanting to ‘feel better’.

It got to the point where my poor parents didn’t know what to do with me, I was a shivering, quivering, jibbering wreck most of the time, pacing up and down their lounge. Mum ended up calling the Community Psychiatric team but they said they didn’t want to section me so they prescribed me some Diazepam and I got booked in to see the community psychiatrist.

I went to see the psychiatrist and she had a male student in there with her. Those that know me will know I usually would have been incredibly shy at this point especially because I had no make up on and messy hair but I just didn’t care. I cried my whole way through the appointment and she decided it was time to prescribe me some proper medication. So I went on Escitalopram 10mg . I also got told to order a book too called Mind Over Mood. But that was it. I left the appointment feeling a bit deflated like why was no one helping m, why was I having to wait so long? I just desperately wanted to feel better and honestly I couldn’t see it happening any time soon.

A little while later-maybe a week I received the psychiatric report which diagnosed me with severe anxitey, hyperchondriasis and depressive symptoms.

I started counselling with a woman my parents found and paid for privately but I went to two sessions with her and I really didn’t like it. She just made me feel really uncomfortable. I firmly believe that you have to feel comfy with your therapist for it to truly work.

We scoured the internet and found a lovely lady called Jo who did her therapy from home and I began seeing her too. I actually looked forward to seeing Jo. We just talked each week no judgment, normal conversations about life and how I was feeling and how I was going to live my life after I got better and it really helped!

I had another episode around February time where I truly believed there was something wrong with my stomach even telling my boyfriend to get a new girlfriend so he didn’t have to go through all the horrible stuff with me.

I went back and forth again to the doctors about my stomach eventually getting referred for an ultrasound at the end of the March.

Actually getting better.

All of a sudden during March I actually started to feel mentally better. I don’t know if it was the meds kicking in or what but I started to feel like myself again. I wasn’t crying every day, I was putting make up on to go out and I was actually happy to leave the house too.

I started spending small amounts of time back at home again. Packing a little suitcase and spending the weekends there-it was surreal to be doing it at my own house.

I was still having counselling and hypnotherapy every week but I was slowly but surely getting better. The biggest test was a holiday with my boyfriends family to Devon that was booked for April. It would mean that I would be away from Mum and Dad for a week but I felt strong enough to do it and I did!

After that, I moved back home to my own house full time. It was just like something inside of me had clicked-I honestly cant explain it.

I started seeing my friends again and going out and I started looking for new jobs. We had decided to move to the Salisbury area so my boyfriend could be nearer to his job. I had my hair done a completely different colour and style. I really wanted to leave the ‘old’ me behind.

I had ONE panic attack at the end of May 2019 and that was when I was hungover and had drunk coffee that was far too strong for me and resulted in heart palpitations which caused me to go into panic overdrive. I argued with my parents and missed the beginning of a barbeque at my boyfriends brothers house but I recovered, felt better and went in the end. Something I couldn’t have done before.

I also had a camera down my throat, medially know as a gastroscopy, in the July of that year and I am pleased to report that there was a very small amount of gastritis in my oesophagus but that was it. I truly believe that it was all caused by the huge amount of stress my body was under and as I mentally started to get better my body physically did too.

I wish I could help other health anxiety sufferers and give them tips on how to feel better but I genuinely believe it’s my meds that have helped me massively. I know people are so against meds but I believe that if they are keeping me on an even keel and making me feel human again then I’m going to take them. People need to take medication for things like diabetes so why is mental health any different?

Talking also plays a massive part in it too. It’s hard to do at first but if you can convey your thoughts and feelings to someone you trust it often helps take the burden from your shoulders a little.

I was in the super fortunate position that my parents managed to pay for both my Hypnotherapy and Psychotherapy sessions and I understand a lot of people aren’t as fortunate but even if its talking to a friend or family member you trust. I promise you it helps. I will put some links below to places you can talk to.

I do occasionally have irrational thoughts still, they haven’t completely gone but they are fleeting. It’s like my brain thinks it, I blink and the thought has gone-so somehow I am strong enough to deal with them.

I know a few people have been worried about me and how I’d cope with there being a global pandemic but honestly I think I’ve been less worried than your average person. ( I have still followed all the rules and haven’t hugged my parents in months!)

I saw something on my socials that said something like ‘people with anxiety have been preparing for something like this our whole lives so we know how to deal with it’ and I totally think that’s true.

So there you have it, its super long so if you made it this far I massively respect you.

I kind of wish I’d kept a diary at the time because I’m sure I’ve missed bits out but there you go.

If you have any questions feel free to message me, I’m more than happy to answer them.

For now, peace love and hugs,

www.anxietyuk.org.uk

 www.bipolaruk.org.uk

www.thecalmzone.net

www.menshealthforum.org.uk

www.mewww.rethink.orgntalhealth.org.uk

www.mind.org.uk

www.nopanic.org.uk

 www.ocdaction.org.uk

www.ocduk.org

www.papyrus-uk.org

www.samaritans.org.uk