10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Was Diagnosed With Anxiety

I’ve been living with anxiety for over ten years now and I’ve learnt a lot about it and myself along the way. When I was first diagnosed, I remember being very scared and was given very little information about what having this mental illness meant for me from health care professionals. Looking back there is so much that I wish somebody had told me when I was first diagnosed, so today I wanted to share with you the ten things I wish I knew when I was first diagnosed with anxiety.

Panic Attacks Can’t Kill You 
Even though it really feels like you’re dying sometimes, panic attacks can’t actually kill you. My first therapist told me that most panic attacks usually don’t last longer than 20 minutes. Knowing this made having a panic attack a slightly less terrifying prospect and made them lose some of the power they had over me.

Avoidance Makes Things Worse
When I first developed anxiety, I quickly learnt that a great way to not feel anxious was to completely avoid the things that made me scared which later developed into agoraphobia. Although it’s really tempting to hide away from the things that scare you so that you don’t have to deal with them, it usually just makes the anxiety surrounding the situation worse. Every time you avoid a situation that makes you anxious you are feeding that belief. In my treatment for anxiety, I have learnt that the only way to get over a fear is to become familiar with it and create positive associations and memories around it. It takes a lot of courage to take that first step, but every time you face a fear it loses some of its power and gets easier the next time around.

Medication/Therapy Won’t Change Who You Are 
I used to be so afraid of the idea of taking medication for my anxiety or telling a therapist my deepest darkest thoughts and feelings. I was worried that by treating the mental illness it would mean changing a part of me. I wish I knew how much taking medication and going to therapy would help me so that I would have done it sooner. Medication and therapy has not changed who I am, it hasn’t messed with my brain and made me into an unfeeling zombie. It’s simply made me a less anxious person who can better manage their mental illness.

Not Everyone Will Understand 
The biggest frustration for me when I was first diagnosed with anxiety was how little the people around me seemed to understand about it. For many years my family were at a loss for what to do to help me, they just couldn’t understand why I was terrified of such normal mundane things. Something that really helped things click into place for my family was when I explained mental health in metaphors and related it to the way we treat physical health. Give the people around you time, be as open and honest as you feel comfortable with, pull information from the internet and learn as much about your illness as you can so that you can better explain it. The people you love might not always understand, but them asking questions and wanting to know more shows good intentions and is a starting point so don’t lose heart.

Take Baby Steps
The best method in confronting anxiety for me has been to break things down into baby steps. Scared to walk down the street? Start by just opening your front door. Increase how long you can keep that door open for. When you start to feel more comfortable, take a step outside. Work up to taking three steps away from your house. When you’re ready, walk to the nearest lamppost. See what I’m getting at here?

When it comes to facing your fears you don’t have to dive in at the deep end. Start with the step that feels the most doable to you and work your way up to the bigger stuff at your own pace. It doesn’t matter if it takes a week or a month or even longer to achieve your goal, you’re still kicking anxiety’s butt. Make sure that you celebrate your successes no matter how small they may seem, they’re each a step in the right direction.

Bad Days Are Allowed 
I used to worry so much if I was having a bad day/week/month with my anxiety that it meant that I was going backward. Now I’ve learned that it is completely normal and okay to have a bad day. Even people who don’t have a mental illness have bad days. Life isn’t perfect and there will be ups and downs along the way. These days, if I’m hit with a bad bout of anxiety I try to ride it out like a wave and if I have to take things back a step because everything suddenly seems too hard that is okay. Go back to your easiest step and start building yourself back up again.

Put Yourself First 
Like any illness, when you are unwell it is important that you prioritise and put yourself first. I used to feel really terrible if I had to cancel plans or let somebody down because my mental health was bad but now I realise that on the grand scale of things your health is more important. Never push yourself to do something you don’t feel ready to do for somebody else. Respect yourself, your boundaries and your health and don’t be afraid to take time out to rest and look after yourself.

Mental Illness Does Not = Crazy/Dangerous 
Oh boy, when I was first diagnosed with a mental illness I was so afraid to tell anyone in case they thought that I was crazy and/or dangerous. There is a really negative belief out there about people with mental illnesses and that they might pose a threat or be a danger to society. I used to be really frightened of myself and what I might be capable of. Having a mental illness does not make you dangerous or crazy. You are not about to go on a murderous rampage just because you are ill. So many people are living and functioning in this world with a mental illness. If having a mental illness turned us all by default into the crazy killer stereotype that horror writers are so fond of portraying then the world would be apocalyptic right about now.

Living Life Trumps Fear
Something that I have learnt only recently is that fear is not a good enough reason for me to not live the life I want to, not anymore. Every time that I have felt like I was going to pass out from panic but carried on anyway it has been worth it.

Every. Single. Time.

When it comes to doing the things I want to and living my life, fear is not a good enough reason to hold me back. I would rather be terrified and get to do what I want to, than let anxiety dictate what I can and can’t do. My life is of more value to me than fear.

You Will Get Better 
You know, people used to say this to me and I never believed them. I couldn’t imagine ever getting rid of this albatross that I carry around with me everywhere. Here’s the secret, when people say you will get better they don’t mean that your anxiety will get better, they mean that YOU will get better at managing it.

Ten years on from my diagnosis and I am still living with anxiety, it hasn’t gone away completely and to be honest, I don’t think it ever will. But *I* have gotten better. I have gotten better at dealing with it, I have gotten better at putting myself first, I have gotten better at riding out a panic attack, and I have gotten better at facing my fears. It takes time, but you come to learn your illness and how it affects you and at first you begin to cope and then you begin to thrive. Anxiety doesn’t get better, but you do my friend, you do.

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I LOVE MY ANTIDEPRESSANTS.

I love my antidepressants.

*cue the medication haters*

You’re addicted.

You need to learn to cope without medication.

You’re doing long term harm.

WHATEVS.

I need my antidepressants to live. I need them to help me get from day to day without crawling into a ball, crying continuously for no reason and wondering if I should kill myself.

Woo yeah! Depression is soooooo fun.

I first started taking antidepressants in my first year of university because I was struggling with anxiety and depression. My university GP put me on 10mg of Citalopram and from that moment on I’ve taken a Citalopram tablet every day. (Ok, that’s a bit of a lie but I’ll come back to that.)

So I’ve basically been on antidepressants for five years. Which, in anyone’s book is a long time. When I think about it I suddenly go “me? No way…it can’t have been five years.”

But it has and I honestly don’t think I would still be here, five years later, if I didn’t take them.

They’re not fun to take. They make me lethargic, sometimes I find my memory can be a little slow, I am very sensitive to loud noises and bright lights and I guess they numb me a little; they stop me feeling such intense emotions.

And I’m cool with that. I still feel happiness, sadness, fear, anger, love, hate etc. but just re-calibrated to my new state of being.

In 2014 my life was fucking awesome. I had a job working in a bookshop (the dream), I had a boyfriend, I was earning money, I was independent, I could go out and do things and well, life was ace. So I went to my GP and said “mate, I’m well happy. Can I come off of the antidepressants because I don’t need them anymore?” He agreed and so I slowly, carefully and with advice and monitoring reduced my dose over a period of a few months until I was down to nothing. And then the shit hit the fan. Big time.

“HAHAHAHAHAHA LOL YOU TWAT.” Is basically what my brain said to me. “You honestly think you can get through life without feeding me antidepressants? I need them.”

My depression and anxiety reappeared at the speed of light. I quit my job, became frightened of leaving the house and became completely dependent on my family and boyfriend. Not really the sort of life you envisage for yourself at 22.

I rushed back to the doctor and begged him to put me back on the medication because it was clear I needed it. I’d foolishly thought that my happiness and independence was all down to me being bad ass but it turns out it was also aided by the medication keeping all them chemicals in ma brain working as they should.

The doctor agreed that the best thing to do was to dose me up again and stay on them for as long as I needed. I think I’ll need them for life. And I don’t mind. They help me to live, to feel emotion that I otherwise would be too numb to feel. They allow me to wake up every day and live a life (ok, maybe not the life that I should be living, but a life nonetheless) and they give me the chance to feel like myself.

I still have a long way to go until I’ve built up my independence again and am less fearful of leaving the house but a lot of that is down to psychological factors now rather than physiological factors.

I wish people weren’t so quick to judge those who find medication a huge help. I know that antidepressants aren’t for everyone and I don’t judge those who choose not to take them. It’s their personal choice, just like it’s my choice to take them. And, as far as I’m currently aware, there are no trials or studies that have proven there is anything wrong with taking antidepressants over a long period of time. Plus even if they did, I don’t think I’d stop taking them.

They allow me to live my best life and whilst it might not be a life of daring adventures and fearless pursuits, it’s a life that I don’t think I would still be living had I not been able to take them.

Is it weird that I save all my boxes after they've been finished? 

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Safe Space Talks Contraception

Deciding what kind of contraception to go on can be tricky and different women prefer different things. Today the Safe Space team are bringing you their contraception stories sharing what did and didn’t work for them so that you can make an informed decision about what you might like to try out and what might work best for your body. Please note that this is just our personal experiences, we aren’t medical professionals and it is always best to speak to a nurse or your GP before deciding on a contraception method.

Jo: I suffer with really severe period pains. After one type of medication failed to help, my doctor prescribed me the contraceptive pill Cerazette. Cerazette is a mini-pill, or a progestogen-only pill (POP), as opposed to a combined pill, which contains progestogen and oestrogen. I was prescribed a mini-pill because I also suffer with migraines, and my doctor believed a combined pill would affect them.

The mini-pill is a pill that you take every day, as opposed to stopping for a week with a combined pill to have your period. The mucus at the neck of the womb is thickened when taking the mini-pill, which makes it harder for sperm to make it’s way to the womb to fertilise an egg. Cerazette contains desogestrel, a synthetic progestogen, which stops ovulation in 97% of periods, meaning in most cases, an egg won’t be released, so my periods, for the most part, will stop. There may be some irregular spotting when you first start taking it, but this is perfectly normal. Although I’m not taking Cerazette for contraceptive reasons, it is a 12 hour pill; you’re supposed to take your pill around the same time every day, but if you forget to take a pill, you must take it within 12 hours of when you were due to take it. If you take it within that 12 hour period, you will still be protected and no other form of contraception will be required, including emergency contraception. However, if you don’t take your pill in the 12 hour window, you should take your pill as soon as you remember, and then as normal, but for two to seven days you won’t be protected, and should use a condom for that time, while using the pill.

I’ve now been taking Cerzette for five weeks. It’s around now, when my next period would have been due had I not been on the mini-pill, that it’s likely I’ll see some spotting, but this has yet to appear. Of the common side-effects of Cerzette, I’ve only really experienced getting a few spots. The leaflet that came with Cerzette actually says “acne” is a common side-effect, so I was thinking I’d get really bad skin with obvious, very sore spots, but that hasn’t been the case. My spots are very faint, more something I’d notice than anyone else, and they’re gone after about a day, with maybe some new ones in other areas of my face. I’ve not even had to bother with medicated concealer, the spots are really nothing to worry about.

It’s around now I would normally start suffering with PMS and sore, swollen boobs, but Cerzette has put a stop to both. So far, so good! I’m really happy with how Cerzette is working for me, and if I have a similar experience with it as Faye (see below), I’ll be a very happy lady!

Debbie: Like many of the others, I was first put on the mini-pill Cerazette when I was about 14. I’d just been diagnosed with polycystic ovaries (PCOS) and it was meant to help relieve some of the symptoms I’d been suffering with, such as period pain and body hair. Which it did, a little. But I dreaded having a period every 4th week, and it seemed to come around far too quickly.

I can’t remember exactly when or why my doctor suggested it, but about 4 and a half years ago they suggested having an implant. An implant is approximately 4cm long, and inserted into the back of the upper arm, and works by slowly releasing progesterone. It’s said to be more than 99% effective against pregnancy. The main bonus for me is not having to take a pill everyday. Thanks to my weird work hours and London life, it was getting harder to remember to take them, especially at the same time. Furthermore, I rarely get periods anymore, usually just under a lot of stress, which I guess causes a hormone imbalance. This is a side effect that a lot of people experience, though some may have heavier periods instead. This was a huge relief to me as period pain is the worst. The implant lasts for 3 years, and I didn’t hesitate at all in getting it replaced last year. While it’s not really an option if you are considering having kids, for me it is the perfect solution right now!

Ray: I was only on the mini-pill Cerazette that Jo’s already talked about for about 5-6 months so this’ll be rather a quick segment. I started taking Cerazette shortly after getting together with my current partner in June 2012 since I’d been single for 18 months prior to that so I thought if I was going to be sexually active again it might be worth giving it a try. The lack of a period break was also a nice incentive to try this pill. I didn’t used to be able to swallow pills but if I was going to be on a contraceptive pill it was kind of important that I did actually take it so I figured out how I could get the pill down (dry-swallow a la House with water to chase it) and phone alarms to remind me what time I should have it. I have to be honest my memory is pretty shoddy about how things were while I was on Cerazette but I vaguely recall that my periods never properly stopped and I spent a lot of time grumbling and cursing that I was bleeding longer and more randomly than when I wasn’t on the pill. Whether this would have eventually stopped I don’t know because unfortunately I ended up having what is probably an uncommon reaction to taking the mini-pill in December 2012.

I did already mention this in my Liveblog your Period post, but for anyone who might not have seen that - I had a bad reaction to Cerazette, my legs came up with a dozen or so weirdly swollen lumps which really flipping hurt. It was so painful to walk and bend my knees that I had to use crutches and in the end had about 6 days off work because I just would not have coped working at school all day. The doctor diagnosed me with having Erythema Nudosem and since I wasn’t on anything else which could have provoked a reaction my Cerazette pill was deemed the culprit and I came off it. I’d rather have the periods. Since then I’ve not tried any other form of contraceptive pill or implant partly from the worry that another method might still cause the same reaction. For me this isn’t too much of an issue as my periods are manageable but one day if I do decide to try some other form of contraceptive I would probably need to consult a doctor first to make sure I found an option that would work for me in the long-term.

Faye: I first started taking a pill when I got my first serious boyfriend at 17. It was only after I was on the pill that I realised how frustrating and irregular my periods were. I was put on Microgynon and sent on my way. This is just one of many combined pills and it is the first pill that doctors are likely to try you with. It has been so long with this pill that I don’t remember why I changed to something else but I know I did. The second combined pill I was on, I’ve already forgotten the name of but that also didn’t work. I was then put on Femodene. For a long time this pill worked for me. It regulated my periods for the first time ever and I had very little, if any pain. I was, in all honesty, over the moon. But then my body started to reject the pill. That’s the only way I can describe it. My periods became heavier, the pain came back tenfold and I started to have the worst mood-swings in history. On top of that, I had a three-week pain cycle and just one week of relief every single four-weeks. It was not a good way to live life. But when I came off the pill, it was still awful. Really painful, really heavy and completely irregular. After lots of trips to the gyno and some tests, the doctor finally prescribed me Cerazette, which as you know now is the mini-pill and I am back in heaven. I haven’t had a period in two years. I have had no pain in two years. I have had no mood-swings in two years. I feel like a normal human being every single day. There have been a few side effects, such as headaches, but I’m prone to them anyway, and I’ve had some “mini-periods” as I call them, when I miss pills (because I am super forgetful) at the wrong time in the cycle, but honestly, I cannot describe how pleased I am not to have periods and period pain anymore.

Joy: We never talk about what a “normal” period is, so it wasn’t until I was 21 that I knew I needed to do something. Every time my period came (which varied between every three and seven weeks), I was in agony to such an extent that I could do nothing. I bled so heavily that I would need to change sanitary towel every hour to begin with, I couldn’t get through the night without leakage and I would have to postpone any social activity that coincided, which was difficult given my periods were so irregular. As I was due to go to university, I needed something that would make my monthly experience tolerable and a Google search indicated a GP may prescribe the pill. After a short appointment where I explained my problem, that was indeed what happened.

The first pill I was put on was, like Faye, Microgynon. It was a miracle cure! I immediately went to four-weekly cycles, absolutely no pain and a manageable amount of bleeding. I only wished I had done something sooner. This pill worked for five years without a problem. Occasionally I would experience a little bleeding mid-cycle, but I was assured that this was okay. However, after those five years, Microgynon was no longer effective. I started to bleed a couple of weeks before I should have and for far longer than usual. My GP told me to keep an eye on it, but indicated that Microgynon is usually prescribed to people early on and it may be that I required something with a stronger dose of hormones. After three or so months of continued problems, I asked for my pill to be changed.

I can’t remember what the next pill I was prescribed was or, indeed, the one after that. Changing my pill a couple of times failed to ease the problem of bleeding too early and I was growing worried that there was something sinister happening in my body. However, I was then prescribed my current pill, which is Lucette. I take this for three weeks and then have a week’s break before starting again. It is in this break, theoretically, that I bleed. I have had a couple more occasions of bleeding early, though to a lesser degree than with previous pills. When I mentioned it to my GP she said that wasn’t the norm, but it does happen and it doesn’t mean that anything is wrong, which was a relief to hear. As long as my periods are fairly regular and lack the immense pain and heaviness of before, I’m grateful. Taking the pill really has made a difference.

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My Mental Health Treatment Journey Part 1: Medication

The other day I was talking to a friend about my experiences with medication for treating my mental illnesses. She was starting the same medicine that I’m on and wanted some guidelines on what to expect. After talking to her I realised that talking about what medication you’ve tried and what sort of therapy has helped you isn’t a common topic of conversation. 

When starting a new course of treatment it’s normal to have questions but other than talking to your doctor there’s nowhere to really turn to for these discussions. So I’ve decided to share with you my experiences with medication and therapy in the hopes of encouraging people to start having these conversations and also to hopefully shed some light on the different kinds of treatment out there. 

It wasn’t until I started writing this post that I realised that my story is a long one and so I’ve decided to split this into two parts, this first one is about medication and the second part which will be up later this month is on therapy. 

As a disclaimer it’s important to know that different medicines and therapy are used to treat different mental health problems and one set way doesn’t work for everyone. This is just my personal journey.

My first step in treating my mental health problems was with medication. My family noticed something wasn’t right with my mental health before I did, so when I was fourteen after a lot of coaxing (and the promise of a McDonalds after) my mum took me to see our family GP. I remember him speaking to her rather than me and them talking about my moods and how important it was for me to get through my GCSE’s. He prescribed me a low dose of Prozac and wrote off my moods as stress from school. The Prozac seemed to do the trick; it got me through the next few years although I did notice that I often felt happy or sad with nothing in between. When going for my medication reviews this was wrote off as typical teenage mood swings.

When I was sixteen my mental health got vastly worse and so I went back to my GP who put me on a higher dosage of Prozac. That’s when things went very bad. My moods were either very high or very low. I’d either spend my days constantly on the go or struggling to get out of bed and go to school. One morning I got out of bed and honestly felt the worst that I’ve ever felt in all of my years living with mental illness. In tears, I made it downstairs and collapsed on the living room floor hysterically crying. I was inconsolable and had no idea what I was crying about but I couldn’t stop. I felt deeply depressed and just wanted the dark cloud that seemed to be following me around, weighing heavy on my shoulders, to go away. I felt like I'd literally hit rock bottom lying on that floor. My mum couldn’t get me off the floor, never mind to the doctors, so she made an emergency phone call to him. He said I’d had a bad reaction to the Prozac and that I was to come off it immediately. Slowly, as the Prozac came out of my system, I started to feel better. My mental illness was still there but I didn’t feel as bad as I did on Prozac.

My doctor wanted to try me on a different medication but after my bad experience I was very reluctant to give anything else a go. Slowly my mental illness (which I didn’t have a name for back then) was steadily getting worse. My typical day consisted of waking up and feeling too anxious to leave my house so I’d stay in. Trying to make myself useful, I’d fight off the depression that was demanding that I stay in bed and force myself to shower, prepare meals and tidy up all of which required me to check certain objects or touch switches and door knobs repeatedly until the feelings of anxiety subsided - a ritual that could go on for hours. Then, mentally exhausted, I’d collapse into bed and sleep the rest of the day away. Something had to change but I was so scared of going back to my GP in case he wanted me to try medication again, which at this point I was really against. After much persuasion from my nearest and dearest I went to see a different doctor. Before doing anything he wanted me to get a proper diagnosis, something that other mental health professionals have since told me should have been done all along.

Two weeks later I had a one off appointment at the mental health branch of a local hospital and was asked some questions for about an hour by a psychiatrist. After the appointment finished she asked me “What do you think is wrong with you?” and I answered “Depression” it was the only mental illness that I’d heard of at that time that somewhat fit my symptoms. She diagnosed me with PTSD, Anxiety, OCD and Depression. I was confused, I said to her “I thought PTSD is what soldiers who’ve been to war have? And isn’t OCD when you need things to be clean and worry about germs?” She was brilliant and explained to me that the abusive relationship that I was in at that moment in time had created trauma in my brain and that OCD is more about the obsession behind the acts rather than what you actually do to stop the anxiety.

Having that diagnosis changed everything for me. My doctor now knew what was wrong with me, I could research the illnesses online and find people like me. It made me better understand my moods and  knowing what was wrong made it treatable. If you think you have a mental illness I’d strongly recommend asking your doctor for a referral to get properly diagnosed by a mental health professional so that you can get the right treatment. There are a wealth of mental illnesses and conditions out there that you may not have even heard of or considered. Knowing what you have and treating it correctly can make all the difference. It's like if you went to your doctor and were treated for eczema when you’ve actually got impetigo. Getting the right treatment for your condition is crucial.

When I went back to see my GP with my new diagnosis he then prescribed me Citalopram. I was very cautious about this but my doctor was really great asking me to keep in touch with him if it made me feel bad and saying that I could come off it or we could try something else. He told me that just because one medication didn’t work, doesn’t mean that none of them will. Those words were the real turning point for me and are something to keep in mind when going through treatment. Confident in my diagnosis and trusting my new GP I bit the bullet and tried Citalopram, because of the severity of my mental condition at that point I was put on a high dose of 60mg. At first it didn’t feel like the medication was doing much but a few weeks in and I started to feel very numb and a bit like a zombie. I hated feeling that way so in my medication review I was honest with my doctor who decreased it to 20mg which turned out to be the perfect amount for me.

Taking Citalopram certainly didn’t cure my mental illnesses but it did soften the sharp edges of my mind making the PTSD, Anxiety, OCD and Depression easier to live with. It also didn’t come without a trade; I put on weight, lost my sex drive and often felt lacking in energy. But to some extent I got my life back so guess who won that trade off? I’ve been on a 20mg dosage of Citalopram for the past ten years; it suits me and has improved my life so much.

I’m so glad that despite my bad experience with medication I tried again. There is so much negative stigma surrounding taking medication for mental illness and I was someone who, for a time, believed that stigma and refused treatment that could have made me better sooner. For the record, taking medication hasn’t changed my personality - if anything it's made room in my brain for my personality to shine through now that it’s not so cluttered with obsessive thoughts and all that darkness. It hasn't dulled my creativity (hello blogging!) and I still experience other feelings vividly and intensely. For the longest time I truly believed that medication was my enemy. That taking it was weak and wrong and would change who I was. Medication is not my enemy. It’s the shield I use to stop the mental illness from hitting me so hard. Deciding on whether you want to take medication or not is a personal choice, but know before you decide that there is no right or wrong option and that there is no shame in picking up that shield.

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