Anxiety

Anxiety...if you’ve suffered with it then you’ll know it’s an absolute bitch! Although I’ve always seen my anxiety and depression as male...somewhat greasy, a bit like Nick Cotton from Eastenders, slightly stupid, badly dressed, a complete dickhead...causing havoc and then running away leaving a mess behind. I guess that makes me the mess...or...oh no, that makes me Dot Cotton! 

I think Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of that beautiful book “Eat, Pray, Love" defined depression in a similar way... “he just gives me that dark smile, settles into my favorite chair, puts his feet on my table and lights a cigar, filling the place with his awful smoke.” It’s funny how sometimes we give things a face or even a name, does that help us to cope better? Perhaps it helps with the fight, because whenever anxiety decides to call in on me I do feel like I’m going into a battle. As my friend told me the other day “anxiety is a bully" and it’s so true and we have to face it head on or it will win every time.

So my friend gave me some great tips and I’m pretty good at putting things into action when anxiety is involved because I feel so shit and I want to stop feeling, well, basically shit! It was my birthday that week and I wanted to celebrate like every normal person, not from my bed or the settee where I had been spending most of my days. It would probably be my first sober birthday since I was about 16 and even then I’m pretty sure there was some Martini involved. My friend had told me about box breathing, which I had never heard of but I knew I’d like it because I am a massive plane geek, and apparently pilots use it. Box breathing is where you breathe in to the count of four, hold your breath for four, breathe out for four and then repeat. It does work and what’s so good about it is that you can do it anywhere and nobody knows...I did it whilst I was driving, in the shower, waiting for my prescription and at a kid’s party. I can honestly say it does work the more you practice it. 

Getting my anxiety under some type of control helped, also doubling my Sertraline and being kind to myself. I’ve also started planning my days and making sure I have something to do each day, if I can meet a friend that helps a lot. I think a lot of the time we put others before ourselves, I spend so much time thinking and worrying that I am being a crap Mum if I take some time out for myself and actually I need to remind myself that in taking this time out I’m going to be a better Mum. Lily spent the night at her friend’s and rather than worry I took the opportunity to relax and finish ‘Mare of Easttown.’ My birthday came and went but I had a brilliant day, I felt almost normal and for the first time in forever I did my hair and put some make-up on. And now? Each day is a new day, sometimes I feel good, sometimes I don’t...but now I know what to do...and to be honest being a Mum has helped because whilst dealing with all the crap cancer brings, this week I’ve just had bigger fish to fry...this week we’ve had a nit outbreak in Lily’s class as well as the explosive news that she had married a boy at school, during PE and so she was just letting me know that she now had a husband. I’m not quite sure how I feel about this, clearly I have bigger issues to be anxious about.