Anxiety and Depression. A beginning of an ending.

Lets begin with the end - of life as I'd known it. My 'new' life didn't begin with a classic nervous breakdown nor did I wake up one morning and realise that I was depressed and anxious. I thought I was fine.

Well, that is I had been 'telling' myself I was fine, I'd also been dismissing the signs and symptoms, because you're not consciously aware of being held in the grip of anxiety and depression every waking moment.
My 'meltdown' didn't actually happen until after the diagnosis and I had started taking the medication, right up to that point I was still in denial.

But lets not jump ahead. Lets go back a bit - back to a bit of history and the run up to my meltdown.

I've experienced panic attacks before, I think I was in my late teens when I had my very first panic attack in a cafe, in Amsterdam. I was there on a 'binge' weekend with my then boyfriend and some friends, drinking and smoking the hours away - being young and having fun. It seems like ancient history now.

I remember it was an early spring afternoon, the weather was crisp and cool, the sky was grey. We'd already been drinking and was looking for the next stop to keep drinking. We'd crossed one of the smaller bridges in the inner city and spotted a cafe on the street corner. Walking in, we were engulfed in a haze of smoke and I went to sit at one of the tall tables by the window, perching on a bar stool as everyone else went to the bar to get drinks. The cafe was crowded, noisy, it was like every bit of space had been used up - either by the contents and inhabitants of the cafe, or where there was a gap in the atmosphere, the noise or smoke flowed in to fill the gaps. It made the atmosphere cosy, dim, warm or claustrophobic, depending on how you looked at it.

My head was fuzzy and I recall a slight headache was forming, then I started to think I was finding it difficult to breathe, then felt dizzy and before I knew it, I made for the door. I pushed through the crowd, not even bothering to stop to tell anyone where I was going - it was THAT urgent that I got out. Outside, the cold air and greyed sunlight smacked me in the face, I remember feeling immediately disorientated as my eyes fought to focus, then my arms and legs just gave way and I collapsed onto the pavement onto all fours. Heart pounding and gripped in blind panic, all I could do was stay as I was, hoping whatever was happening to me would stop. As the panic began to subside, I heard the sound of a door slam open and looked up to see my then boyfriend racing over to me to see what happened. The whole episode couldn't have lasted for more than five minutes. I would learn many years later that this was a panic attack.

As the years rolled by, I would have the odd attack, maybe once or at its worst, a few times a year. They would typically happen when I was in a claustrophobic or crowded environment, like a crammed bus or train, where I felt I couldn't breathe. I learned to avoid being in situations like that, explaining to friends and loved ones who might be with me that an attack could happen. In the early years I didn't even know to say that I might have a panic attack, just that I can't be somewhere too crowded or I might pass out.

Inwardly, I remember noticing that gradually, the duration of the attacks seemed to lengthen and the symptoms seemed to increase with every new attack. The symptoms had gone from just my heart pounding and losing control of my limbs to not being able to see and being able to only hear a constant high pitched tone whilst still being conscious. I think I was afraid to acknowledge the worsening of the episodes, so I never noted anything such as my stress levels at the time or any other factors that might have caused the deterioration. I think if I'd sought help back then, perhaps I wouldn't be where I am now.

The attacks only really began to ramp up their regularity and intensity in the last year, by now at lot of 'life' had happened, over a course of 15 years I'd encountered a lot of the typical problems and crises that many people would; failed relationships, mentally and emotionally abusive relationships, loved ones passing on in tragic circumstances, taking a new career direction and so on. It sounds so run of the mill to summarise so many years in one sentence. The handful of words fail to tell the story but neither am I ready to tell that story.

A lot of people will be able to relate to the challenges I've been facing in the last year; the physical, mental and emotional effort needed to resolve baggage from an old relationship, the settling down of a new relationship that had moved from dating to serious, the sweat, tears and seemingly endless hours in chasing a promotion for a better future, for more security. Again, the summary sentence doesn't do justice to the toll all of these challenges took on my heart, mind and body.

The panic attacks appeared one after the other, soon I was having them every month, then every week, then every few days. The symptoms wasn't just the loss of control to my limbs, dizziness, heart pounding, ears ringing, not being able to see anymore. Now I would break out into a cold sweat, I'd have 'brain zaps' where it felt like an electrical current was going through my brain, I'd hyperventilate, I'd feel an urgency to go the bathroom and petrified I wouldn't be able to make it on time.

The triggers for an attack were no longer just crowded environments, it was any kind of public transport where I felt I couldn't stop any time I needed to, they could happen anywhere I was unfamiliar with or perhaps if I didn't know where the bathroom was, or if the journey was too long. Soon I began to think eating and drinking certain foods or thinking certain thoughts would trigger an attack. Eventually, the panic attacks would strike as I sat at my kitchen table halfway through typing an email or palpitations would hit every few minutes in the space of an hour as I watched TV on the sofa.

I went from not being able to be in crowded places to not being able to travel on journeys longer than an hour, then half an hour, then at all. I had trouble leaving the house to go on the 45 minute journey into the office, luckily I was able to work from home quite a lot by the time I was practically unable to travel at all. I was having trouble sleeping, actually able to feel a bit stressed from time to time yet still I denied that there was anything seriously wrong with me. I'd talked over the attacks, the trouble sleeping and stress with my partner and together we looked up online for more info, we thought that maybe it was my diet, maybe I had too much of the stress hormone Cortisol in my body, maybe my hormones were messed up, maybe this, maybe that .... Throughout the whole time the attacks worsened my partner would tell me to go to the doctor but I would keep saying that I was fine, telling myself I was fine, that the doctors wouldn't be able to do anything.