Opening up about my mental illness
Hey everyone,
Okay so I originally planned a way nicer post for tonight, but I have decided that I wanted to write up this one instead because of the events of today, and actually something I experienced about 5 minutes ago.
I'm pretty nervous about talking about this and opening up about it to you guys.. It's going to be pretty hard for me to write this all down, so I apologise in advance if my writing is a bit sloppy.
For anyone that doesn't really want to read this sort of deep and emotional stuff, feel free not to keep reading this post and don't worry, my posts won't all be like this and I'll definitely be back to more fun and upbeat posts after this one! :)
So I don't know if I've mentioned this earlier but I suffer from both anxiety and depression.
A bit of a background:
I was diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder, or GAD, when I was only 18 months old. That's right MONTHS.
I suffer quite a bit of social anxiety, but mainly my anxiety comes in all shapes and sizes. It can be about anything in the world, and sometimes the events that cause my anxiety one day won't cause it the next making it super hard to understand and anticipate, which also makes it super hard to deal with.
I had my first depressive spell when I was about 13 years old and have sort of been suffering minor depressive episodes every now and then since.
But my main problem, the issue I have to deal with every day and the one that's way harder to deal with is my anxiety.
What happened today/tonight:
So today and a bit of yesterday, I had a really bad few days with my anxiety.
I felt constantly paranoid about everything. I felt really down and quite depressed, like there was no point in doing anything in the world, even getting out of bed.
Luckily, my amazing boyfriend was happening to be staying over last night so was with me yesterday and all of today, he just left (it's 9:58pm right now).
But anyway, it was quite an up and down day, I would be feeling great, having fun playing mario kart with James and then all of a sudden I'd just get this massive paranoia spell, where I'd just start freaking out about everything my brain could possibly find to freak out about. My trip to Europe, my relationship, my friendship with my best friend (which has been going through a rough patch lately as it is, so that didn't help), my health... literally anything I could worry about, I was worrying about.
So this went on pretty much all day yesterday and then all day today.
My boyfriend, who was absolutely amazing through the entire thing and dealt with it so well, don't know what I would've done without him, he pretty much spent all of the two days trying to cheer me up and reassuring me about our relationship, that everything was going to be okay.
The climax of it all:
Okay so the worst part of the two days was what happened just over 5 minutes ago, when James went to leave.
I was obviously a bit upset about him leaving because I obviously wanted him to stay, I wanted him to stay and look after me and I really wanted cuddles all night as they are one of the few things that really makes me feel safe when I'm having an episode like I was the last two days.
Anyway, so I was okay, we were saying goodbyes and goodnights and then he opened the door and all of a sudden I just went into complete panic attack mode.
I just got this awful feeling that this was the last time that I was going to ever be seeing him. I didn't even know why, like I didn't know if he was going to break up with me, or crash his car on the way home, or what was going to happen... I don't even want to think about the other possible outcomes.
But yeah, so I just completely broke down into hysterical crying.
So lucky that this happened before he left and not after, as it would have been a lot harder to have to deal with by myself, instead of with him holding me and calming me down.
We managed to calm me down, a joint effort of the both of us, after about 2 or 3 minutes which was very quick for an outburst of mine like that. But yeah, now he's left and I am just feeling so like fragile and I don't even know what.
I just really felt like I needed to share this with someone, and you guys were the only people I really felt comfortable sharing it with.
I know this post was pretty deep and not all of my posts are going to be like this.
I have a really fun Christmas present haul coming up and also HEAPS of posts planned about the Europe trip that I'm going on soon, so have a look out for those if you're the kind of people who really aren't into all of this deep stuff.
I promise it won't be like this all of the time, I just really needed to get this stuff off of my chest.
Thanks for reading guys,
Please comment and let me know if you experience any of this, or what you thought about it.
I'm more than open to questions as well as I know most of you will most likely either be going through, have gone through or know someone going through these mental issues, I'm more than happy to answer any questions about them that you guys might have.
xxxxxxxx T
Okay so I originally planned a way nicer post for tonight, but I have decided that I wanted to write up this one instead because of the events of today, and actually something I experienced about 5 minutes ago.
I'm pretty nervous about talking about this and opening up about it to you guys.. It's going to be pretty hard for me to write this all down, so I apologise in advance if my writing is a bit sloppy.
For anyone that doesn't really want to read this sort of deep and emotional stuff, feel free not to keep reading this post and don't worry, my posts won't all be like this and I'll definitely be back to more fun and upbeat posts after this one! :)
So I don't know if I've mentioned this earlier but I suffer from both anxiety and depression.
I was diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder, or GAD, when I was only 18 months old. That's right MONTHS.
I suffer quite a bit of social anxiety, but mainly my anxiety comes in all shapes and sizes. It can be about anything in the world, and sometimes the events that cause my anxiety one day won't cause it the next making it super hard to understand and anticipate, which also makes it super hard to deal with.
I had my first depressive spell when I was about 13 years old and have sort of been suffering minor depressive episodes every now and then since.
But my main problem, the issue I have to deal with every day and the one that's way harder to deal with is my anxiety.
What happened today/tonight:
So today and a bit of yesterday, I had a really bad few days with my anxiety.
I felt constantly paranoid about everything. I felt really down and quite depressed, like there was no point in doing anything in the world, even getting out of bed.
Luckily, my amazing boyfriend was happening to be staying over last night so was with me yesterday and all of today, he just left (it's 9:58pm right now).
But anyway, it was quite an up and down day, I would be feeling great, having fun playing mario kart with James and then all of a sudden I'd just get this massive paranoia spell, where I'd just start freaking out about everything my brain could possibly find to freak out about. My trip to Europe, my relationship, my friendship with my best friend (which has been going through a rough patch lately as it is, so that didn't help), my health... literally anything I could worry about, I was worrying about.
So this went on pretty much all day yesterday and then all day today.
My boyfriend, who was absolutely amazing through the entire thing and dealt with it so well, don't know what I would've done without him, he pretty much spent all of the two days trying to cheer me up and reassuring me about our relationship, that everything was going to be okay.
The climax of it all:
Okay so the worst part of the two days was what happened just over 5 minutes ago, when James went to leave.
I was obviously a bit upset about him leaving because I obviously wanted him to stay, I wanted him to stay and look after me and I really wanted cuddles all night as they are one of the few things that really makes me feel safe when I'm having an episode like I was the last two days.
Anyway, so I was okay, we were saying goodbyes and goodnights and then he opened the door and all of a sudden I just went into complete panic attack mode.
I just got this awful feeling that this was the last time that I was going to ever be seeing him. I didn't even know why, like I didn't know if he was going to break up with me, or crash his car on the way home, or what was going to happen... I don't even want to think about the other possible outcomes.
But yeah, so I just completely broke down into hysterical crying.
So lucky that this happened before he left and not after, as it would have been a lot harder to have to deal with by myself, instead of with him holding me and calming me down.
We managed to calm me down, a joint effort of the both of us, after about 2 or 3 minutes which was very quick for an outburst of mine like that. But yeah, now he's left and I am just feeling so like fragile and I don't even know what.
I just really felt like I needed to share this with someone, and you guys were the only people I really felt comfortable sharing it with.
I know this post was pretty deep and not all of my posts are going to be like this.
I have a really fun Christmas present haul coming up and also HEAPS of posts planned about the Europe trip that I'm going on soon, so have a look out for those if you're the kind of people who really aren't into all of this deep stuff.
I promise it won't be like this all of the time, I just really needed to get this stuff off of my chest.
Thanks for reading guys,
Please comment and let me know if you experience any of this, or what you thought about it.
I'm more than open to questions as well as I know most of you will most likely either be going through, have gone through or know someone going through these mental issues, I'm more than happy to answer any questions about them that you guys might have.
xxxxxxxx T
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