A mindful life

It has been a long time since I last posted a blog (almost 2 years in fact!) Lots has happened in that time -  the biggest change for me being a move from our beautiful flat in leafy Langside to a brand new 3 bed home in Uddingston. I now live in the suburbs and am officially old. Life became very boring and very busy. As of January 2015, I am now CTA qualified which means no more studying (I do keep threatening Neil that I might go back and do my diploma in legal practice or a masters one day but I think he may divorce me if that were to happen and he’s quite useful to have around so I probably won’t.) Studying has been replaced with dusting and Saturday morning hangovers have largely been traded for hoovering and taking the cat out in the garden.

Although lots of things are different, there are a few things that have remained pretty static, and not all of them are necessarily good things.  I’m still (much) heavier than I should be, the cat is still a little shit, Neil is still messier than I’d like, my family still has more issues than vogue, and I’m still battling a mental illness.

I’d never really spoken publicly about my anxiety disorder until earlier this year, when I gave a talk at work on mindfulness for mental health awareness week. This was really well received and I had so much positive feedback from people, some of whom I’d never even talked to before. I’ve been thinking about writing about it ever since but had never quite gotten around to putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard, as it were.)

I’ve suffered from a combination of depression, anxiety and panic attacks since I was 20 years old. The first panic attack I remember having was in the now defunct Somerfield on Byres Road (now Waitrose for anyone not familiar with the continuing gentrification of Glasgow’s West End.) It came on out of the blue and I was terrified. I honestly thought I was going to die. I went through a phase of having frequent panic attacks for about a year after that but then didn’t have any for another 8 years. Until February of this year when my world was turned upside down.

I became ill very suddenly with crippling anxiety. A day off sick quickly turned in to a week, and before I knew it, I had been off work for almost 2 months. I could barely function enough to brush my teeth, let alone leave the house. I was so afraid of everything and became overcome with obsessive thoughts that completely engulfed me, to the point where I had to be sedated by a doctor. The awful thoughts (these varied from fears of the house falling down to worries about the cat being kidnapped – sounds ridiculous and it was) were coupled by the terrible physical symptoms I was plagued with. Headaches, numbness, chest pain, muscle tension, upset stomach, nausea, palpitations, insomnia, trembling, dizziness. I had them all. This culminated in a particularly awful episode where I locked myself in the bathroom, convinced bugs were crawling over my skin, and set about scratching off all the skin on my hands (queue hideous scars that not even the miracle bio oil could make disappear!)

Luckily, through a mix of medication, counselling and mindfulness meditation, I gradually began to get better and returned to work, on a phased return, at the end of April. My employers have been incredibly supportive, which has aided my recovery greatly.

It’s not been the best few months and I’m still not completely better: I don’t know if I ever will be. I still have days where the anxious thoughts come, my body dyed with the colour of my own thoughts, and nothing is clear to me. I have other days where I feel sadness for no apparent reason, or worse, feel nothing at all. But practising mindfulness has encouraged me to make peace with my obsessive thinking. Because as powerful as they feel, they are just thoughts. I am not having a heart attack, I am not dying. I am not crazy. I am just me. And that is okay.