Anxiety And Me

*The following content may be triggering to those who have experienced anxiety. 

 

Forty million individuals suffer from anxiety disorders in the United States. Before I suffered from anxiety, I interpreted anxiety as nervousness and when someone found it hard to meet new people. However, since suffering from anxiety I’ve learned that the symptoms include so much more.

I have suffered from anxiety for around ten years now, yet when I first developed symptoms, I had no idea that it was, in fact, anxiety. Doctors have prescribed me copious amounts of medication in efforts to reduce the pain and symptoms: Zoloft, Amitriptyline, Buscopan, Losec, Metoclopramide, Paracetamol, Ibuprofen, Codeine, Lactulose, and Tramadol. My parents and physicians had urged me to see a psychologist for years, but after a bad experience with one, I stubbornly declined. At this point in my life, I am genuinely open to trying anything that may possibly help. Today I am prescribed 60mg of Amitriptyline and take six Tramadol per day. While my anxiety is worse today than it was in the beginning, I will not let it control my life.

I remember the first time I experienced anxiety symptoms around the age of nine or ten, after a trip to Thailand. I caught an illness on the plane and I spent the entire week profusely vomiting which triggered my first encounter with anxiety: I was terrified of illness. I remember shaking with worry as I fell asleep as a child, afraid of getting sick again. 

I have always had a pretty bad digestive system, which made my stomach sore a lot when I was younger. It would get so bad that I would be vomiting from how much pain I was in. This created an endless cycle of anxiety: I’d get a sore stomach, I would get anxious about the pain and the risk of vomiting, then the worry and anxiety would make my stomach worse, repeat. It wasn’t great in high school either, but nothing that I couldn’t manage. However, when I finished high school, things got worse.

I enrolled in university and moved into a dorm. I quickly realized that my courses weren’t right for me and the relationship I had with my roommate was terrible. Having to deal with this was incredibly exhausting. I faced the dilemma of not knowing what I wanted to do with my life while having to deal with the stress of feeling uncomfortable and nervous in my living situation. But nothing could brace me for the emotions that would come when, shortly after, a friend of mine took his own life.

I started to mentally decline. I felt useless, like I couldn’t help him. Everything started to feel extremely pointless and I couldn’t stop wondering what anything was for. I felt very small in a very big world, as though nothing I did had any impact on anyone or anything. The stress and anxiety I was experiencing became extremely evident in my appearance. In the weeks to come, purple rings began to develop around my eyes and I developed chronic eczema all over my face which would crack and bleed. When I was young, the thought of illness made me restless, but now something much more somber invaded my thoughts: death. I started having nightmares where I was half awake and I’d sit up and see people hanging from the trees outside. Then one week, I dreamed each night that a different family member had died.

Even deeper stuff hit me a few weeks later when I started believing that it was my fault. I began creating situations in my head, thinking about all the things that I could’ve changed or done differently.

Thankfully, over time things seemed as though they were starting to settle — until I started getting a sore stomach more frequently. I went to doctors and they suggested that I try anti-anxiety medication to treat the cause of the issue rather than just the symptoms.

They put me on 50mg of Zoloft, which only made my sore stomachs ten times worse. I was in pain 24/7; I couldn’t leave the house for fear of getting a sore stomach in public. They took me off Zoloft, as one of the main side effect is stomach irritation. Instead, they put me on Amitriptyline, starting at 10mg and then gradually, they increased the dosage. 

I currently take 60mg of Amitriptyline, and am in utter fear of leaving the house. I think about things like what will happen if I get a sore stomach and there is no bathroom around, or if I get a sore stomach and I can’t get off the bus or train. Because of this I spend most of my money on Uber. I am currently taking six Tramadol a day, in efforts to break the link between my sore stomach, anxiety, and stress. I still experience chronic pain, and anything other than peanut butter toast and chocolate almond milk upsets my stomach.

As I said earlier, I used to think that anxiety was just meant someone was stressed or scared to meet new people, but honestly it is so much more. It’s often debilitating. Anxiety has caused me to drop out of university, lose relationships, and miss out on opportunities. To make matters worse, at times my condition is the source of other people’s worry and stress; they want to help but I don’t know how they can fix all these things. 

However, things could could be a lot worse: I could have an incurable illness. While anxiety (and all the forms that it comes in) sucks entirely, we can get better. Although anxiety is treatable, only 36.9% of people who experience anxiety in America receive treatment. So if you’re someone in a similar situation, please seek help.

There are options that are cheap, BetterHelp is an online counseling service that allows you to chat online, call, or video conference with a qualified counsellor — which I think is great, because I find talking face-to-face with someone about my issues very scary, alternative modes of chatting are really helpful. BetterHelp isn’t free, but it’s affordable and nowhere near as expensive as seeing a psychologist.

If like me, you also feel as though you have a poor quality of life due to anxiety, remember: it won’t always be like this. It might take a while and some hard work, but ultimately, your life is worth living and fighting for. 

 

 

For more information on anxiety, its symptoms, and how to treat them — click here. 

If you or a loved one is experiencing a debilitating anxiety attack, you can call 1-800-662-4357 for 24-hour assistance. 

You can learn more about BetterHelp’s services by visiting their website at www.BetterHelp.com. 

 

Photos (in order of appearance) by Zachary Gray,  Narges (@lesnympheas), David Uzochukwu, and Petra Collins.