All About Anxiety xx

The 20th July 2016 : The day my heart simultaneously broke and exploded that much more to expose anxiety for what it is.

This blog was designed for that very reason. For no other reason than that really. Over the years God has developed my coping skills and enabled me a strength way beyond myself to co-exist with anxiety and dissociation and for that I'm grateful. But for those who do ask the real and honest question- yes, I still live with anxiety and depersonalisation as my closest companions. I just try not to communicate with them and have dialogue as much.

The 20th of July was the morning my son, my little baby boy, brushed my face with his sweaty hand and said: "Mummy,  I need you. I'm scared. I'm scared and my heart is pounding in my throat and I feel all tingly."

Unfortunately my brain has done too much research to fight the notion that I know exactly what that is. Mixed with the fact that in my heart and own body- my boy- I live with that demon an a daily basis too.

That is childhood anxiety and that marked my own childhood, adolescents and every day since with fear, desperation and at times pure terror and hell.

This morning, my own baby spoke the language of anxiety and it broke me to the core. Have a bad dream, or leave a light on or sleep next to me a few times. But this was different, this was a play by play of my own existence.

Please God no. I begged to take that burden for my kids. I wouldn't wish anxiety on my worst enemy...but my own flesh? How do to you begin to process that.

Well this, my sweet friends, is how.

I have the joy of knowing exactly how to calm him. The techniques of knowing how to slow down his entire system and allow time for those rush of chemicals to subside and bring calm back to his core. But above all, I know what it's like to go to sleep feeling like you might die from your heart exploding, and to him, that brought more comfort than anything.

" Aw my baby, I KNOW exactly what you are feeling. I can even tell you exactly why your body is doing that, come cuddle me and I'll tell you some things...."

To be honest, I almost can't cope with knowing that my boy knows the beast I call generalised anxiety disorder. He meets with him and is taunted and oppressed by that evil that I want more than anything to fight to expose for the rest of my life. But as much as I HATE anxiety and want to rid the world of it, I have also learnt that it has to be my best friend. I have to embrace that pure gut wrenching feeling and allow it to live in my body with me. I have to share my life with it. Fighting it only made me angry, and bitter and drink more.
Learning to live with anxiety 4 years ago changed my world.
Because of that, I know what help to get my boy, I know how to teach him that its chemical and it's in our family genes and it's actually ok and to get him the help he might need.
It has a name and it has no power.

I had thought I made a bargain with God though. I sat on my bed the night before I went into labour with Sam 9 years ago and I yelled to God in my own panic attack: "please, if you've ever listened to a prayer let it be this one...PLEASE don't let my child ever know anxiety. I'll take it for them, just please let it end with me."
That very next day I entered the new world of depersonalisation which can I be frank, has been a mixture of hell and pure evil all mixed into one. A mixture of numbness and over sensitisation and panic all at once. Of disconnection and confusion. Of being lost in your own skin and body. Of feeling a sense of belonging no where because at the end of the day, you don't even feel like yourself anymore. And to all the readers who follow because of these conditions, I'm actually really sorry that this blog got hijacked by my own personal convictions, and the journey of my illness got lost.

I get asked every single time I blog by so many if I am still a sufferer and if so, how did I get better. I'm here to say, yes. Yes I walk with the same demons you do, yes I wake up and feel like " here we go again", but I found the freedom in having to live with it. And I guess I ask myself constantly, what's the other option Lisa? Either you wake up and feel sorry for yourself and actually act the way this disorder makes you feel- or, get up, get dressed and do what you can with what you have. I've found the latter to be a lot healthier for both me and my family. But please know that we still walk this journey together.

I've said before that I pray with all my heart that as this journey and blog unfolds that I will one day write a story of full restoration and healing and that I will be able to write, I'm free- it's gone-here's how!! But for now, it's here and it sucks and we are together in that journey.

So hold tight. Breath deep. Let anxiety be what it is, a chemical imbalance that makes you feel like you could die, but you won't. A fear so real you feel paralysed, but you aren't. A desperation so real and so ugly that you don't think you'll make it through.
You will....
Wake up today and feel the anxiety and say " hello old friend, today I'm in control, not you."
Let it be there, let is exist, and don't run or fight or give it any power. It's brain chemistry and it isn't your fault nor your future.

Above all, let people in. Brush your sweaty hand and hyperventilating heart over the person you love and whisper " this is happening and this is hard." Let someone in. Someone that your trust and that loves you. The only thing worse than living with this beast, is living it alone.

Time to face the day my loves, we do it hand in hand with anxiety and with each other, and that's ok.

All my love xxx