Episode 852.

I never thought I would be anxious about life getting back to normal, but there I was, anxious.

For the past 4 weeks I’ve had overwhelming heart palpitations, tight chest, random waves of the shakes, voice quivering, mood swings and an inability to control my breath. I have been exhausted.

I realised I was having these feelings because I knew that my safe place (being hidden away at home alone, with limited access to the world around me and nobody interfering) was about to come to an end. The thought of having to put on my brave face, which I haven’t really had to do for the past 6 months during Lockdown 3.0, was triggering a ridiculous amount of fear and anxiety within me. Even writing this I am shaking because I’m having to relive it in order to write it, so I’ll probably need a nap and a podcast after this to reset my head!

Figuring out the source of my anxiety was stressful. I thought it was a result of speaking to a new guy and I was just nervous about that situation in general. Then, I thought maybe it’s because I haven’t really been working out as much as normal and the gym is my tried and true therapy. What if it’s because I just turned 28 and I’m a little worried about getting older. It could also be that I’ve just had to switch up my entire routine at work, changing shifts & moving days off around. It could be a combination of EVERYTHING.

That’s a lot to work through when your brain programmed to thrive during routine and structure. If that routine is broken or that structure is shaken it allows all the stress, anxiety & doom to seep through meaning all the hard work of meticulously putting each brick in place with care and compassion to ensure a stable state of mind just falls to shit – resulting in an episode.

What starts as anxiety can quickly spiral in to a full blown episode if I don’t nip it in the bud. Which, of course, is exactly what happened. I move from room to room having panic attacks, deliberately going in the corner of the rooms and curling up in a ball on the floor, then moving to the bathroom to be sick from shaking so much, lying on my bathroom floor struggling to catch my breath from the relentless racing of random scenarios going on in my brain before finally reaching the peak of the attack where I start to crash back down and find myself lying in my shower crying while also fighting the urge to act upon any suicidal thoughts in that moment. Exhausted from the episode I move to my bed to try and sleep it off.

That is a cycle that I deal with 3-4 times a year normally. During the pandemic I’ve had these episodes pretty much every month and now the thought of getting normality back is triggering me even more.

Writing after my episodes have finished always helps me as it allows me to reflect on what triggered me and how I can combat that in the future. For the past 3 years I’ve tried to look at my mental health in deeper ways to really understand how I can change and affect things to reduce episodes and relapses. I have an uncontrollable need to control certain things (ironic) and my mental health is no exception.

Is anyone else like this? Has anyone else really struggled with the fear of getting normality back? Will my episodes get worse before they get better? I have so many questions that I can’t answer.