So i have been suffering with anxiety and depression for 10 years (since i was 14), its been a long and hard journey that at times i didnt think i would survive.
When i was 13 life was quite good, the abuse had stopped and i was free although i still lived with my abuser, life was pretty normal, i was at high school and had a good group of friends, i had my best friend who i’d met that year, she was new to the school and i soon found out she was just as crazy and weird as me.
I was happy for the first time in years but that soon changed, once i hit 14 i started drinking and experimenting with drugs, i was hanging around with a group of 7 girls and 1 boy, we all had difficult childhoods and felt we all fitted together.
We started with drinking at the weekends for a bit of fun but it soon escalated in to most nights after school and then drugs were intruduced, just a bit of weed at fist then a bit of speed to help us stay up all night, i thought we were having harmless fun but for me it turned into something alot deeper.
I started to notice that the drinking and drugs made me feel better, made me forget things that had happend and made me feel normal, even when my friends werent doing them, i was.
I remember my very first panic attack like it was yesterday, i was with my best friend at a close mates house who was alot older than us, i hadnt had a drink but we did have a smoke with my close friend and her partner, i was sitting laughing and joking when suddenly i felt like i couldn’t breathe, my head felt fuzzy and i was sweating, i stood up and said i needed to go home, my friends asked if i was okay, i didnt answer i just left, they were to stoned to follow me so i was on my own. I remember thinking i was gonna pass out, i felt so paranoid and panicky i wanted to get home so bad that i practically ran, luckily it was just up the street so it wasnt long before i was walking in the front door, i went upstairs to the living room, my heart was beating so fast, my hand were clammy and i felt sick but i just wanted to lie down. I went straight to bed and must have fell asleep.
When i woke up in the morning i felt fragile and strange, like i had a hangover, I decided then that i was nevee gonna touch drugs again.
After that night the panic attacks became a daily occurrence and they were becoming quite a problem,i didnt know what was happening or why, i thought i had a life threating illness, i really felt like i was gonna die and became very depressed, my mum noticed and took me to the doctors, they told me i had anxiety and depression.
I continued to drink right through my teenage years and as the years went on the drinking became more frequent but it wasnt enjoyable anymore it was purley to block out the pain of my childhood, it also helped me cope with anxiety, if i was drunk i didnt feel the symptoms of the anxiety but that all changed when i stopped drinking at the age of 21.
At the age of 21 i stopped drinking (ill explain why in another post) and thats when the anxiety hit me like a tun of bricks, i felt everything, every little twinge and ache but it felt 10x worse. The symtoms of my anxiety were all physical and very scary, i was a nervous wreck, everything was suddenly terrifying. I was scared to leave the house in case something bad happened, scared to sleep, scared to eat, at some points i was even scared to live, i had become a shadow of my former self, i couldn’t even remember the happy teenager i once was.
Next installment will be my life from 21 til now and how i met my saviour.
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