Hi, I remember a time in my life when I had very few, if any, friends. I hardly ever went outside, I mostly stayed in and watched TV. I stayed in my comfort zone. Going outside, talking to people made me panic. I´d dread bumping into someone and having to make conversation. What would I say? What would they say? I felt a nervous wreck. I´d bump into people and I´d talk a million miles an hour. It was the anxiety talking, not me. Then afterwards I´d feel embarrassed and more anxious for having yet another socially awkward situation. I´d put on a persona to try and get me through. I¨d try and be Mr Funny, make a few jokes to ease my way through the situation. The whole while I knew that this wasn´t who I really was. The real me as lying somewhere underneath all this, but because of the nervousness, the anxiety I wasn´t resonating with the real me. I couldn´t be my authentic self, who could be spontaneous, and just say things naturally as they came to my head. So connecting with people became difficult. I was also very low on self-esteem. I felt like crap. I didn´t feel like I was worth anyone´s company. And this came across in how I spoke and acted, I just felt unworthy. Throughout all this I knew that the real me was waiting to come out. It was just being hindered by the anxiety. But I just couldn´t shake this off. I´d hope that next year, or when I was older, that I´d change and be the confident person that I used to be. But next year would come and there´d be no improvement. Fortunately these days are behind me now, and I´m confident that I will never return to them. The reason I am confident that them days will never return is becaue I have gained understanding and confidence. I know why I suffer from anxiety, I know why I felt nervous, I know why I had anxious thoughts. And I know how to deal with them all. Understanding replaces fear. Knowing that a sensitized nervous system, together with adrenaline causes the symptoms, such as tension and palpitatins etc. That mental and emotional fatigue causes anxious thoughts to stick. That I feel down not because there´s something wrong with me but because I am emotionally tired from feeling so many strong emotions. And so on, and then by learning to live with it all in an accepting way, I have built up my confidence and self-esteem and loosened the chains of anxiety and panic that were tightly wrapped around me. I hope that I can share the understanding that I have learned, which has enabled me to come off all meds, overcome agoraphobia and be the person that I want to be, with other sufferers. I know there´s a way out. I know what it´s like to feel despair, heartbreak, hopelessness. But if I can come so far I´m sure that you can too. Best, TrueVoice
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 09:45:37 +0000
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