Hello, and welcome back. I wanted to stat this blog, where you start most things …the beginning.
I always had anxiety, but I guess I didn’t realise it, I always associated it with being nervous, which I thought was normal. It wasn’t until after a failed relationship that I started to get more and more symptoms and this is also when I started to have panic attacks.
The main reason and trigger behind my disorder is the failed relationship and that is what I’m going to talk about, which is hard for me as it was a horrible time in my life and it brings up a lot of negative feelings., but its not all bad as I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason.
So down to the details… this relationship started when I was 17, so I was young, not that I am old now, but I was still studying and I had only had 1 boyfriend before then. This particular relationship starte off well, he was romantic and he treated me well for the first year of our relationship. We fought like any other couple does, we had out rows and we were both in the wrong, and it seemed normal. Until one day, one argument turns violent, I can’t remember what we were arguing about, but I remember him pushing me into the door so hard that a cut my upper arm and bruised it all, at the time we made up, he told me it was an accident and it woul only happen once, and I believed him, I was wrong. As the months passed, he moved out of his parents and I stayed at his house a lot, I cooked, cleaned and washed his clothes, and we’d have long periods of being fine, so every time another ‘accident’ happened I’d let it go, and I believe he was going to change. This is where my anxiety started, I would flinch whenever people touched me or came too close, I would hate being in busy places on my own, and I would hate confrontation, but around him I put on the brave face and I smiled through it.
There as one occasion, on my 18th birthday, where we ha gone to a Taylor Swift concert and I asked if he could get me a drink, as it was busy and it made me feel nervous, we then had a massive row, to the point where at the end of the concert, we left straight away, argued all the way home and when he dropped me off he said he would leave me, despite me doing nothing wrong, and for some reason in my head, I thought I was better with him than without, so I begged him, I stood in front of the car begging, so desperately, and he just drove off.
He took back a day later, but things only got worse, the violence got worse, what started out as pushing, turning into punches and then one day he had me on the floor banging me head off it, somehow I stayed for another year, until it got to the point where I had no emotion left, other than panic, and I left, I packed everything I could find and I told him it was over and I drove home. He followed me and sat outside my house, this time begging me to stay, but that was the moment I decided to take a stand and although it hurt I never looked back.
People ask why I didn’t leave sooner, but anxiety was part of it, it was the anxious feeling of not wanting to be alone, because he took my youth, and my self confidence, he made me believe that I would be alone forever. Ever since I left my panic has got worse, I struggled for a long time trying to find myself again, I still to this day 6 years later strtuggling in busy places, and panicking if someone touches me, and that is something that I ill always struggling with.
I will leave this story here, because frankly he does not deserve anymore of my thought, or anymore of my words, he knows what he did wrong and he lost me because of it, and he will have to live with that for the rest of his life. What I will say is, as I said earlier, I believe everything happens for a reason, although I live with a panic and anxiety disorder because of him, I also realise that if I han’t of gone through that, I wouldn’t have met the love of my life, who I am now married to, but that is a story for another day.
PLease come back next week when I discuss the letter C
A-Z of Mental Health 