Anxiety

My anxiety has a physical feeling. It's a butterflies turning to sick feeling in my stomach. These last few months I have had this feeling from a couple of times a day to, in some cases, all day. In most situations I cannot tell you what the cause was, or how or why it went away. Or why it came back a little while later.

Anxiety doesn't totally stop me doing things. I function, albeit in a slightly dizzy distracted way. I muddle through with the things I have to do  and often it really is a muddle. In the last few weeks I have forgotten to take things with me, failed to do things I should have remembered and overall felt overwhelmed by the nature of parenting two busy bubbly daughters. I've felt a failure in most regards and I have let myself and everything else slide. There is something to say I have impossibly high expectations of myself (more of that another time no doubt) but recently I have felt like nothing I do is good enough.

My anxiety or low mood, whatever you want to label it, is cyclical. When I am at my worst it is pretty obvious to people who know me. I talk less, cry more, don't ring my mum and write nothing whatsoever. I cut myself off.

I did go to the GP and I've been talking to someone about things. It is a slow process.

The last few days I have felt more myself. Things are clearly getting better because I feel like I can make some changes. So I'm trying. Baby steps and all that. But I worry that this will come back in all it's miserable anxious stupor. So these changes need to improve things not just now but for the future which is a big ask.

It's hard for me to write about this. Partly because I don't want you to think I'm a terrible person who can't cope. Partly because I don't want to you think I'm asking for your sympathy.

But the reason I'm writing this is to add my voice to talking about mental illness. I'm bubbly and chatty (some might say loud) with a wonderful family and home. What have I got to be low about? Well the fact that I don't even know says something about the nature of mental illness.

So here it is. I'm ok by the way.