My Experience
Last summer I had a problem. No matter what I did I was nervous. Not just nervous to do new things, nervous to go to work, nervous about answering the phone, nervous that the last explanation I gave didn’t make sense, that people were judging my every move, that I just wasn’t good enough.
Not only was I constantly nervous but I couldn’t order my thoughts, I knew I needed to sit and think things through – my worries weren’t reasonable and I knew it – but, whenever I sat to think through the current worry everything hit me at once, I wasn’t able to sort through the thoughts and get anything straight.
One weekend my fears got so bad I resolved to go to the doctor. I was nervous about it of course, but I hoped by externalising this, talking to someone who wasn’t in anyway connected to me, I would find some way to deal with the thoughts I couldn’t order and control some of the fears I was having.
So, the following Monday I turned up at the doctors, sat there fearfully in the waiting room, (I have had a fear of doctors and hospitals since I had a nasty accident when I was 16 – this is a little more natural to me.) Eventually I was called in to see my Doctor. He asked what he could help me with and … my washing machine brain fell straight out of my mouth – still spinning – not making much sense!
Thankfully, my doctor had some experience of this, it turns out that he’s got multiple patients that fit my broad brush profile, (relatively successful, very busy, high quantities of travel,) who suffer with the same thing. He asked some questions based around how I felt, what I felt the problem was and gave a few recommendations and diagnosis.
The first thing he did was give me his preliminary diagnosis: I was suffering from an ANXIETY disorder.
The good news he had for me was there seemed to be no evidence of a related depression. Apparently these two can walk hand in hand, but, in my case this didn’t appear to be the case.
My doctor therefore disgnosed this as Generalised Anxiety Disorder, and a relatively mild case at that.
An introduction to this from the NHS can be found at the following link:
Solutions
Following this diagnosis he offered me several way of improving my situation:
- Chemical relief (not sure what was being offered – I didn’t what to take drugs to try and resolve this immediately, I wanted to explore other solutions)
- A week off work (I didn’t take this – feeling too busy to take time off and knowing I had holiday booked in a few weeks – I am, at times, an IDIOT)
- A more natural chemical solution (St Johns Wort – slower acting but should deliver some results after 4 weeks or so)
- A chance to refer myself to the NHS mental health services for CBT – cognitive based therapy (I still have the card somewhere.)
- Take more exercise
I took these away with me and resolved to try and find a solution.
Having done a little research and thrown out every ‘tough it out’ type solution I came up with the following treatment plan for myself (note: this was appropriate for me, however I do recommend you follow your doctors advice wherever possible.)
- Reduce alcohol and caffeine intake
- Begin morning meditation
- Increase my nightly sleep times (typically 5-6 hours – this eventually shifted naturally to 7-7.5 hours per night.)
- Take St. Johns Wort daily
- Read about anxiety control methodologies
My backup to this was to increase exercise (I disregarded this option as I’d damaged my knee prior to my consultation and any increase would have been intolerable initially), and seek CBT in extremis.
Overall I can say this has worked, it hasn’t been without struggle but it’s also lead me to consider the wider issues that may have caused this and to begin making changes to resolve those also.