Hi all,
So today I stumbled across this forum and I feel so glad to be able to communicate with people who actually get this thing called Mental Illness. I'm a 38 year old married mother to two (M16, F11). My husband and I have been together since were 17 however we split 8 months back in 2008...(cue abandonment issues from there onwards). We live in the NT but come from SA where we are hoping to move back to next year. My story....where to start...as a little tacker I was very shy, my teen years I started to come out of my shell, around 16 I was outgoing, giggly, reasonably confident, I remained this way until I turned 21...a week after that I had my first anxiety episode. It lasted 2 weeks, my now husband had no idea what was going on, my parents were beside themselves and took me to see so many GPs that first week. I just happened to be crying snot bubbles and shaking at the drs with my mum on a sunday when the dr on duty said, you are suffering from anxiety, here is a referral to a counsellor and here is some meds see me again next week. In that moment we had an answer to my lack of sleep, crying, shaking, vomiting, diarrhoea, racing thoughts etc. That day I started a freaking long journey. Without going into all the hurdles along the way here I am today...my anxiety and now also depression is reasonably well managed, except for in the past 11 months. In the last year my husband worked away for 3 months, i had to get our old dog put down, my dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer and then told it had spread to the lymph nodes, my father in law and sister in law passed away from a disease that is genetic in my husbands family, changed jobs (the last work place was toxic), and in recent months my beloved grandmother has developed rapidly progressing Alzheimer's (she is like a mother to me). For a girl with health and death anxiety its been freaking wonderful.....
Throughout this journey so far I have had counselling, hypnotherapy, bio feedback, CBT, psychotherapy, meditation, mindfulness, looked at my diet, my hormones, tried to exercise more, medication....Im still to hit the magic mark where something feels like it is working but its endless isnt it, finding the perfect combination and sticking to it (thank you depression). At the moment I am going through an anxiety episode that started on tuesday, off to the counsellor tomorrow, following by a mindfulness bootcamp session with an appointment with the psych on tuesday...anxiety be gone
