Let's Talk Day: Anxiety

I don't ever remember having an anxiety problem before college.

That's not to say I wasn't ever anxious. I was constantly in a state of worry and I did a lot of performance arts (dance, music) and would have 'pre-show jitters' but never anything debilitating.  I would stress, worry, and get paranoid over little things - but it was usually short lived and forgetable.

I'm not sure when exactly this changed. I was fairly shy my first semester of college and thankfully was able to find friends who quickly became close and trustworthy. In a demanding program like ours, you needed a strong support system of your peers or you die. We had lab sections for many of our classes and during exams would also have lab practicals to show the skills we'd learned beyond the theory.

This type of testing was never a strong area for me. My mind blanks under pressure and I don't like being caught off guard. Even with weeks of preparation I would still go in with sweaty palms. At the beginning it was stressful, yes, but again similar to just nerves before going on a stage.

As the first year went on, despite my overall good grades coming out of the practical portion, these nerves kept getting worse.

I remember before one nursing practical, having to wait for my name to be called and ending up sitting on the ground because I felt nauseous and dizzy. It took two of my close friends to calm me down, remind me to breath and try and calm the sudden tremors I was having. I was panicking over the practical yes, but this reaction my body was having was something also completely new to me and scared me just as much.

It felt like a switch flipped in my brain and everything was crashing down and closing in all at once and I was babbling nonsense and could physically not stop shaking.

After that, I'd hoped the case had been from sleep deprivation and the week of exams I had been suffering through, but the instance had me on edge. I was scared that it would happen again which in turn made me more anxious.

The co-op I had that summer was brutal and affirmed the growing sense of anxiety in my chest. My boss was not a pleasant man to work for. Yes the job was demanding and new, but it was manageable. My boss was not. He was intimidating, short-tempered and very demanding in his own right. Although he did rather like me as a summer student, no one was safe during any of his bad days. Every rank of seniority could and would get yelled at and tension was always high. This sort of conflict is every sort of environment my personality cannot handle. But, I needed the job and it was only for a few months. Thus, I started going to work half an hour before any one else - I would prep for the day so that when everyone arrived, everything was ready. I also did this so I could have some time to my self with my sanity before the day started. During the day, I always offered to develop radiographs as it would give me 5 minutes to sit in the dark and breathe without the fear of someone walking in. These efforts deemed futile though as almost every day I ended up going home in near tears, stressed, angry, and exhausted. My sleeping patterns turned upside down, I had indigestion constantly, a tight knot in my stomach became permanent and I stopped wanting to eat in fear that I would just throw it all back up.

I started taking mild anxiety pills if I felt particularly unstable before work as needed. They weren't any heavy prescription drug, just plant based calming tablets that seemed to help a bit. This went from every so often, to a few days a week, to popping one in every morning before I walked out the door. I hated taking them, but the second I stopped the nausea, shaking, sweating, cramps all would return.

I was angry a lot, and although much of it was directed at the job, it was also at myself for not being strong enough to take on these challenges. That summer I grew a very tough skin in terms of working conditions - but my emotional stability was shot. The verbal abuse the employees had stuck with me long after. I found myself on edge more often and smaller events would send me into a spiral downwards of anxiety and fear.

The entire thing is illogical, my body and mind reacts to the unnecessary extreme. That's what frustrates me the most. It's embarrassing and can make you feel like a coward.

A few years have past since that summer, a few more anxiety attacks along the way, but also a few moments of self-realization. I can come across as confident and present myself as laid back - but underneath there is often a version of me hitting every panic button imaginable. This is not to say that I'm in a constant state of anxiety. I often am genuinely relaxed and confident in my abilities. But there are times when an unstoppable force takes over. I know certain circumstances that can trigger the anxiety and try to avoid them, but they are not always unavoidable and that's when it gets rough.

I've never been actually diagnosed with a form of an anxiety disorder, and I don't want to be self-diagnosing and say I have something or another when I might not. I know of people who struggle with much more extreme cases of anxiety every day and that it can be much more debilitating to their activities much more than what I've described here. All I'm doing here is stating my personal experiences with the anxiety I've had and how it's affected my life. I would love to be the person who can stand up to those that push me down, or be confident enough to take risks with out dwelling on the consequences, or be the first to start a conversation with a stranger. But that's just not me.

All I can say is to allow those who are close to you in. Give yourself a support system of people you trust to tell you that you can get through this and that you are stronger than your anxiety. Someone to guide you across whatever struggles you are battling, to remind you to breathe and offer a hand to hold.

If nothing else, just know: It's okay to be scared.

Bell Let's Talk Day: "Talking about mental health is the first step in making a difference in the lives of all Canadians."