ESCAPE PLAN

Where do I start? Maybe at the beginning? This blog has been a long time coming. Fuck.

June 10th, 2019. It’s been 14.2356 months or 433 days or 10392 hours or 623520 minutes (let’s not do seconds eh…). I’m probably making this seem way more dramatic than it is. I don’t have cancer (as far as I know) and I wasn’t hit by a bus or stung by a million bees. Many people will probably think it’s stupid and not real, but it happened to me and that makes it real, right?

So, for the last however many months/days/hours/minutes I have been living with panic and anxiety disorder. I had my first full blown panic attack at work and thought I was dying. It felt like I was leaving my body; I became detached, derailed from my senses. It was shit. Thankfully everyone around me was supportive and whilst I ended up in a corridor of Lancaster A&E for 4 hours, I survived. I cried in the doctor’s face when she said that my results were “so normal it’s boring”. Surely it was a heart attack or some other serious health concern? Nope. A panic attack. I battled with the emotions of the situation but couldn’t rationalise what had happened.

What then followed was around 6 months of day in day out panic attacks, some strong, lasting hours and some weaker. I had to take some of this time off work, went back a few weeks after my diagnosis, but the symptoms clashed with my responsibilities as CEO, so I ended up off again. This was painful as the team is small and I knew the pressure this placed on everyone to pick up the slack. That made me feel worse.

My panic symptoms would vary. Some were thought driven and some symptomatic. For example, I would worry about not being at work and get this ‘whoosh’ rush, a bit like that passing out feeling. My limbs would go numb, I would get a burning sensation down my arms and chest pains. Or, I would experience a pain in my body somewhere, something new and unfamiliar, and suddenly I’m having a stroke, or a heart attack, or aneurism. Then my fight and flight would kick in and I would get sweaty, detached and want to escape.

I was afraid of having a shower in case I drowned, I was afraid of pushing poo out too hard in case a blood vessel burst in my brain and I died. I started struggling to eat. Sometimes I couldn’t swallow and would then panic. I couldn’t walk into town, go to a coffee shop and had to get someone to shop for me. The lowest moments were where I was deathly afraid of being on my own. I needed someone in the house at all times, just in case it actually was ‘real’ and I needed emergency first aid.

I tried a bunch of pills. Reacted badly to most of them (not sure whether it was due to a ‘real’ reaction or from reading the side effects. TIP: NEVER READ THE SIDE EFFECTS). I did get referred to Minds Matters and had a short series of CBT sessions that helped.

I went back to work in September 2019 and tried really hard to get back into it all, however by Jan/Feb 2020 my panic symptoms were increasing again, so I made the decision to quit. It was one of the hardest decisions I have had to make as I loved my job, but my health needed to come first.

At points I was caught between two constants. I was mortally afraid of dying, yet so tired and down around the thought that this could be it. Panic attacks forever. I didn’t know when, or if it was going to end.

So, here we are in August, a dangerous virus is sweeping the globe, the relationship with my partner of nearly 8 years ended and my dad passed away in April. It’s still there, in the background, lurking around the corner and at the edge of my periphery. I am getting fit, eating healthier and running regularly. I find it keeps me balanced. I have made a few new pieces of work and planning for a few more with people I respect and love.

I don’t think there is a moral to this. I think it was just time to share what I went through. It would be great to talk to others that have been through something similar. Email me!

I might do another blog detailing what helped me curb the panic.

briggsy