My thoughts are driving me mad!

For about 8 months now I've been suffering from severe anxiety, it's hard to believe that this time last year I had minimal anxiety. I would give anything to go back there, what's worse is that I took it for granted then. I still couldn't go out on my own and still didn't have any friends etc, but it really didn't seem to bother me that much now, however it bothers me a lot. By the time this year ends I will be 24, one year away from my 'scary' age and I've achieved nothing. This also marks my 8th year of fighting agoraphobia! I'm still waiting for that day where I wake up miraculously 'cured'. Now, everything is bothering me. I don't want to be 24, I feel like I'm getting old, it doesn't help that everyone keeps reminding me of this fact and when will I get a boyfriend, job, kids etc. It's too much pressure. I give myself enough pressure, I certainly don't need hearing it from everyone else.

I feel this pressure that I HAVE to get better and I HAVE to get better NOW and the more I think this the more anxious I become. It's almost like I feel I'm running out of time. I don't know how to fix it. I spoke with the psychologist about this but he just said that this was normal -that was it, which I didn't find too helpful. We're currently also working on keeping an activity diary to look at what I do on a daily basis - which quite frankly is nothing! It is making me a bit down to look at my life in black and white. Basically I spend my days online, reading, watching tv or cleaning. That's it. So the next part of the task was to do something once a day i.e. exercise, go a walk or just leave the house and go somewhere. This has also been a challenge. Without sounding like I'm making excuses, me going out isn't as easy as everyone else. I need my Mum to be able to go out and lately she has been busy so I've probably only managed to get out about 3 times a week. When we do go out too it's always to the same places: supermarkets! Good for increasing my exposure to them but it's getting monotonous now and when I'm bored my anxiety shoots up. There is literally nowhere else I can go. As for the exercise, I've spoke about my phobia of this, and most of the time I really struggle to do any exercise. The two reasons for this are: I believe I have a heart problem and when I exercise it feels like I'm going to have a panic attack. I feel like I'm making excuses about not being able to do them so it's got to the stage where I lie when I go to sessions which I shouldn't because It won't help me but I'm afraid that they will say I'm not trying hard enough and stop my sessions like the last psychologist did.

My head feels like it's one big jumble of thoughts that are all muddled up and I don't where to start to sort them all out! Mostly they're about how much of a mess my life is. Every single area of my life is f*cked, there's  not one that I am 'normal'. I read/talk to agoraphobics that are able to work, have relationships, have friends, have kids and while I'm happy that they that they have these things in their lives I can't help but be envious. I have none of these things and I don't want to feel sorry for myself but it would be nice for something good to happen in my life. It's been years since someone so much as gave me a cuddle. Every conversation I have revolves around anxiety, money problems, my problems or other peoples problems. There's nothing fun and I miss that a lot. Everything is so serious all the time. I also can't help but think all this is what's contributing to my anxiety and if it is, I can have all the CBT in the world but I doubt it'll help.

This has been a bit of a whiny/woe is me post, which doesn't make for great reading but it's how I'm feeling and it's a true account of what I'm going through with my anxiety. I do however, have a positive thing to end with. I actually made myself walk to the shop on my own. This wouldn't be a big deal to most people as it's a short distance from my house but to me it's a really big deal. To me, the walk to the shop was always an unattainable goal - I don't know why because I've done things which have been a lot harder - and I was really happy that I done it. It's made it seem much more achievable and I've set myself a goal that I want to have walked there again twice by Friday, although to achieve this, the bloody weather will have to improve. Being battered with rain and wind whilst feeling dizzy and having a case of the jelly legs doesn't sound appealing.

Hope you are all well!

L x

Overcoming My Exercise Phobia

One of the many phobia's that I've developed since having panic disorder and agoraphobia is a phobia to exercise. The reason for this is due to the fact that my anxiety causes me to believe that I have a heart problem so in my mind if I exercise, it will put a strain on my heart and basically I'll collapse and die. So I avoid exercise at all cost - actually I avoid anything that makes my heart race or anything that could put a strain on my heart.

I can't remember when I developed this phobia. I do remember at one point reading in the news about a lot of young people collapsing and dying from heart problems (SAD) while exercising and I suppose my brain picked up on this. Since I've had the phobia there have been two young people that my Dad knows who have died from this, one was 20 and the other 19, both appeared to be in perfect health but one day just collapsed and that was it. I my head I just thought it could happen to me. For it supposedly being so rare what are the odds of hearing about 2 people it has happened to? I worry about my heart almost all the time and I find it scary how quickly someone can go from being healthy to dead.

When I was 15 my doctor was concerned that I had a fast heart rate and wanted to investigate it - at this point my anxiety wasn't that bad so I thought it would be nothing - so I was sent to have an ECG. The results weren't explained to me I was just told that everything seemed ok and that was it. Two years ago I was sent for another ECG because of the fast heart rate again and also because I was having palpitations. Again I was told everything seemed fine my heart rate was just fast but it was in a steady rhythm. My worry is, how reliable is an ECG? Surely nothing will show up unless I'm actually having palpitations at the time. This fear has caused me to live and behave like I do have a heart problem.

Yesterday I decided that enough was enough. I've been behaving like this for almost 7 years! If I ever want to get better I'm going to have to work through my fears and I'm starting with exercise. I do own my own exercise equipment so that's good I can start off in the house and build my confidence and eventually I hope to be able to go to the gym so that not everything is centered around staying indoors. I own a treadmill, exercise bike and dumbbells etc. Quite a lot of rubbish actually for someone who is phobic exercise but I always thought that if I could get into a regular exercise routine my anxiety would lessen a lot. So much like the same way as you would undergo exposure therapy when going outside, I'm going to gradually expose myself to exercise. So today I started with the exercise bike. I managed 5 mins and 32 secs before I started to get uncomfortable so I stopped before it escalated into panic. I now have something to build on. It's going to take a huge effort to keep it up I'm rubbish at sticking to things. I guess I just need to remind myself of how much I want to get better and that, depressingly, I'm not getting any younger and there's so much I want to do.