My history of anxiety and depression, and how I learned that it is only temporary

I first experienced Anxiety and depression at the end of the last century, roughly back in 1998. At that time, I had very little idea of what it really was. I thought, as many did and still do to this day, that it was just a bit of sadness and dissatisfaction with life, and I just needed to "get out there, have some fun and pull myself up by my bootstraps". When you are so young, your own sense of invincibility clouds the signs of depression and anxiety, and only makes it worse. 

I used to work for a company that was located close enough for me to get a bus to, or walk to and the job itself was easy albeit very low wage. The company however had two locations, one based in my local town and another some 14 miles away in a neighbouring town. For financial reasons, they decided to close my local site and move to the one 14 miles away. Thankfully however, for the current employees they hired a coach to pick us up and drop us off every day. As much as this was an absolute godsend, it did mean that for a journey that would ordinarily take 20 mins, at peak rush hours it was taking anything from 30 mins up to 2 hours per journey. 

For some time, as much as it was annoying sitting in traffic 5 days a week, I still managed to use to time to enjoy listening to my favourite trance tapes, and get in some quality gameboy advance time. The monotony of my existence however was getting to me, without me even noticing. I was single, with dreams of becoming an electronic music producer. I was smoking increasing amounts of cannabis and dabbling in the occasional alcoholic binge. I had one, brilliant and funny best friend who, looking back I treated badly - but that's a subject for another post. I still lived at home, with my Mum and Brother, my Brother of which was in a very similar although much more sociable and happy lifestyle. I forget the exact time of it, but I am guessing around 1998 or 99, I started to get inexplicably frightened, with concerns over my breathing and strange feelings of dread every time I got on that coach. It got worse, and worse and just as I had been finally given a full term employment contract, and was working my way up the company. 

I started to take sick time off work, more and more it seemed, and on the one day I did manage to get the courage back to go back to work, I experienced a serious panic attack on the way home, forcing me to leave the coach a stop early, and appeal to one of my colleagues for a drink of water before I could figure out how I was going to continue my journey home. I walked home the rest of the way, in the dark, and decided at that point I needed some kind of help. I still, at this point, had no idea what was wrong with me. 

As much as a needed help, I had no idea what I was trying to fix, until I was asked to go and see an occupational health worker where I worked. It was there, for the first time, I was told that I could have anxiety and depression, and it was that what was causing my problems. Help however was not forthcoming, and I just, for some reason decided that instead of just trying to get it fixed, I would just 'work through it'. The coach journey's at this point had stopped due to budget cuts where I worked, so it was all down to car sharing with my colleagues from this point. I also got a girlfriend at this point, and things seemed to be improving on their own. The depression was somewhat lifted so it felt like it was over, for now. I resolved to forget about it and get on with my life. 

Years after this, after getting married in 2005 and several jobs later and after the birth of my first son in 2009, in 2012 - it happened again. I suddenly, unexpectedly had another panic attack while driving home one evening where there had been a nearby accident, which resulted in the exit road to where I worked being seriously backed up with traffic for miles in both directions. A pain in the arse, yes, but after 10-15 mins of sitting in a queue motionless, it hit me, a serious panic attack. I made it home, shaken somewhat, but did not mention it. Just got on with my life and it's expectations, and thought to myself that it was just a one off and I just need to 'deal with it'. Again, I moved on. Not thinking about it. Not addressing it, and although it kept creeping back now and then when I sat in traffic, I just put up with it, all the way up until 2016, when again, sitting in traffic it happened again. It was time to actually get some proper advice from my GP. At this point, I was also taking an active interest in Psychology and had recently discovered a number of online personalities I followed with great interest, mostly Jordan B Peterson. Again, that's a subject for another post :) 

My GP Referred me to a specialised centre for wellbeing, and for the first time I was introduced to a course of cognitive behaviour therapy, or CBT for short - and when I say introduced, I mean my 'therapist' being a nonchalant man of little care or interest in my situation gave me a short pamphlet explaining the basics. I love our NHS service here in the UK, but Mental health it seems is one of those services that does not get a lot of attention, and is spotty depending on where you live. I ran with this course for 4 weeks, all the while doing my own research and learning on anxiety and depression. It was approaching the end of winter, and the changing of the season was improving my mood, which reflected in my ability to be able to continue to drive into work, being careful to avoid situations where I felt I might 'flare up'. The summer came, and I found some coping behaviours such as listening to podcasts really helped. Over time, I started to get less and less frightened of the journey, and got more and more 'used' to just sitting in traffic and accepting it. It was here I made one of the best discoveries I ever made about tackling anxiety specifically;

Acceptance that I could not change the situation. Accepting that a panic attack is a natural, physical and learned process that will not kill you. It's designed to keep you safe from danger. 

Reasoning the situation out into a more balanced thought process, and finally - taking action to face my fears. All of these are core principles in CBT. 

There was also one more thing that made a huge difference to me that I learned from listening to Jordan B Peterson, and it's so simple it's ludicrous. Have a nice, tasty and satisfying breakfast every morning. He noted that the most common thing he found when treating patients with anxiety disorders was to simply request that they eat breakfast. The pleasure of a nice breakfast, coupled with a slow release of energy - particularly in my case eating a slice of bacon with an egg and a slice of toast set up the morning so well that patients had no occurrences of anxious thought. We're all different of course, but this, for me was a complete revelation. Over the course of a few months throughout the following summer, I was happy, and had virtually no instances of anxiety or panic. I even got stuck in the mother of all traffic jams one day, sitting for 2 hours in traffic after an accident, for a journey that would ordinarily take only 10 mins. Annoying and frustrating still, but no panic. 

This kind of leads up to August last year, where I contracted a near fatal condition called Encephalitis, and consequently Epilepsy. This along side the global pandemic is once again bringing back these old problems, and this is where I am now at time of writing, and I have a long journey ahead of me to get this fixed.