Ive always been a shy person even from a young child, I would always cling to the back of my parents and hide and I wouldn't talk to anyone and would let my parents answer for me because I just refused to talk to people I didn't know very well. Anxiety was not the issue when I was young I was just shy. It wasn't until I got to the age of 16 that I started to experience anxiety.

Here's why.... With all the stresses of GCSE's which were bad enough I had the added bonus of things at home becoming very volatile and unstable. I was constantly arguing with my parents and they were constantly arguing with each other and I was always on edge. This went on for about two months before my parents sat me down and told me they were separating. For someone who always thought that we were such a close family I did not understand how this was happening and I began to change my behaviour I was becoming slightly rebellious I was drinking more and I was smoking which im not proud of but I think I was doing it to get some sort of attention out of everything that was going on. It didn't work. After two weeks my mum had moved out and I later found out there was someone else in her life. My rebellious attitude had stopped but my confidence and happiness took a turn for the worst. It was if a bomb had gone off inside me and like that my whole world had changed and not for the better. It wasn't until I broke down in the doctors surgery to go and get tablets for what I thought was a flu type bug was actually the onset of depression. It was if I was high on a cliff edge when all of a sudden I was pushed off and I just kept falling. It got so bad and was affecting my studies so I chose to leave home and go into boarding at my school where I could be away from everything at home and have some sort of distraction this worked and I came out of year 11 with 10 GCSE's. It was the start of sixth form when everything was changing, everything was becoming more serious with solicitors being contacted and things becoming more serious with my mum and someone else. I just couldn't cope. Unfortunately for me my escape was self harm. Self harm is the hardest topic to talk about and understand if you haven't gone through it. I wasn't the one who was doing it for attention I was doing it because it felt like a release, I would get angry with myself everytime that I would do it, yet I would do it again the next day and the day after. It was getting to the point where I would just sit alone all day in school and in the boarding house and was refusing to talk to anyone as I knew that they would send me to counselling and I just didn't want to do that. ( I should mention that I had some counselling after breaking down in the doctors but it just felt like I was in a mental institute and that the lady listening to me was judging me without really understanding or even just listening to me) I finally after the school nurse noticed that I had been self harming, she put me forward for counselling. It was different this time it was in the comfort of my own room and she was the nicest lady I had ever met and it felt like she was actually listening to me because she wasn't writing anything down she was just listening to me. I felt free.

Although I felt free with her, not the same could be said about the relationship between my mum and I. I refused to talk to her or see her when I found out who the other person was someone who I had trusted and who id been working with for a couple of years. I was selfish and I made her choose between me or him. And if the option was him she would never see me again. It was a horrible position and im not too proud of it but I knew my mum wouldn't choose him, I would then have my mum back in my life which I definitely needed, my dad just didn't understand the same things that a mum could.

Things drastically changed around the time of me coming up to my AS levels, where the relationship between my mum and the other man was becoming angry and volatile. The quick decision was to get my mum out of the situation and live in our holiday cottage and slowly over time my parents were getting back to how they used to be and decided that everything was a mistake and that they would get back together. Everything had gone back to the way it was and I was happy. But the Anxiety had become my biggest enemy. Although I had the freedom of a car, I could not drive anywhere by myself without the fear of seeing 'him' or anyone else for that matter. Social situations where becoming impossible I wouldn't be able to walk into a pub by myself I would wait in my car and ring someone who I was meeting to meet me outside the pub to walk in with me. I was lucky that I had a circle of close friends that supported me through this and didn't question me anytime.

The panic attacks didn't start until the night of AS Level results night. It was a house party at someone's who I did not know. I was fine (ish) until someone upset me and for some reason I just didn't know what to do. So I left. (luckily I was in a town that I knew like the back of my hand) I hadn't told anyone where I was going I sat on the side of the road behind a wall so that no one could see me and I just had the panic attack. My heart was pounding as fast as a racehorse my head was spinning and on top of that I was in floods of tears. It wasn't until my close friend noticed that I was missing and came looking for me. They automatically understood what was happening and could tell I didn't want to 'talk' they just sat next to me making sure I was warm and knew he was there until I got in control of my breathing and was calm. Still no word was said. What felt like 3 hours was about 10 minutes. After this everytime I have been in a situation like this I've had one friend  has been there with the last one happening around 3 and half months ago. I am so glad that I have friends who really care about me because I don't think otherwise I would be able to cope with anxiety.

I have since been able to control my anxiety because I make sure that im surrounded by people who know and understand and that they can react quickly to a situation and they will remove me from that situation without me having to say anything at all.

So here ends my story to 'A Taboo Topic'

Bye for now x