Video Transcription

Snowballing worries – get to know anxiety

The first signs that something wasn’t right for me were that I could no longer wake up and be okay with the day. Everything that was ahead of me felt like an extreme challenge. Snowballing worries were probably the hardest thing I’ve ever come to terms with. I would go from a state of calmness when I first woke up, but almost instantaneously, my thoughts would flood me all at once. I’d think about the meeting I had, and then, almost instantly, that thought would turn into whether or not I’d done the right thing during the meeting. That thought would then evolve into wondering if the people in the meeting liked me, and whether they would dislike me now because I proposed the wrong things. I’d wonder if I was going to lose my job, and somehow, that would shift from a professional issue to a personal one. I began attacking myself, asking if these people were going to like me, and eventually asking, “Am I going to like me? Do I like me?” I questioned what I was adding to any of these situations and why I was even turning up.

When I finally realized what was going on, I came to the realization that, for once in my life, I wasn’t going to be able to fix this myself. I quickly looked into my options, though I let it go on for much longer than it ever needed to. Early on, I met a guy at work who worked in another department. He was the biggest guy I’d ever seen—a bear covered in tattoos. I quickly built a relationship with him because I found out he was going through exactly what I was going through. That relationship got me to a place where I realized I could finally start looking into treating this. I picked up the phone, saw my GP, and got a referral. It was, without a doubt, the best thing I’ve ever done.

The moment my doctor told me I was dealing with an anxiety condition, I felt an instant sense of relief. And by no means do I try to downplay the seriousness of that, but it gave me a great sense of direction in terms of what I needed to do to deal with my anxiety. I’m in a job now that’s ten times more stressful than it was two years ago, and I take it with a grain of salt. I’ve learned how to breathe properly and calm my anxieties because everything can be fixed. There’s absolutely nothing that can’t be fixed.

If you’re at the early stages and you feel that you might be heading down the path of an anxiety disorder, my first piece of advice would be to get information. Access as many resources as you can. What you’ll quickly find is that once you start to manage what’s going on, the battle becomes just a little bit easier.

Video by Beyond Blue