Ang’s eyer tea

I’ve heard people speak about paralysing anxiety but it was only recently I experienced this myself. I don’t know how or where it started, but it has built up and up since the summer, eventually reaching the point where I felt physically and mentally paralysed and unable to function.

What does it feel like? It feels like a hand around my throat gripping just enough to stop me from being able to swallow. It feels like a constriction around my chest reducing my ability to breathe. Because I can’t breathe freely, my brain goes into panic mode and floods my body with chemicals that shut down power to the logic centre.

What does it sound like? It sounds like the voice in my head saying “You’re stupid. You’ve failed. You’ve let these people down. You can’t even do something simple. You should be punished for this. Pull yourself together.”

With the logic centre shut down, all the other voices can shout louder. It doesn’t matter that what they say makes no sense. You’ve got no logic filter to discount them anymore.

What does it look like? It looks like me sitting at my desk opening and closing the same email several times unable to make a decision about whether to click send or not.

It looks like me scraping my knuckles along the walls when I walk through the office, deliberately hurting myself trying to make myself do something, punishing myself for my anxiety, like the voices tell me I should.

It looks like me sitting on the floor at home, calling my boss at eight in the morning, trying to explain what’s going on in my head and starting to cry and not being able to stop.

How do I get out of this? My process might not work for everyone, and I realise I’m lucky to have the resources to access all this support.

Remove the source of anxiety. I am lucky to have a boss who understands what anxiety is, and told me to immediately stop working and take time off, to treat this like a physical illness.

A conversation with the mental health advisor at my local GP saw me signed off work for two weeks. Away from work and the spiral of negative thoughts I had built around it, my anxiety levels started to drop.

Address the mental clouds. Meditation helped. Sitting still for a chunk of time every day and doing nothing but listening to a voice telling me how to breathe helped. With my breath regulated, my logic brain could re-engage, and the stress response took itself down a few notches. (I am a particular fan of Tomek Wyczesany on the insight timer app.)

Treat physical symptoms. Jaw clenched, shoulders so tight they are practically at ear level, nervous system in overdrive to the point where it felt like my skin hurt. Stress shows up in your physical body as well as your mind. I had several acupuncture treatments which helped unwind the knots in my nervous system. I had a massage to take out the physical knots in my back and shoulders.

Make sure it’s not medical. I had a conversation with my GP. She referred me for a blood test to make sure there was no medical cause for this (a long consultation with my friend who does acupuncture could not identify any specific thing in my life that would trigger this anxiety response).

My GP also said it could be work related stress, or it could be post-Covid stress (we went through so much uncertainty for so long, and now it’s (mostly) over, people are experiencing a kind of “catch-up” stress, as all the things they didn’t have time to process mid-pandemic are coming out now. ) She also said it could be menopause (because yes, I am that age).

Talk about it. Through work I can access six sessions of counselling. I’d logged a request for this in advance of being signed off, as I could see I was getting worse and wanted to talk to someone, hoping they could reassure me I wasn’t going mad. Talking to a stranger may not work for everyone, but for me, I’ve found it beneficial talking to someone neutral, someone who won’t judge me, who won’t laugh off my concerns, who can offer alternative thought patterns and ways to react to situations.

Since going back to work, I’ve admitted to several friends and colleagues that this is why I was off work. Each time I pause, thinking, “What should I tell them?” But I have mostly told people the truth. I feel I owe people the honesty of my experience, so that if they experience something similar they can come and talk to me. But it feels big, to admit to people that I was stressed out to a point where I couldn’t function.

Walk it out. My two weeks off work could have been spent in bed or on the sofa, but every day I was off work there was a mission that took me out of the house. Maybe it was going out to buy groceries, dropping some things off at the charity shop, going out for an appointment, going out for lunch or a coffee, but every day I got up, got dressed and left the house and engaged with the world in some way. It helped me having some task to focus on. (Although I did also spend a lot of time on the sofa. I read a lot of books and also got through my pile of sewing repairs.)

Accept it’s a work in progress. Going back to work triggered another rise in anxiety levels so I did extra meditation the day before. That first day was challenging. Yes, I was tired; yes, I felt dizzy like I was on a ship; but I was able to get back on the horse and keep riding, even if very slowly. Again, having management support for my return was incredibly helpful, knowing I wasn’t expected to “be all better” and pick up my workload at 100%.

I’ve been back at work for two weeks now and I can’t say I’m fully functioning yet, but I am functioning. I’m able to do things and make decisions. I still get tired and overwhelmed from time to time. I know now it’s important to find some quiet time every day to sit, unwind, breathe. The more anxious I feel, the more important it is to find that space.

I know now I have a packet of Ang’s Eyer Tea in my cupboard and every day I have to drink a cup but it’s up to me to not let it brew too long and get too strong.