later I am forced to concede that what I thought was an allergic reaction was a panic attack brought on by my powerfully anxious brain. I’m so wiped out by it, and so embarrassed and sad that this is where my mind goes, that I have to have a two-hour nap. That fear of anaphylaxis stayed with me for a further two years. I wasn’t twelve by the way, I was twenty-nine.
Can you think of a time when your anxiety went from zero to a hundred in seconds? It’s good to get it out – I can look back and laugh about it (a bit) now and the more I tell people these stories, the less powerful they seem. No, the less powerful they ARE.
Right, scenario number two:
I am at college and the bus journey was a bit weird, I felt hot and dizzy and things felt ‘off’. When I get to the building, I feel ill and scared and everything looks weird. I panic – but not about anything in particular and that feels even scarier. I make my excuses and leave to go home. That night my head spins as I try to get my brain around why I felt so strange. I tie myself in knots as I explore stranger and more irrational paths trying to make sense of what I’m experiencing. It’s overwhelming doom mixed with a feeling that everything is unreal. And I have no blueprint for that. Eventually I settle on the answer: I must be going mad. Mad like you hear about on Crimewatch. Mad like killers in movies. And it clicks – I am psychotic. I have no proof of this, but that’s where my mind has landed. From that day, I become obsessed with monitoring my ‘mad’ behaviour. I pick apart every thought that pops into my mind – am I paranoid? Did I just think someone was watching me? Do I hear voices? The exhaustion from trying to push back against these thoughts is overwhelming and, on top of all the thoughts which keep coming, I’m experiencing a million physical side effects of anxiety too – adrenaline courses through my body, I feel sick constantly, I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. The mental and physical go hand in hand and egg each other on – it’s a vicious cycle.
This one was an even lower moment in my life, but the two stories have a couple of strong similarities. Can you spot them? No, I’m kidding, you’re not eight and this isn’t Where’s Wally. I’ll tell you:
Catastrophic thinking – my mind (and maybe yours since you’re here) has the amazing ability to go from zero to a hundred in two seconds flat. And it’s never a positive destination. The only places my mind goes are dark and scary. Catastrophic thinking can be described as your brain searching for the worst-case scenario. It might seem like a self-defence mechanism – ‘Prepare for the worst, be pleasantly surprised’ – but it actually kick-starts an anxiety loop. You think about the worst scenario and your brain and body produce a reaction like the one you’d have if that actual scenario was happening. So I imagine I’m in serious medical danger, or feel like I’m going mad, and I panic. Adrenaline floods me, I’m tearful, I can’t breathe and I think the world is ending. When it doesn’t, I don’t pick myself up and feel exhilarated that I’m all safe. I feel wiped out and scared for the next time I feel worries like this. This can make you feel like there’s no point in feeling hopeful about the future or lead to you skipping situations that produce catastrophic thoughts – thereby feeding the loop and reinforcing this thought pattern.
An inability to self-soothe. No, I’m not a baby and yes, this description is slightly grim, but it’s also kind of spot on. In both these cases, I couldn’t pull myself back from panic. I didn’t push back against the thoughts or calm my body down. I was washed away with the fear, and let it take over. That’s natural, your mind tells you there’s something to worry about and so you listen. It’s a primal thing – this fight-or-flight instinct – but with anxiety, you have to learn that your instincts are often wrong. And that’s a hard one to realise – that sometimes your brain and body are working against your best interests. But it’s a vital thing to learn – because understanding the difference between real dangers and imagined ones will eventually help stop your mind seeing dangers everywhere and help you decide whether a worry is worth engaging with or not.
Can you write down examples of your anxiety and see what the similarities are? It’s good to spot the patterns your worries take, even if they seem completely different initially.
What can you take away from the comparison? Do both scenarios involve a specific place? Or a time when you’re tired? Begin to notice what common threads link your worries and remind yourself of them when you next feel anxious.
How can you stop catastrophising? We’ll talk about this a lot more as we go on, but here are a few tips:
• Notice what your brain is doing – it’s a lot easier to calm yourself down if you catch the pattern early.
• View the thoughts from a distance. It helps me to internally say: ‘Ah, I see I am spiralling into doom-laden thoughts. I wonder why I’m going there.’
• Evaluate why you’re going there – are you tired? Are you hungry? Do you have a presentation to give tomorrow? Are you pre-menstrual? Sometimes it helps to figure out a real-life fire-lighter that might be stoking the worry.
• Don’t berate yourself too much – it never helps to call yourself a dick. Instead, go easy – a sort of ‘Thanks for trying, but not today’ reply to your mind.
• That said, dispute the worry – don’t discount it completely, but question it. I use this with flying: ‘But planes are the safest way to travel, Bella.’ Might sound small, but it has an impact.
• Figure out what you CAN do to help ease the worry – practical things, like paying a bill or setting aside time to write that presentation. Start somewhere, even if it’s small.
• If all else fails, distract yourself with something comforting – I bake or listen to old Agatha Christie audiobooks when my mind is spiralling. Often doing something with your hands can help quieten your mind.
The term ‘fight-or-flight’ sounds really dramatic – as though you’re about to go to rumble à la West Side Story. If you’ve not seen the film, go and watch it. Tony. That’s all I’ll say about that.
It’s important for people with anxiety (and those with many other mental-health disorders, from PTSD to bipolar) to familiarise themselves with this very normal human reaction, because it comes from fear – and fear is the sensible and reasonable cousin of anxiety. The cousin who calls your grandma on her birthday. The cousin who trained for years and makes your mum wonder why you never became a doctor. And yes, I am stretching this metaphor, thank you for noticing.
Anyway. Fear is healthy – we need it. It’s how we know to get out of a burning building. And it does this with the fight-or-flight response. This physical reaction – when the human body produces a bunch of hormones to make you faster and stronger in the event of … oh, let’s say a lion attack – is a wonderful thing, but our brains respond identically to both real and unreal danger. So the fight-and-flight mode that equips us to fight terrifying animals can also kick in on a Monday morning rush-hour commute when there is no obvious threat. And for people prone to anxiety … well, this response can start working against us.