So it's Tuesday night and I'm at uni tomorrow. I always find Tuesday nights hard, especially this week having been sick last week. So it makes tomorrow even more daunting in my head.
I've always found it hard to talk about my anxiety, I've certainly never blogged about it either. Having always thought people wouldn't understand it, mainly because for a long time I didn't understand it myself. Or want to admit I had a problem, always feeling like it was "silly" or "stupid" and that a twenty something guy should be able to handle these things. For a long time I hated myself for these reasons and for having these thoughts in my head. I pushed the problems aside for a long time and pretended to myself that I'd do it next time or today wasn't convenient for whatever excuse I could find. But that only made things worse, for a while I would find myself drinking as a way of feeling better about myself and ignoring my problems, but what I realise now is that was a pretty stupid, short term, way of feeling better. Part of the reason I'm never touching alcohol again.
After it seemed to only be getting worse I went to see a therapist out of desperation, this was a pretty low point for me.
So I attended my sessions and practiced CBT and hypnotherapy every week for just over a year and for the first time in a long time I've started consistently feeling better about myself and have learnt some methods of controlling it to a certain extent.
I would recommend trying hypnotherapy to anyone who does suffer with anxiety though, and if anyone's interested I don't mind talking more about this if your interested and want to pm me. I was a sceptic myself at first, but it's very different to what people normally imagine when they think of hypnosis and magic tricks.
I haven't been sleeping very well lately and I just need to get tomorrow out the way and remember my techniques, and my breathing and calm.
If I gave anyone a piece of advice for dealing with anxiety it would be to admit that you have a problem, and that's ok! Talk to someone, people are nicer than you think.
I've still got to got a long way to go myself, but I know I'm doing the right thing and that gives me the motivation to keep pushing myself. Having lived like this for a long time things are slowly coming around, I just need to keep building on the good things.
