When Fear and Anxiety can dampen any happy time in your life

Find something that can get you through the tough times

As part of my recovery and continuing management of my mental health issues i became very spiritual in the sense that i believe in fate and that everything happens for a reason. This way of thinking allows me to put things into perspective and accept the challenges that i am facing and also answer the old aged question “Why Me???” however it does still have its downside. When you try to look at life in the positive you also begin to accept that bad things happen in life and that is the way it is meant to be (Hence the ‘Everything happens for a reason’ tattoo i wear as a badge of honour).

Myself and my partner experienced extreme pain last year after we had a missed miscarriage of our first baby after. We attended our 12 week scan to discover that our baby had no heartbeat and it began the process of grief- denial, anger, depression and acceptance. Due to the strength in our relationship and my past experiences of mental health we were very aware that we needed to talk and allow each other to react to this devastation in our own way and not place a time frame or judgement on the other person. For myself the anger was the hardest, people around me were pregnant and having babies, they just got pregnant and didn’t understand the struggle i was going through and i became a very negative and grew a lot of hatred. Speed on a year later and we are in the mist of expecting our little boy and its all getting closer and real.

Looking at my life a year on it is very different and is all looking positive, HOWEVER my fears and anxieties can be crippling. I see family and friends having healthy babies and my heart melts as i can not wait to see my little boy, HOWEVER all that haunts me is ‘What if there are complications and we don’t get to bring him home?’ or ‘ What if we are not meant to have children and things go wrong?’. All this fear dampens the excitement of impending motherhood and unless you have been through the pain, people around you will not understand. With 4 weeks left and all i thing about as i look at my little boys nursery and Moses basket is “I hope i get to see him in here” It sounds really morbid, but fear and anxiety can take over any excitement and positive moment in your life.

My story may be extreme, but its doesn’t even have to be a life changing experience that affects how you feel about an impending event or occasion. It could be the prospect of moving into your own home and you feel scared or worried that it may not be what you are expecting or that you have guilt of leaving parents at home as you feel that you are the bond that keeps them together… Remember that you were brought into this world to live your own life and not to be the crutch of parents. Of course they will miss you but they made the commitment before you to stay together and start a family and you can not live your life putting your ‘What ifs’ first instead of living the short life that we are given (hopefully long and prosperous but you never know)

Other anxieties could be created about family gatherings, birthdays,weddings, new jobs or holidays. Our past experiences can affect how we approach different events in our lives and the people around us may not understand why we feel the way that we do and reply with “Don’t be so negative, it is meant to be a happy time” HOWEVER its not that easy when your anxieties take over you.

Final Word- try to put your doubts aside, even if they ‘seem’ rational

No matter how much you can rationalise that (as i like to call it) ‘Shit Happens’ it can destroy the happiest time of your life and i am a great believer in everything happens for a reason too but you also have to accept that life moves forward and good things happen too. Why can you not have it all too and why do you think that things will go wrong? Even thou i have created methods to support me when life goes wrong, i also need to work on my confidence that things can also go right and that is the hardest thing to accept when you have battled depression.