Panic Attacks & Anxiety

I have suffered from quite bad anxiety since I was 16, I always get nervous and weary in new situations and new surroundings. I do adapt quite quickly but the initial stage is very difficult for me. I love to travel and explore new places but for the first while I am totally petrified. I am quite independent and I like to travel on my own because I think it makes me a little bit more self-assured each time I do it. 


I am quite a confident person and I really love meeting new people, I am not really shy but I can be quite defensive and have my guard up around people I don't know. This usually gives the wrong impression of me but I have had quite a bit of trouble in regards to trust in friendships before. People who I have really trusted and confided in have let me down in the past so I can be quite guarded. I guess this gives off the idea that I am quite unfriendly and a bit dismissive but it's just my defences. I am really lovely I swear :) you just have to get to know me.

I first had a panic attack while I was at university. I took a gap year after school so I was 19 when I attended. My parents had decided to tell me they were splitting up 4 days before I moved away (great timing guys). I was only moving to a different city in my country, it is roughly only about an hour and 40 minute drive away. But it was the first time I had ever moved away from home so it was a pretty big deal for me.

So with the pressure of moving away from my friends and family (people that I was comfortable with) and also the devastating news about my parents, I didn't cope too well. Luckily I met the most amazing friend I could have asked for, Sharl. We were put into the same flat in student housing and became best friends within hours of our first meeting. I made some awesome friends at university and I am still friends with most of them now. But the new environment and stress of my home life, really took a toll on my studies. I just was not interested in going to class or doing assignments, I had too much on my mind. (DO NOT SKIP CLASS AND SERIOUSLY DO ALL OF YOUR WORK. Trust me guys I really regret it, fair enough the degree I was studying wasn't for me in the end anyway but I should have at least tried and made the effort.)

This resulted in me just sitting in my room watching the Ellen DeGeneres show all day for the majority of the week. I was still going out and enjoying time with my news friends but all I wanted to do was stay in. If it hadn't been for Sharl I reckon I would have just been miserable. She made me get up and even just go into town for lunch, she always made sure I got out of the flat into the daylight with fresh air. If it hadn't been for her I think I literally would have become a hermit who only came out of my room to feed lol.

The majority of my panic attacks occurred when I was alone in my room, mine usually happen when I am just by myself and thinking about things too much. I would start to get a really nervous feeling in my tummy, similar to the butterfly feeling but this was more like creepy crawly insects. I wouldn't eat because I would just like sick and I would just be overwhelmed by this feeling of helplessness. I would feel the stress and worry of all my problems in that one instance. 
I would start to breathe really heavily and feel like I wasn't getting any air into my lungs. This made me panic even more and I would sometimes just burst out crying, like crazy sobbing. It is such a terrifying thing to happen when you are alone because you just feel so helpless and it is out of your control. 

The worst thing you can do is bottle everything up because that's what I used to do and of course this was just getting me nowhere. It made my attacks just ten times worse and even more scary. The more I let things build up and just try to put things to the back of my mind, the more frequently I had panic attacks. And now they were happening in public, in front of people who clearly didn't understand what was going on. It began if I was in a certain place that was crowded so for example my student's union or just in the middle of town. I am claustrophobic and agoraphobic, I have no idea how this actually happens or how it is even possible but yup, I have both. One is a fear of tight and small places & the other is a fear of large open spaces. So my dream scenario is certainly not being locked in a tiny cupboard in the middle of a desert. Ohh my goodness, I literally would just die right there lol. 

This certainly didn't help encourage me to go to class, being in a small classroom with too many students, being all stuffy and just totally overcrowded and cramped? NO THANKS!!! For some reason my anxiety made me really paranoid. I was pretty friendly with everyone in my year at school and had never really had any big fights with anyone. So I didn't even realise it was paranoia because I had never experienced it before. This made me quite a nervous person and I mean, I studied theatre studies & drama at school, I never got nervous. 

I slowly started to notice that the bubbly, confident and courageous girl I used to be, just wasn't who I was anymore. It was quite sad actually because I was the type of girl who would be up for anything, I loved being silly and having fun, doing new and exciting things. But now I was becoming too scared to even be around my friends, the most I could handle was maybe a meet up in the kitchen but even then I would just leave and go sit in my room. 

The best advise I can give on this matter, is the same advise I used on myself. If I felt I was becoming nervous and anxious, I would literally sit myself down and have a wee chat. I would tell myself that I am fine, I am not anxious at all, I am strong, I am bigger than this panic attack, I will NOT let it hold me down or back from doing things that I want to do. I would say; "What are you getting so overwhelmed about? It's just lunch with the girls (or whatever the situation was). Don't be letting everyone down now, come on they are all waiting on you." And honestly this really really helped. Just being able to tell myself that I am panicking over nothing and that I am actually ok, honestly really worked for me. 
I know that everyone overcomes anxiety and panic attacks differently but this seemed to work for me. I just gave myself 5 minutes, got a glass of water or cup of green tea and just sat on my own. Talking to yourself might be a sign of madness, but it sometimes does you the world of good. We become so concerned with other people sometimes that we totally forget about number 1, ourselves. It is a bit strange talking to yourself, you feel like a drunk girl at a club in the toilets looking into the mirror (I know I have been guilty of this many times before lol usually when I get home and i'm like OMG did my hair really look like that all night?). 

Zoe Sugg (if you don't know who she is then where have you actually been living, under a rock or in a cave?) has gone into a lot more detail about anxiety and panic attacks in this post on her blog and this video on her Youtube channel. She gives some brilliant advise and goes into a bit more detail of what anxiety actually is and how to overcome it.

I really hope this gave you guys some help if you suffer from panic attacks or if you know someone who does, just remember that it is something they have to do themselves, ask them do they need anything but just let them work it out on their own. Being smothered by people and questions just does not help at all. Be patient with someone and try to understand what they are going through, it is honestly the worst feeling in the world. Plus if you feel like you are disappointing someone or that they are annoyed at you then this just makes the anxiety a million times worse. 

Share any stories you guys might have or any tips & tricks that you use that help you get over your anxiety, would love to hear them all.

Love S xoxo