I am writing to you because there's some things I need you to know. Things I need you to understand about me. On Monday, after a long summer of family, friends, holidays, laughter and lounging around, lectures for my third (and hopefully final) year of studies, will begin. My reading for pleasure will drop dramatically and be replaced with nervous butterflies as I read, and re-read text book and article passages. As I try to understand what the hell is going on, doing whatever I can to feel confident going into a class or starting an assignment.
This time last year, my term had already begun. I was 2.5 weeks in and I was already miserable. I was a nervous wreck 25 hours a day, 8 days a week and crying constantly. In an introductory activity in the first few days we were asked to use a piece of paper to make something that represented us. I scrunched one up and said it was me: a ball of anxiety. I didn't even know then that as the weeks of that term progressed, it was just going to get a lot worse. No one knew what to do. No one knew how to help. People tried, of course they tried. And some did help, don't get me wrong. But, so often, things were said (or not said) that just really didn't help.
When I was talking to both my psychiatrist and, later, the lady giving me Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), both agreed that a good idea would be to communicate what I need to those around me. While I'm in a black, and seemingly bottomless, pit of anxiety and depression, I find it near impossible to do so, as if I'm shouting at the top of my lungs and no one can hear me. When I'm out of it, when I'm smiling again and only crying once a week and can sleep at last, that's when I suddenly know exactly what I wished I could have said before.
So...here I am. Writing it down in a blog. For anyone and everyone to read if they will.
- Firstly, I need you to reassure me. I need you to tell me, however repetitive and tiring it may be, that I don't need to listen to my anxiety. Last year, I would wake up between 5 and 6 am feeling instantly anxious and panicky. I felt overwhelmed at the idea of how much work there was to do and terrified it wouldn't get done. I needed to get up straight away and start the day. I needed to do some reading or even work on an assignment. Something study related. Anything. At uni, I spoke to a tutor, who praised me and expressed how lucky I was to be able to start my to-do list while the rest of the world slept. Weeks later, repeating the same words to my CBT therapist, she simply shook her head. I was poking the bear. I was listening to, and obeying, the devil on my shoulder. When that little voice in my head, at 5am, told me to get up and study, I did it. I put him, and not me, in control. What I needed to do was say 'NO!'. To accept that I may be awake but to read my book - the one I read for pleasure, in those rare moments of rest. To watch some funny videos or an episode of Graham Norton. What I should NOT do is listen to the voice in my head telling me I would fail or that I wasn't working hard enough.
- Now, also understand that just because you tell me not to worry, that that doesn't act like an off switch for my brain. Telling me to stop or that there's nothing to be anxious about will not help the situation, What I need to know, in those moments when I can't concentrate or sleep, is that the feeling will pass. That in that moment, forcing anything won't help and to, instead, remove me from whatever situation I am in. Don't get frustrated at my anxiety. My anxiety has the personality of someone who, when told not to do something, wants to do it 100 times more. Simply telling it to switch off isn't going to work. It just fights back. So tell me that the war in my head will be over soon. Distract the devil with a story, a funny video, a cup of tea.
- Understand that my tears are beyond my control. They are a symptom of my anxiety which, as emphasised above, is also not controlled by me. A lot of things that wouldn't make 'normal' Ellie cry, will make anxious Ellie break down and, as rational as you try and make me think about things, what I really need is a hug. Reassure me, again, that it'll be ok. Maybe not now...maybe not tomorrow...but at some point. Last year I cried everywhere. I cried to every tutor, even those that were not mine. I cried in every class on at least one occasion and at every tutorial. I cried on the tube. I even cried in Choir once and at GOSH on another occasion, both places I view as happy spaces in my life. Places I love with people I love. Yet I missed an entire half of a rehearsal crying in a dark rehearsal room with a friend that understood, talking and listening, and letting it out.
- Remind me that I have been through it before and come out the other side. Remind me of the happy Ellie that exists beneath the butterflies. Show me pictures and videos of times when I was care-free and I didn't feel I was being buried alive by the world. Remind me that I'm a fighter and warrior and I'll get through it again. One day, in October last year, feeling incredibly low and incredibly sad, I sat with one of my tutors again and found a picture of me at choir a month or so before. The annual 'first rehearsal back' photo and the huge smile on my face. I broke down in that moment, crying that I couldn't even recognise that girl. I didn't know who she was and I was scared I would never find her again. A term later and she was getting there. A year later and she's just started back at singing again and her heart is souring. At the time it felt never-ending, but for now, I've reached a stopping point and everything feels ok. So please, keep reminding me that it will again.
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| This bed is made for sleeping...and that's just what I'll do |
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| Smiling and laughing just weeks before not even recognising this face... THIS was a happy time. |
- Understand that one thing I really don't need to hear is that "everyone gets anxious" or "you just have to get over it". I understand that anxiety is common and that most will have it at anticipated moments, such as before a presentation, singing a solo, taking a test or faced with attackers on a dark night. I get that. I do. I also understand that some people are more like me. Terrified almost daily of things that they can't even see, of times they can't predict and an unknown future. People that feel nauseous and on the verge of tears 99.9% of the time and can empathise with my hatred of the lump constantly in the back of my throat. So when I am low, and when I'm sad and terrified of the world, and when you know that your anxiety is in the first category and not the second, please think before you speak. When your experience of anxiety involves being able to ignore it or push through it and phrases such as 'get over it' are first to pop into your head, perhaps stand back and don't use those words on me. They have a lot of power; words. They can make me go from feeling scared, sad and anxious to stupid and guilty for feeling that way. Incompetent and frustrated that I can't deal with it as well as you clearly can and angry that you have your brain and I have mine. So please. Just think and, as the saying goes "if you can't think of anything nice to say, don't say anything at all".
- Know that when I'm in an anxious state, I genuinely feel and believe that I am a failure and can't and won't achieve anything. As such, telling me "but you KNOW you'll do well" doesn't help. Confident Ellie running and jumping through life may be very aware of her achievements and proud of what she can do but the Ellie filled with butterflies and dripping water from her eyes when she's asked to buy toilet roll or can't find a tea bag...that Ellie has no clue. She doesn't even believe you. In her eyes, she is incompetent. What she needs to hear is that doing well isn't what matters. That there's a way out if I need it and that no one will be let down by me taking a break from the anxiety that consumes me. I have grown up always feeling like anything less than my best is a fail and that I need to do amazingly to make people proud. To be noticed. For my work to be worth anything. I particularly feel that way now in a world where it's 'normal' to go to university and get a degree, no matter what it's in. There's a degree for everything and for all abilities. My anxiety tells me that in such a world, doing 'ok' has no place. Anyone can do that. I need to do better than the best. Even though I don't want to
See, I even have physical proof I can do it! - So don't tell me to 'just do your best'. My brain doesn't know what that means. If it's 'best' you're seeking, that's as close to 100% as you can get. It means work as much as you can while you're awake, think about the work done and to be done when trying to sleep, and don't you dare think of taking a break. What I need you to say is 'it doesn't matter how you do. The world won't end. You won't disappoint anyone. You don't need to push yourself this hard. You can do less'. And if that doesn't work...then just tell me to stop. Put a limit on the time I spend studying and take me away from that space while telling me it's ok to step back.
This kind of break is great - Sometimes...a lot of the time...all I need is someone to sit with me while I cry and let it all out. The worst feeling is having emotions filling you up and not letting it go. When I want to cry, I don't put effort into stopping myself. No matter where I am or who I'm with, I let it all out. What I need from you is to sit with me, lie with me, put your arm around me, in a dark room or a classroom, a rehearsal room or a random office in the GOSH volunteer services office, and tell me you understand. Don't try and persuade me I don't need to feel the way I do. Trust me, an Ellie inside me knows that. In that moment, all I need to know is that someone's there.
- A key phrase: "I understand that right now things feel rubbish but I promise you they will get better". I don't have much to add to this except I can't always see that light at the end of the tunnel so please, please, just remind me it's there, even if it is around a few bends.
- Don't get frustrated by my needs for reassurance. Combining my anxiety with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) means that in those darker periods, I need a lot of physical and emotional support. I need you to reassure me that "yes you did lock the door behind you", "yes we did hug goodbye", "no, I'm not annoyed at you" and "I'll look at your essay again and then it will definitely be finished". It may take me longer to do things, as I am terrified that I've left the oven on, the flat is on fire or that, having submitted my work, I forgot to cut it down from it's 6000 words over the word limit (I didn't...It was fine)...I just need you to be ok with telling me that I am ok
Hugs are great - When it comes to social gatherings, understand that my feelings change a lot. Sometimes I'm up for it before and during, sometimes I am before and then don't feel right when there and sometimes...often...it just isn't the right thing for me that day or week. Make it clear that I'm not under pressure to go. I need to feel safe making my own judgement based on what I think is best for my mental, physical and emotional health. At one point last year, I attended a friends birthday, one for whom I didn't know anyone else there. It was at a hectic bar, an environment I'm not great in at the best of times. I tried to talk to a couple of people but felt out of my depth. Every 5 minutes I walked away and texted my friend telling her I needed to get out of this situation. After an hour of moving back and forth, and, in tears, I left the party. I just couldn't do it. I went home, put on my pyjamas and went to bed. I probably shouldn't have gone in the first place but I was worried about changing my mind. Healthy Ellie says "no more!". So please, let me say no.
Sometimes I don't feel up for it...sometimes I dress up as Poirot - Realise that when I'm ok, I know that the world isn't simple and that there's hard bits and scary bits. When I'm low, however, reminding me of that is only going to take me lower. When you listen to me crying and saying I'm scared and that I don't know why, telling me that "others have it a lot worse than you" is not a help. It's not going to make me feel better about my situation or suddenly snap out of it and cry "Oh yes! Of course! I forgot, I'm very lucky and now feel 100% fabulous". All that such phrases will do is top my anxiety with a dollop of guilt. Guilt that I feel the way I do when so many others have it worse. I get it, I do. But in that moment, in those many moments that I have had and anticipate having, I don't need that extra dollop. What I need is to see the light in the world.
I mean...look at this light I saw last week. This is the beauty I need. - Help me strike a balance. When I wake up in study mode, throughout the whole academic year - minus perhaps my birthday and Christmas day - I feel anxious from the moment my eyes are open until my to-do list is done. I need everything complete and out of my hands. What I need from you is to let me work and do what is necessary to get through each task. What I need is help me make that initial list of things to do and check I'm not going over-board. Once the list is written, it might as well be engraved in stone. In my mind, once I have planned what needs doing, the plan cannot change. So if you help me make that plan, then you can also help me to take some breathers. I know, despite the desire to work until it's done, that it's important to have breaks. My mind, and my anxiety, however, do not. So I need you to plan in those distractions. Make them part of my mandatory to-do list of stone and drag me away from the screen or the books and take me somewhere else, out of my head.
- Understand that I like to treat my study like a 9-5 job. Not literally in regards to those specific hours...but what I mean by that is that I do not fit into the stereotypical student cut-out who spends days and evenings jumping between class and sleeping and then staying up all night or panic studying just before the deadlines hit. For me, and for my anxiety, I choose to wake up as if I were going into school or work, find my space for the day, whether home, a library or a cafe, and work on my to-do list over the course of that day. I stop for lunch and have breaks to perhaps watch an entertaining video or do some colouring...then continue with my day. Then as the afternoon draws into evening and the light begins to fade, I put the books away and the evening is my own. I can fully relax in the knowledge that I've done my time for the day and no-one can say I haven't tried. I can go to bed at a sensible time and persuade my anxiety that little bit more easily that I'm done and now is time for sleep. Don't get me wrong, my head will still buzz with the "could I have done more?"'s and "I must have missed something"'s but deep down my brain also knows that now is the evening. The evening is for down time, for cooking something nice, watching something funny and taking a breath. What I ask of you, fellow student friends, is to understand that when the evening arrives, I am trying my hardest to turn off my study brain. The evening is not the time to talk to me about anything related to uni or work...all that does is wake up the flock of butterflies as they begin to drift off to sleep for the night. Talk to me, of course. Just not about that. Bed time isn't just a time for Ellie but for my anxiety too and, much like a parent with a baby, I am trying really hard to sleep-train it. So let me do me. You do you. Night night anxiety.
Erin...That's all 
Dogs...they make me smile - Forget about the future and live with me in the here and now. As someone scared of things I can't even see yet, I do not need to be presented with a banquet of potential danger when I'm still working on the appetizer. I don't need you to sit with me conjuring up all the possibilities for my future. For me, and for my anxiety, I need to live in the moment. To get through each minute and hour, day and week. Thinking too much about the future turns up the pressure on a devise in my brain already perilously tipping into the danger zone. Suddenly every little task and every little contemplation is a potential trigger that will knock the meter off balance. Even the smallest things are suddenly all-consuming and what I need is for you to help me celebrate those little victories: At the end of each assignment, or each chunk of work I do. At the end of each study day. Help me realise that each day is a step forward and that what happens tomorrow or next week...that's future Ellie's problem.
It's the simple things in life...like a heart over some Ramen
In my final 2 years at school, a teacher who really cared, told me that if she were my parent she'd take me out of school. She had watched me from the age of 13 through to 18 crying and anxting my way through education. She waved me off at the end of that road and onto the next.
4 years later and that road has been incredibly bumpy. I've changed directions multiple times, I've crashed once...literally and metaphorically...and I've ended up here. Above is my map for the next year. My list of directions for the passengers that join me on my journey to help me get to wherever it is I'm heading. I have no idea where that may be and I really don't care. All I want to do is try. The thing about roads is they have lay-by's. Even on the motorway they have hard shoulders. So, I know, if I need to, I can pull over, get out from behind the wheel and take a break.
In advance, I say Thank you,
