WARNING!! This post may be explicit to some.
Hello All!! I hope winter isn’t treating you too badly. With most of the days being grey I understand anxiety can be higher and some, like myself, can suffer also from seasonal mood fluctuations. What I bought, which I highly recommend, is the “Lux Happy Lamp” a light therapy lamp which provides 3 different settings of light to help with the lack of sun. I got mine on amazon.ca and it’s well worth it 😊 just a little tidbit I thought I’d throw out there. Today we will continue where we left off in the UK, about a few months after I began my new job at the pub! With that, let’s go.
Summer was coming to an end and my 1 year in England was coming up. During the summer some friends from my new pub job along with Grant and Justin and myself, ventured into downtown London as there was an area that had full-on Canada Day celebrations! On top of that, down the street from the festivities, was a pub called “The Maple Leaf” that was Canadian-owned and operated, and it was packed to the brim. It was a great way to celebrate our Canadian Heritage and of course party. Apart from that celebration, the summer didn’t always boast the sunshine rather it was rain and grey skies but I kept busy as work went well into the night with a constant stream of customers. Once the pub closed up for the evening, much alcohol was consumed by myself and my new work friends and flatmates, and our flat above the pub’s fire alarm went off nightly due to us burning pizzas in the oven. That folks, was pretty well our summer as work took up most of our time. As Fall crept in work began to wind down and we were all looking forward to a more relaxed time. Ashton and I were still together, however, times were getting tough. He too had secured a new job, which took up much of his time and when he was off, he didn’t keep too much time for me. We began to fizzle out, well everything but the sex, our sexual chemistry was still very much there. We kept that part of our relationship going but that also meant we could not date/meet other people and at the time, we were both okay with that. You could say we were satisfied 😉. As time went on, that ended up not being enough for us and it had to end. In the beginning, it was difficult, he was not only my boyfriend for the last year but also a comfort I developed since I pretty well arrived in England. On a happier note, I did get to know the village locals who frequented the pub and they started to feel like friends. Some had even invited me over to their place for dinners. At one particular dinner, one woman, whom we’ll call Iris, was a teacher, and into our conversation, she realized that was also my profession back in Canada. That made her very excited and she offered to help me look for a job at a school or a nursery. I was overwhelmed with gratitude for her generosity and graciously accepted her help. After that dinner, weeks of planning and searching began.
Halloween came in full force and my friend, who we’ll call Caleb, came with me to get a costume for a party we were attending. I had secured a job teaching in a preschool and was moving into a flat with the cook from the pub, things were changing, yet again and I was happy that I hadn’t felt my anxiety in a little while. At this point, no one in England knew about my anxiety, and for some reason, I wasn’t ready to share it with anyone. Luckily, the town of Dorking, where I now lived in had lovely walking trails, and having been getting used to the rainy weather, I bought a pair of wellies and walked often which helped keep my anxiety at bay. My schedule was to be more regular now so I would only “party” on the weekend. The Halloween party was fun and also marked the weekend before I was to begin at the nursery. This also marked the weekend before I would meet one of my best friends, and the person in England I was able to speak to about my anxiety, we’ll call her Kinsley.
At the preschool, we were only paid once a month and now that I was also paying rent, I needed a little something on the side. I stayed at the pub Friday and Saturday nights which were now deemed “club nights” and was able to make some extra income. One night while working the bar, a girl with blonde hair and a friendly smile came in and went straight for the bar. She ordered a Jack and Coke and before I knew it we were chatting and smoking cigarettes together on the back terrace. This being a small town or village rather, it became easier to get to know others from in or around the area. Kinsley ended up becoming more then a friend she became family and in later posts you will read more about her, how she has come to visit me in Canada multiple times and planned my bachelorette party. After having met Kinsley, we spent time together, going clubbing in Kinston upon Thames, to be precise, and enjoyed late nights dancing until the early hours of the morning. We chatted pretty well everyday and would visit one another often especially if we both had a free day from work. When Christmas was around the corner I booked a flight home for 10 days to celebrate with family this time and while in Canada, Kinsley and I still maintained regular chats via what’s app, which was a fairly new app at the time. She is one of those people who you feel like you can trust straight away and she had the personality in which I’ve always seemed to jive with, so, I opened up about my anxiety and panic disorder with her and she completely understood everything I was telling her. She offered a listening ear and a direct approach (which I aways prefer to beating around the bush) which helped me see things with a clearer view and it always offered me relief knowing I could reach out to someone in person. Our friendship blossomed quite quickly and she’s felt like my “sister from another mister” ever since.
One day, while on an hour long train ride, a panic attack hit me and at that moment I felt stuck! This was my one and only panic attack I’d had while in the UK and to be quite honest it had been a very long while since I’d had an attack. While being stuck on a train with no next stop for some time it began to feel like I just couldn’t breath. There was nowhere I could take a walk, no window to open, so instead I tried to do my deep breathing but the attack felt relentless and like I couldn’t focus on anything else. So what did I do? Well, I felt like everything I had learned went out the window and decided to do the one thing I hadn’t ever done before, I found one of the train workers and told him I thought I needed an ambulance. As soon as I said it though I felt something inside pushing me to retract what I just said, to which I did but ended up sitting with this poor guy who had no idea what was going on with me. I picked up my phone and called my dad, telling him what I was feeling and that I just scared this poor worker into thinking I needed an ambulance. My dad spoke to me and offered some perspective of how I have felt this before and though it had been a long time since my last attack, deep down I knew what to do but reacted quickly because of my “fight or flight” was in gear. My heart rate slowed and my breathing regained its normalcy and eventually I was able to go back to my seat. Sitting alone after my phone call felt strange and decided I would message Kinsley just to chit chat. Though I didn’t tell her what had just happened as I was angry with myself, not for the attack but for how I handled it after all this time, just chatting with someone helped the strangeness fade. It put me back into focus and helped me realize why I felt like I couldn’t get a grasp on anything or put into play on what I’ve been learning and reading. What I began to understand was that, as of late, when I felt anxious I immediately would get up! I would breathe in fresh air while I walked, get up and get my notebook with my research and notes or open one of my anxiety books, there always felt like some kind of warning before any scary feelings set in. Panic attacks hit anytime, anywhere with no warning and since I had not had one in a couple of years I hadn’t been practising any of my other techniques I learned. I knew what panic attacks felt like as I had had a few and I knew no warning signs were attached to them but I guess a part of me thought I didn’t need the practice of what to do when one happened. I hadn’t developed that muscle memory of the coping strategies I had strived so hard to learn. I learned from this instance and went right back to going over my notes and putting time aside every few days to practice the techniques so I could have them in place when I got another panic attack.
My time in UK was still not done yet but I will say it had been another 2 years until I had another attack and *Spoiler Alert* I was able to put into motion mechanisms I had been practicing since that day on the train. When it comes to panic attacks, its not always as easy as just getting up and taking a walk or remembering your deep breathing skills, you need to practice often so you can get used to doing them especially when you need it most. I had done the deep breathing in the years before the UK, just like my therapist had told me back then but I didn’t take the amount of time I should of to ensure that I was:
- Doing it just as I had in front of the therapist
- Developed a practice for it to click almost automatically when I needed it to
I also knew that as the attack subsided, I should have practiced what I learned about “CBT” and challenge the thoughts that were going through my mind. Granted if you’re in a situation such as, on a train, you may not have any writing tools but as soon as I was somewhere I could be writing, I should of. One thing that I have been doing that I learned shortly after that attack, which has been working for me is “Grounding Exercises” during panic attacks. The one I feel most comfortable doing is: 5 things I can see in the moment, 5 things I can smell(even if you think you can only smell one or two, let yourself become aware of your present surroundings and you’ll see more scents appear), 5 things you can hear, and 5 things you can touch(let yourself get creative with this one as well) it will bring you back to the present moment and allow you to come down quicker from the attack. There are various types of “Grounding Exercises” out there and in a future post I will detail more of them but this one is the one that works best for me and I do want to recommend you try it next time you need it.
Next time we’ll be right back into more of my UK adventures and more of what I earned along the way. I was fully adjusted to being on my own in a different country now, though I had made friends and partners along the way there are still some things that came as firsts to being on my own and really lead me down a path to growing and finding myself in various ways.
Be kind to yourself xo