Tuesday 30 October 2018

No Advice From A .... Me

I will not give anyone advice about anxiety.

I don't mean here, although yes, not here.  I mean anywhere.  I am willing to answer questions and share what worked for me, but I will not tell anyone that X or Y or W will work for them.  Because it might not.

I received a lot of help in my early days from friends I trusted and knew had anxiety disorders in talking about certain medications and things that worked for them.  (I'm referring to non prescription medications and so will not give any advice other than work with YOUR doctors and health care providers.)  But I did not blindly follow anyone's advice... I figured things out on my own.

What worked or works for me may not work for anyone else.  If I find help in (thinks of something bizarre...) chewing on tennis balls (no idea where that came from!) I'm not going to insist that that is a cure for anxiety, I will just say that it helped me. (Note:  I haven't... so it didn't!  I can't even imagine! Ow!)

A friend of mine (who is aware of what's going on for me... kinda) called me the other day because their partner has been having panic attacks and doesn't want to go back on the medication they used to take.  My friend asked me about the things I take/use/do and I explained why and how and all that, but again, I did not say "your partner SHOULD try"... at most I said "they might want to give it a go?" because the things I find helpful are fairly benign. 

I may have spoken about this here already, but the traditional medications that are generally prescribed for anxiety disorders, and a few others that are less traditional did not work for me.  The side effects were too.... awful (sorry, being really honest... so so so awful) for me.  But I won't write them off for anyone else.  Because for others they are necessary.  And life saving.  And effective.  And for others the side effects may be minimal, or not noticeable.  They did not work for me.  And for now, we'll just leave it at that.  (Maybe more another day...)

If you, or someone you know is struggling with mental health, talk to someone.  A doctor.  A counsellor (highly highly recommended).  A health care practitioner.  Get help and support.  It doesn't have to be awful.  It's not going to be easy instantly or anything, but it can get better.  I'm just not going to give you any advice as to how.  I'm just going to talk about me and my experiences.  Your mileage will (almost certainly) vary.

2 comments:

Jason Langlois said...

When I speak to others about my anxiety, I try hard to keep it in a "this worked for me" vein, but it's such an individualized issue that really all you can do is talk about your own experience. There is value in that, I think, though - it helps when you're not alone.

Victoria said...

I'm still not really comfortable sharing much about it with most, but it's funny how when you do casually mention it how many others suddenly go OH, ME TOO! with relief.