can you tell us a bit about your experience of anxiety i suppose my
first experience I've had anxiety since I was about 15 and it wasn't diagnosed
until maybe a year and a half ago but from around the Junior Cert time up
until now recently I've had up until now I've had anxiety mainly culminating in
exam situations where I just completely break down i overanalyze everything it's
a total mess in my head and I can't it's a real struggle for me to pull myself
together at some points
I have a generalized anxiety disorder
which means sometimes I get overwhelmed and anxieties too much
and I get panic attacks and all that I've been doing with that since I was in
sixth year of secular school and usually exam stress and all that i came upon me
and just you know I've been in love with since then looking back have always been
quite an anxious person even from when I was very small but I suppose the anxiety
proper really hit in my first year at university between waiting for bottles
and running for bosses and the whole newness of university and how different
everything was plus a relationship at the time that wasn't going well and not
making friends and basically everything that could go wrong at college going
wrong at college I started feeling basically sick all the time and anxious
all the time and I realized that this wasn't the way people should be feeling
and this wasn't just kind of getting used to college this was a different
beast entirely one of the ways that you manage your anxiety imagine my anxiety a
lot of the time it's me happy to talk to myself and being like you need to
balance things out you need to take a break so f f/a myself getting really
really stressed out what I will do is I will shut down whatever I'm doing I'll
stop but I'll take a step back I will go watch something on the computer on
netflix i will talk to my friends I will do anything to just strap me and come
back to the problem later on because I feel like if I'm talking when I'm
stressed it's not going to happen it's not gonna work for me I did a lot of
exercise I mean that's not the bell and I was very hard to do in January but
that really helped and other things I do is I keep a diary and on the days where
I'm feeling particularly anxious I make sure to write everything going and for
me that really sort of focuses the fact that I may be worrying not
worrying about nothing but that the worry I'm thinking about is maybe not
something I can control or not something that is worth worrying about if that
makes sense well what I feel like it's too much I kind of removed myself in the
situation i'm in so if i'm in accredited classroom i just you know leave the cast
for a few minutes take five minutes to breathe and just go in again or and i
talked to a friend if i'm not in class or you know i tried you when i'm anxious
i try to be around people and being around people kind of helps me a lot
what advice would you give to someone whose friend is being on very anxious
it's a tough one because if you don't know how anxiety works yourself it's
quite hard to identify with it and it is really hard I suppose not to slide into
that place of hell just don't worry about it and you know it'll be grand
it'll be ground racks my head there's nothing worse to say to someone with
anxiety and then it'll be grand because the far as they are concerned it's not
going to be grant I think one of the best things you can do with some learn
anxieties listen to them don't say oh you don't need to worry about that or
it's fine because for them it's not fine for them they're living in something
that they think is normal and it's not so I think what people what I found
those have those people SAT me down we're like let's talk about this let's
talk this through let's see what's going on your head and head as a shape up to
what's actually happening let's make the problem smaller because it's so big in
your head at the time that you need someone to let you take you out of your
own head and put the problem in front of you so I find talking to people really
helps and if they're suffering really badly point them in the direction
counseling services because cancers are the real ones who really really help how
would someone recognized that they're having an anxiety attack for me
personally it's like a whirlpool so your head kind of spins around and you've got
all these thoughts spinning around your head and they spin faster and faster and
faster until you can't concentrate on anything but the spinning in your head I
would i find that happens and i found it my head is completely gone my heart rate
is up I can't breathe property and I've got I'm sitting there on my head in my
hands going this is I don't know what I'm gonna do I'm gonna do on you're
panicking you're assuming the worst is going to happen and that's why I would
classify as my own kind of anxiety attack I think the first thing that I
kind of realize my mind starts racing so I can't really count
centuries and my chest gets really tight and it feels like there's someone
standing us sometimes and then obviously do that my breathing gets an erratic and
my palms sweat and you know I suppose there'd the physical and I start shaking
and i suppose there the physical signs of when I'm getting anxiety attack but
it's just basing my mind starts racing I can't really concentrate and that's when
I kind of realized i have to leave a situation or i have to do something to
help myself
what is some of the things that friends shouldn't do to someone
who's having an anxiety attack you shouldn't leave them in the situation
you need to take them out of the stressful situation so take them to a
quiet room take them somewhere else you got to relieve the stress on the
person who stuff in the anxiety attack don't just say you need to calm down or
control your breathing you need to just physically remove them if they can if
they're able to physically remove them and just if they don't want to don't put
your hands on the shoulders if they don't wanna be touched you'll know
generally they recoil just sound there and let them know that you're there keep
eye contact with them and keep them calm keep their breathing calm thats the main
thing I would recommend I suppose just stay with them during the panic attack
don't leave them alone and panic attacks are scary thing to have and sometimes if it's
your first panic attack you don't know what's happening at all and so that's
really scary and so I suppose just stay with them maybe put your arm around them
if they're okay make sure they're sitting up straight so their chest is
open and they can get their breathing back to normal again and just say
basically you're going to be okay not you you're okay I think that's the worst
thing you can say to them you're okay right now because in that situation
you're not okay
what one piece of advice would you give to someone who's at home
now watching this video and is the experiencing anxiety you're not on your
own because loads of people have anxiety we all experience a different level but
what I will say to them is you need to talk to somebody because you can't stop
being on your own with anxiety is a horrible lonely polarizing experience
and people are very very understanding and people are really helpful so talk to
someone about it talk to your friend talk to a doctor talk to a teacher talk to a GP
just talk to somebody just say it to some
because it'll make it half as big as it seems in your head it'll make it a lot
easier for you if you're I suppose a little bit suspicious about how you're
feeling and you're beginning to think maybe something's not right here but I'm
probably overreacting or it's just normal just I think start writing it
down and start taking note or maybe any patterns in it and I suppose if it's an
ongoing I feel like just I feel sick I feel worried I feel sad for a week or
ten days maybe start thinking about that and that's just a supposed to taken that
first step of maybe acknowledging that the way you're feeling on a long term
basis is not okay
if it's affecting your everyday life just seek your GP self and
I've seek my GP's help and it's you know changed my life kind of thing
you know there's so many resources out there that can help people and just take
advantage of them really research into that and get the help that you need