Hello from Someone with High Functioning Anxiety

Let me begin my story about walking you through the anxiety symptoms I experienced.

I got up from the bed and I felt a sudden, and quite distinct kind of pain on my chest, as if it was caving in. I felt sheer and utter panic in my nerves.

Is this a heart attack?

No, it can’t be a heart attack. Quick, brain, think! What are heart attack symptoms? My left arm isn’t tingling. It must be some sort of fluke.

Come on, body, you can’t give up on me just yet.

Approximately 40 seconds in, the pain went away. That was in February of 2018.

Over a year later, I had spent more than 40 hours in the hospital and that’s including one night of being kept in, an ECG, a stress test, a holster monitor, a CT scan and an echocardiogram yet the consultants haven’t formally confirmed if my heart is or isn’t need of fixing. They did say no news is good news…so I suppose if I don’t hear from them after 6 months, it would be safe to assume that I’ve got a healthy heart.

A heavy smoker for 16 years, it’s only been 4 years since I quit so that must have done some damage! Although, I’m sure they would have seen something on my chest X-ray results. I was slightly suspicious that it could be my lungs until one of the consultants said it might be anxiety. Apparently, chest pains combined with breathing difficulty are also symptoms of anxiety.

Huh. I didn’t even think of that. I wasn’t aware that anxiety could manifest itself physically.

It all started to make sense months later when I started showing signs of anxiety.

The chest pain came with a shortness of breath; it was difficult to breathe. Then, the abdominal pain started, a sharp pang on the left side of my stomach every single day and I found myself fragile. I cried while driving on the way home. I cried when I got home. I cried like there was no tomorrow. It was ugly. It was messy. I was ugly. There was something wrong with me. I wanted it to stop.

Sometime in March of 2019, I was diagnosed with severe anxiety disorder. Those run-of-the-mill butterflies that I had grown desensitised to weren’t as harmless as I first believed. The good thing about it was the fact that I was fully functional and on the outside, I looked like I had it all together. ‘Fake it till you make it’ is what they say and that was how I pretty much coped with anxiety all this time. How could I have anxiety when I go to work 5 days a week and have side projects and extra curricular activities?

Have you heard of high functioning anxiety?

High functioning anxiety is described in detail in this article written by Arlin Cuncic, “The typical high functioning person with anxiety appears to be an overachiever. This perception is short-sighted though, because it fails to take into account the struggle involved in getting there.

If you’ve been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), or you tend to worry about a lot of different things, you may be more prone to high functioning anxiety. The thought of a messy house or a missed deadline might send your anxiety soaring—so this is what keeps you cleaning or working hard.

If you asked most people, they would probably not have a clue that you struggle daily with anxiety. However, you know that your life is limited by your anxiety in some important ways. Perhaps you achieve essential tasks but limit your life in other ways, such as not deviating outside your comfort zone. Your actions are probably dictated by your anxiety, such that you choose to fill your life with activities as a way to calm your racing thoughts, rather than based on what you might enjoy or what could help you expand your horizons.

You’ve also become adept at presenting a false persona to the world because you never show your true feelings to anyone. Instead, you keep it all bottled up inside, and compartmentalize your feelings with a plan to deal with them later, but of course later never comes.”

And she was right! I was so close to having a mental breakdown and I could feel it so I decided to try something new. I went to my GP and asked for help. I simply couldn’t manage it on my own, I felt like I was running out of fuel.

A combination of anti-anxiety pills to help me sleep (the lowest dosage and only for 3 months) in conjunction with CBT therapy was my treatment recommendation.

It took me 3 days to start my anti-anxiety medication after I got the prescription because, wait for it… I was anxious about taking anti anxiety pills. Ha! Yep, I was mulling over whether I should take them or not even though it was clearly prescribed by a medical professional to help me. I rummaged through Reddit and articles on the World Wide Web looking for answers that would help me feel better. What are the side effects of Mirtazapine? Will anti anxiety pills change my personality? What if it makes me worse? What if I become suicidal? Does taking anti anxiety pills make you suicidal? Is it addictive?

While my concerns were valid, I eventually started mine after texting a really good friend of mine who I knew earlier last year started taking medication for her anxiety. She said,

“It’s like taking an antibiotic for a cold, except it’s for your mental health—it’s not easy and it’s okay to have good, bad and okay days.”

Am I cured? Nope, not yet… Am I better since March? Yes, definitely! I’ve got my anxiety under control. Will I ever be cured? I’m not entirely sure how to answer this. I mean…my therapist did just dump me 4 weeks ago. So, probably not! Haha.

In a span of 5 months:

• I was diagnosed with anxiety
• I started seeing a therapist
• My therapist dumped me

If you ever need advice on how to fail at life, hit me up!!!

It’s fine, though—it was my fault. I could write a post about “How to get dumped by your therapist” – funny title, but I’m afraid the content would be too boring. I quite literally just had way too many things going on and she felt I wasn’t 100% committed to my CBT therapy sessions hence I got ‘dumped’ so all I can do now is try my best at taking ownership of my feelings, managing my triggers and disciplining myself to be better at the CBT exercises that I have to do daily.

This is partly the reason why I started this despite all reservations about privacy and vulnerability.

As I am in the process of sorting my life out, I want to document my journey to learning to live with my demons while attempting to discover my passion or figure out what I want to do with my life. Because the blog will be available for anyone on the Internet to read, I will be more inclined to treat it like homework, a task I need to tick off my to-do list every week. Plus I want to be part of the conversation starters about anxiety – to help reduce the stigma so more people seek help. There is no shame in seeking help.

Do you have anxiety? Feel free to share your story on how you first found out you had anxiety or depression in the comments below or you can leave me a private message here.

And thanks for reading ☺