In The Grip of the Storm
written by: C H Elton
I don’t think my wife really believes me, but that is probably my fault, as I hide it well, I think. I’ve always suffered with anxiety, not so much with stress per se, as far as I understand it anyway, but anxiety has been a constant over my lifetime. I can sometimes brush it off, when I’m thinking straight, clearly, and can see through the illogical nature of my thoughts and fears. At those times, I can laugh off the voices, I can argue back and put them away, back in their box, so to speak. And, at those times, I can laugh, smile. I can listen to other people, actually hear and make sense of the words that are coming at me, and I can think of instant replies, sometimes with humour that has people chuckling and that makes me feel good. Some say I am clever and quick witted, I don’t think I am necessarily but it’s nice to be told from time to time, and that too, makes me feel good, and well in fact, yes when I am in that state, I feel fresh and alive, whether I am well or not doesn’t even register as a thought, it doesn’t need to. The opposite end of my wellness scale, however, creeps up on me like a ghost in the shadows, quiet, unseen, cold. It’s destructive, sinister, cruel, and once it arrives and takes hold, I can’t see a way forward. I feel trapped in a cage that is filled with a white noise, hissing, hollow, and causing a tense, uncontrollable confusion that leads to a downward spiral of despair.
I’m there now. In that latter stage.
I sort of knew it was watching me, from afar, and planning its approach as I kept catching a glimpse of the shadow out of the corner of my eye throughout the day as I was going about my day-to-day routines. Making breakfast, I’d turn to the fridge and see the shadow jump out of the way. I could feel it in the mildly oppressive atmosphere that I walked through. Or at my work desk, I could feel my skin tingle as it brushed past me behind my chair. Walking through the woods, I saw the wisps of cloud like shadowy beings whipping amongst the shrubs and trees. I tried my best to dismiss them all, of course, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before I was visited again. It’s been a long while since I was caught up in their dark nets, so in some respects I must be overdue for a fresh encounter with my mind demons. Over the past few years, in its absence, I haven’t given it a second thought, my conscious hours have got on with life and living, I’ve enjoyed my time putting plans into action and reaping the rewards of a good family circle and strong work environment. My sub-conscious has allowed me to dream and be free and look ahead to a future of hope, calm, and fulfilment.
It started to interfere more directly during my work periods at first. Looking back, I didn’t recognise it initially, but I was finding it hard to concentrate because of pervading doubts creeping into my thoughts, questioning what I was doing, why I was doing what I was doing, laughing at my speech in meetings, making me think deeply about the logic around my words, as in, did that make sense? Will people understand what I am saying and why? Do I sound foolish? And what that does is slow me down. I started to hesitate in making my point, uttering an opinion, asking for clarity. And then it started to escalate, quite quickly, too. The voices become more lucid and more challenging, sarcastic even, making fun of me, and so I start to question myself around everything I am doing, but not in a way that explores any answers or alternatives. I start to withdraw into myself and try to hide away from any questioning. The thought of being interrogated about an idea stopped me thinking, and I stopped understanding the direction of work plans to the extent that I just don’t know what is going on anymore. The voices are telling me that I’m no good, out of my depth, in the wrong place, and with the wrong people. They are saying that my work mates are disappointed in my outputs because they make no sense, no-one understands me, it’s as though I speak in a different language and then I start to watch the reactions of people around me and in meetings, and I witness rolling eyes and sly smirks and a general flatness in attitudes towards me, that in truth probably doesn’t exist in reality but the voices make me see it and the voices make me believe it. I hate it and myself, then the anxiety levels become such that I can’t function properly, in fact, I start to malfunction. I start to miss meetings, I start to forget actions, I miss deadlines for submissions, and because I miss those things, I start to consciously stop attending meetings, and the whole thing spirals out of control. I experience alarming memory loss to the extent that I can’t recall conversations from ten minutes ago, or even worse, in the moment, during conversations and meetings, I can’t recall the names of people I am working with. People I’ve spent the last six months with, enjoying their company, having a laugh, making plans, generally getting to know the team, and helping explore and overcome the challenges that exist in our business.
I switch off from the outside world and try to battle with the demons that have taken control of my thinking patterns. It’s no good though, they’re much too strong and for every positive thought I try and force, they, the voices, counter it with a flood of negativity and I end up feeling beaten, battered, excessively tired and illogically emotional and sensitive.
So, I said at the start that I don’t think my wife believes me. That probably isn’t a fair statement, as she is always massively supportive of everything I do, and to be frank, is the main reason I am here today. Away from work, I have tried really hard to carry on with some sort of normality and keep her, and the rest of the family, away from the destruction that is going on in my head. I’m desperate not to let this darkness encroach on what we have, but the truth is, it does. It must do, even if at the time I can’t see it, I must look different, as I can’t always conceal the painful stabs and jabs that I’m taking. My language must change, I know I’m not as attentive as I need to be, and physically, I’m worn out, so trying very hard not to get involved in things must come across as ignorance at best, rudely dismissive at its worst. I don’t want to interact and don’t want any attention, I just want to lock myself away and ride this out as best as I can, without hurting anyone else. And do you know what, knowing all of that, doesn’t make my situation any better. It just adds to the tension I feel deep inside my stomach and when I think about something I just said, or something I failed to do, or the way I dismissed someone or ignored them, or just didn’t hear them because the voices are creating noise, I just hate myself and the demons laugh and cheer as though they’ve scored another goal against my lack-lustre defence. Oh, and the headaches, wow, stabbing at my temples, scratching behind my eyes, thundering in my brain, sometimes becoming unbearable, so I just have to switch everything off. My whole being just comes to a stop, and I can hear myself deep breathing and feel myself sweating. I remember on one occasion entering a sensation of spinning in a long, dark, twisting tunnel, like something I imagine at a theme park, but it’s hot, damp, dark. I feel sick, and my eyes don’t work properly, and all I can hear is a swooshing noise as I twist along this dark hole at speed. I wonder if this is death approaching. I’m waiting to see family who have passed, holding out their arms in a warm welcome. I want to feel that warmth and the light that I imagine comes with it, but it doesn’t happen, of course, it doesn’t. But it does finally come to an end, and my shallow breaths come into my consciousness as I start to realise my surroundings and begin to feel vaguely alive again.
Finishing work on a Friday afternoon brings a release and a relief for a few hours, but the sense of dread doesn’t disappear altogether, and that knot eases slightly but not completely. The result of that is that I don’t want to talk to people, and being on my own is a craving that I chase like a drug. I still have the jeering going on and still sense the darkness controlling me, so when the family calls round, especially the younger ones, and I go through the motions of appearing to be in the moment and pretending to be involved, but knowing that my conversation is deadly banal and uninteresting. I end up afterwards with a really deep sense of regret and loathing, and wished I were somewhere else and away from it all.
I have a middle-of-the-night realisation that this time it is bad. I don’t really remember the last time I had an episode, as it was three or four years ago, and once it’s over with, I do my best to bury it so I can get back to being me. But this time, I’m struggling and in the darkness of a 2am waking, I have the overwhelming feeling that this time, the smog is not for dissipating, and this is how my life, my world, is going to be for the foreseeable future, at least, and I desperately don’t like it. I lay in my bed, watching the demonic swirls drifting above me, taunting me like the bullies in a school yard from my childhood years, and I know that something has to change, or I’m going to get engulfed in this dreadful despair and dragged deeply into an abyss of self-hate and desperation. I must have got back to sleep as the alarm went off as normal, but not as normal. I felt heavy and incredibly tired, and my whole body ached. My head was a cacophony of hissing and banging and screeching, but I dragged myself out and into the bathroom. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I looked grey, old, defeated, and as I caught my breath, my chest ached, and my stomach turned and tensed. I’m in no fit state to work, but I’ve never had time off work due to being sick, yet the voices have started to taunt me, and I’m feeling useless already. But, I will go to my work station and switch on to see what horrors await me after the weekend, who has been working late and over Saturday and some over Sunday, sending emails during non-work hours, not expecting immediate replies but they are there, making statements about commitment and creating stress and do you know what, I’m not up for this, I’m really not in a fit state for work. So, I decide not to, and the voices explode telling me that everything they say is being proven right, I’m useless, worthless even, and I’ve added nothing, delivered less, so won’t be missed, and the reality is that the business will be better off without me. In spite of all that, or maybe even because of it, I make the call to say I won’t be working today, and I go and hide myself away from the world and continue to listen to this ongoing madness that has taken root deep inside my brain. As it happens, that decision becomes a turning point in my battle, although I didn’t realise it at the time. I just felt like a failure, like I’d let everyone down, at work and at home, around the wider family, and at that moment in time, I really questioned what the point of my existence was, what had I ever achieved, and was it all worth it.
Three days later, having been nowhere near my laptop and having been cut off from the outside world, I realise that I’m mentally exhausted, yet I have done the sum total of nothing. I continue to feel the darkness wrapped around me like a constricting cloak, and the voices, whilst not as loud or prominent, are still having their say about my worth. My wife suggested that I might want to get some advice and, at the very least, a sick note (they’re called FIT notes these days) if I felt unable to go back to work by the following week. That is when the tension rose again, and the anxiety tightened. I knew I had to confront this thing head-on, but I had no idea how. I certainly can’t talk about it to anyone, not even my wife, as when I start to try and rationalise this state to myself, it all starts to sound so ridiculous, so hopeless, I sound weak and pathetic, and that’s to myself, so what will anyone else think. Voices in my head that I have no control over are just a crazy neurotic notion that you read about or hear about on the news, but they obviously recognise that I’m starting to think differently, and ramp up the persecution and the taunting starts again. It’s been relatively quiet since I decided not to go back to work, apart from that initial reaction, and this is now really intense. Rather than backing down, I find a strength from somewhere that drives me towards contacting the doctor’s surgery, initially for a sick note, but on hearing a small bit of my story, they got me an immediate appointment with a specialist, whom I see the day after. My only aim for that visit was to get more time off work, I couldn’t face going anywhere near my workstation, never mind interact with anyone. I had, after all, let them all down, and I had no idea how I was going to ultimately deal with that. So, I went and spoke with a mental health specialist who listened to my request for time off work, asked a few simple questions, listened to me talking about my anxiousness, and smiled gently and responded in a way that gave me a warm sense of belonging and normality. It was difficult to talk about work and how I felt about the simple task of just logging onto my system, it was emotional, irrationally so, as I look back, but it was another step in my getting on top of the darkness.
I drove home feeling lighter and with a conscious sense of hope and whilst the voices were still there, on my way home, I found that for the first time in almost a month, I was able to control the physical volume of their noises, and when I realised that I felt that I might be able to exert some influence on the content of what they were saying, perhaps. It took over a week for me to take what I consider to be full control again, but that was still a struggle. I had to endure waves of attack, but I could see that the tide was turning and that I had sufficient energy and conscious thought to rebuff the onslaught and mentally deal with the challenges, the derogatory words, and taunting. That was like a window opening in a darkened room and letting some sunlight in for the first time in weeks, and that realisation, that I was in control of my own mind, started the withdrawal of the cloak. I’m still apprehensive about a return to work, but I feel I have turned a corner but I’m not altogether sure if the business is the one I want to stay with. I’ll decide with an open and lucid mind in a few weeks’ time. I am feeling more warmth towards other people, though, and have a desire to interact and explore adventures, so that is a good sign!
I can now see that my battle has been with anxiety and depression, and it is debilitating. I find it so hard to talk about because in my world, growing up as I did, feelings were things you just got on with and managed. Mental health was never talked about, in fact, it was often sneered at and seen as a weakness. My struggle with the voices and seeing the demons has been very real, and it’s hurt me mentally and physically to such an extent that I did consider my worth and whether I add any value to those around me. Today, I can clearly see that I do have a place at the table and have positive things to offer, especially in relation to our children and grandchildren, and above all else, my beautiful, adorable wife, who is just simply, wonderful. I’m lucky to be here.
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