Travelling with serious anxiety- an unrealistic perspective of the world.

Hi there,

After 6 whole months of 'i'm gonna's' I'm actually writing my first post! I'll introduce myself then...

I'm Sophie, I'm 29 and last year I had a mid-life crisis (apparently these now occur much younger, in your mid to late 20's) and a semi breakdown and decided to jump ship with my ever loving and supporting man Jack.

We met at work (as you do when you are more bothered about making an idiot out of yourself on nights out than the opposite sex) at an alternative education setting for young people who had various barriers to work (ie life) and who had become disengaged from education. This was, exactly as it sounds, an incredibly stressful and demanding job that wore us both out. Anyone trying to work in this kind of sector will know that government cuts are making the workload bigger and bigger for the few lucky staff that manage to avoid redundancies in the first place. ‘Congratulations your safe! Now get used to doing the jobs of the 3 other people who are not.’

So we packed up our houses, said goodbye to our nearest and dearest and set sail to India for a well-deserved break from our lives on the 16th of January and so far, haven't looked back.

We landed on the 17th in Chennai and have made our way (quickly I might add) through Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa and Karnataka. Making friends and zig zagging backwards and forwards to re-visit places and see those friendly faces again.

So why am I now writing? Well I'm currently sat in a beautiful seafront apartment in Mumbai awaiting our flight to Nepal in 2 days and finally decided on the content of what I wanted to share with the readers. I didn't want this to be just another travel blog. I wanted it to be more than that. I wanted it to share more than the sights we've seen and all the exciting ‘wish you were here’ photos. Because actually, travelling includes so much more than that. It’s not all fun, fun, fun because its real life. As Russell Brand says ‘You’re still you, just on holiday.’ So after much deliberation I have decided to share some of my artwork and my experiences of travelling with my good old pal anxiety.

Ahhhhh Anxiety. Is this word over used? I hate saying it. Anxiety sounds like what all the old ladies in my hometown used to use an excuse for not doing stuff. 'Ooh me nerves are shot to piece’s; I can’t come to work today.' 'Me anxiety's going wild I’ll can’t come to work ever.’ I used to think them over dramatic old farts that didn't know they were born. And now I say it! Makes me feel like I’m constantly trying to gain someone’s attention 'Poor old me, it’s the anxiety, I am dying inside etc etc'. But actually being open about my brain issue is actually what’s helping it to stay under control as we face the ever stress inducing experiences of travelling.

For years I was not open about my anxiety. Because for years I didn't think there was anything wrong with me. Well I tell a lie here. I knew there was definitely something wrong with me, in fact, as any anxiety sufferer knows, you think there is nothing right with you. From dying of cancer to being more evil than Hitler, I've thought it all about myself. And I honestly knew that not everybody burst into tears an average of 5 times a day BUT I was getting. shit. done. I was flying! I was managing everything. A busy, demanding job, a very VERY active social life (Don't want to say no to anyone, don't want them to think they are not worth your time, don't want to be a bad friend, don't want to stay in and think about everything you did/said wrong today or how much you haven't accomplished or how awkward you said the word 'hello' to your boss today, whilst drinking 3/4 of a bottle of wine to relax). Obviously as with anything that is jumping harder than a Duracell bunny, it had to collapse and break sometime and my time was August 2015. Shit. Went. Down.

I won't go into all the details of the ultimate pirate of a trigger that pushed me overboard of the good ship sanity into the open waters of mental breakdown because it involves a client and their situation which should remain completely confidential, but basically I just shut down.

An incident occurred that was totally out of my hands with a young man who had had the most horrific starts to life. After working with me for a year he had absolutely started to change his life around. Unfortunately, one of his past incidents had come back to haunt him and it was I who he trusted enough to speak to about it. And it was I who he felt he could confess to. And it was I who was now responsible for reporting him to the police! So after being the one to support him through his toughest transition to date, I was now to be the one to cause his downfall. Breaking his trust in the only adult he had trusted in his whole 18 years of life.

Firstly, for about 2 days, every time I tried to put food in my mouth, my mouth just contorted and rejected it. Like straight up would not take the food from my polite, offering fingers. I even went to the supermarket on my lunch break and bought my old fave choccy bar, the 'Fruit Club' and some 'Skips'. My mouth was not having it! I thought I was ill and carried on with my daily duties.

On day 3 I was being sick bile. I went into work, popped out and bought some of those quite delicious little chalky tablets believing I had heartburn or indigestion and having never suffered from either, consulted the mother of heartburn, my mother.

Obviously good old mom advised the doctors and the doctor gave me some lovely, sickly aniseed flavoured 'Gaviscon'.
But not after asking me first 'How is everything?'
'Everything's good' I replied
'How about work?' He politely asks like we're mates having a catch up coffee. 'Anything stressful happening?'
'Wow Doc!! You psychic man! Actually yes the most horrific occurrence of my whole professional career has just happened and I feel like a FUCKING FAILURE!! HOW DID YOU KNOW BRUH?!'

He sent me on my way with the number for the mental health team and advised I call them immediately. I went home got in bed and watched a fantastic TV drama about a woman whose husband was having an affair and everyone in the village knew about it and tried to convince her she was crazy. My boyfriend came home and I accused him of flirting with his ex-girlfriend and possibly seeing her behind my back. I'd gone full cray. I still didn't even know it.

I spent the next year undergoing CBT, avoiding social situations and feeling like every time I said something in a work meeting everyone hated me and thought I was being stupid and a kiss arse. I got to the point where the reflection staring back at me in the mirror was this ugly, tired, fat girl and not the normal person I’d always seen when checking my appearance. I only trusted that 2 of my very wide circle of friends actually liked me so would only hang out with them and I stopped driving for fear of crashing the car and killing innocent people. Oh and I also thought I was dying of cancer.

In time, through CBT I worked through all of these irrational thoughts but as with any mental health problem, it’s never fully gone. It pops up in stressful situations and sometimes I see it straight away and other time it takes a few days for me to see I’ve gone full cray again. So in my posts I will be detailing the periods of anxiety I have dealt with on my travels because it is a huge part of our journey and hugely effects our time in these beautiful countries. And not to mention they are actually really, really funny stories when I’ve gotten over the fact that we won’t die or overstay on our visa’s by some clerical error.
And in order to stay true to my anxiety I’ve proof read this post at least 4 times now and changed the pictures 5 times.