Mel’s Story
64 • happiful • May 2019The symptoms got worse,
and I started to display
some odd behaviour, feeling
emotions I’d never felt before.
It was too much for me to
handle, and by that stage, my
mom and dad found out. They
tried to ease my worry, and we
just boiled it down to being
scared of the ‘unknown’ in my
final year of high school.But it didn’t get better.
It got worse. It got ugly,
and it got absolutely
heart-wrenching.
By this stage, depression
had also taken hold of
me, making daily life so
unbearable that I refused to
get out of bed.
I ended up in hospital, was
put on antipsychotics, and
saw three different therapists.
However, as soon as I was
starting to feel better and
trying to get on with life, the
anxiety would hit again. Only
now it was 10 times worse
than before.
Not only did I have
numerous raging anxiety
symptoms, from palpitations,
to sweating, tinnitus,
dizziness and shaking – you
name it, I had it – I also
experienced dissociation,
strange behavioural changes,
and suicidal thoughts, even
begging my mom, who’s a
nurse, to assist me in killing
myself.In July 2008, I married an
amazing guy, but the first year
of marriage was hell. My new
husband was more of a carer
than a spouse, and by 2009
it got to a point where my
symptoms prevented me from
being able to do basic things
like drive, cook and bathe.
Nights were the worst, and I
would often wake up panic
stricken and try to hit my
husband from pure fear.
It was a struggle just to live,
and all I wanted was to die.
My family frantically tried
to find help for me, and
eventually I did get it. My first
point of contact was a highly
recommended psychiatrist. I
was feeling so utterly hopeless
at this point in time, but I
will always be grateful to this
psychiatrist as the medication
she prescribed really was the
turning point for me. I’ve
always been a ‘natural way’
sort of person, but I now do
believe that conventional
medication does have its placein this world, and in mental
health it can be a life-saver.
As much as the medication
helped, I was on some pretty
harsh stuff and in high dosages,
including an antipsychotic, and
I wanted to try to get down to as
minimum a dosage as I could.
I realised how much
medication can help you, and
it’s something I want to point
out to other anxiety sufferers.
It’s like a hoist that lifts you up
off a crumbling cliff, but it’s
only that – a stepping stone.
Anxiety disorder recovery is so
much more than just taking a
pill every day.
I began to do some
investigation in actually
retraining an anxious mind. In
the end, my help came from
an assortment of medications,
natural remedies, therapy, and
courses. But what helped the
most was realising that my own
thought patterns were to blame,
and it was how I was reacting
to those thought patterns that
made all the difference.I was
dissociated
from the
world around
me, and felt
so utterly
hopeless
and anxiety
stricken
“As soon as I was starting to feel
better and trying to get on with
life, the anxiety would hit again”Mel with her best friend in 2001,
just before she experienced her
first anxiety attack