Nadiya: Anxiety and Me - 19/02/20

It is Half Term week and E is attending a Theatre Train workshop for 3 days. F is at my Mum's for a few days and R is at work. I am at the house in order to be able to do picking up and dropping off at T.T and the ferry. This afternoon I finally got around to watching the BBC programme about Anxiety that we recorded last year during Mental Health Awareness week.

In the show's description it states that Nadiya's anxiety had been kept secret for many years but that now she is ready to learn about where the anxiety has come from and explores options for treating it.

I think she was incredibly brave to be filmed doing these things; facing her anxiety and seeking to find the root cause of her panic attacks. Many people believe that doing this would be so hard that they never feel 'ready' to face it in private, let alone publicly. As it explains on the BBC web pages, Nadiya hopes that by sharing her own journey through therapy she may inspire others to seek help and fight the stigma attached to mental health problems. I hope I'm not wrong in saying that she appears to want to find a cure for her anxiety but instead discovered that the panic disorder she has is something for which there is no cure, only treatment. I'm sure that she hoped to be given a tablet and that it would all go away. Like me with my BPD diagnosis, I believe Nadiya realised that her panic disorder is something she has to learn to live with and manage. I feel she hoped, as did I, that medication was the answer, as for many MH conditions this does work. It was a rather poignant moment when Nadiya realised that no matter how hard you work in therapy to try to 'get better' or 'overcome' the anxiety, it is not possible to 'get rid of' it or be cured of it; it just has to be managed, which by the way, is incredibly hard and almost always a daily task!

For me personally, the thing that struck me most was when Nadiya admitted or realised that for people with anxiety, they never relax...never feel able to look forward to anything...just feel dread, and never relaxed. This is something that myself and R tried to explain to his family several years ago when I was extremely ill, shortly before I started getting real help from the NHS. Somehow we managed to get to a point where my Mother-in-law realised that I was unable to look forward to anything and that actually the things that 'normal' people would look forward to were the very things that filled me with dread. At that point my whole life was a case of existing from one dreaded event to the next. I was never relaxed and certainly never excited about anything up and coming, even social things that 'should' be viewed as a positive such as family holidays, parties or occasions. She found it a very difficult idea to grasp, because it is so alien to most people I guess.

It was also really interesting for me to hear Nadiya confess that she has no friends. The therapist queried this, suggesting that perhaps she doesn't see her friends but she reaffirmed, "No, I have no friends!" This is certainly how I felt for many years. I have one close friend (T) here on the Island now but for many years I had a couple of 'old' friends who I avoided and never really saw. And on moving over here to the Island, I literally had no friends at all and only very few acquaintances. It was lonely. But it makes living with anxiety so much easier; no expectations to go anywhere or do anything!! Although this could be viewed as an embarrassing flaw in character, it is in fact just a sad reality that comes from living with mental ill-health.

It was bittersweet to hear in the show that others suffer in similar ways to me and that, despite having everything thrown at this for the sake of a TV show, still Nadiya cannot be cured! There is no pill to make it go away. I'm glad I'm not alone in this and I think it is amazing that Nadiya has been so honest in opening up and attempting to reduce the stigma. I just wonder how many people this programme actually helped and how many more people may have been helped if only they weren't too afraid to even watch it! In my opinion facing up to mental health challenges takes a lot of courage and many people aren't brave enough to expose themselves to anything which may mean they have to take a hard, honest look at themselves. Change must come from within and sadly not everyone is prepared to look inside themselves or to make the changes, regardless of how unhappy they are or how small their world has become due to crippling anxiety. Let's hope the stigma continues to reduce and more people move forward more positively with their mental health in the coming years. Nadiya concluded that the next generation will be better equipped to cope and I think that's really all we can hope for.

I think Nadiya is truly amazing and I also really felt for her husband at the start of the programme. He likely represents many partners around the country who are desperate to help loved ones but not knowing how. He seemed so loving and supportive and I'm sure I read before that Nadiya would never have entered the Bake Off if it hadn't been for him. I was and still am astonished that Nadiya was able to do that despite her anxiety and in this more recent footage we see her baking in front of huge audiences at Food Shows. Just so impressive. Absolutely not something I could ever imagine doing with my condition ( facing the audience, let alone the baking!) I guess the thing I have to work towards is my Art Exhibition because, for that, the focus will very much be on me. Maybe I will make my excuses and avoid the Big Opening! We shall see...