The first time I can remember suffering from anxiety is when I was 10 years old.
I had just been taken by DOCS and put in the care of my father and my stepmother. I was worried about how much trouble my grandfather would be in, and what my friends at school would think when I didn't return. I was overwhelmed and scared, and I just wanted the whole situation to disappear.
In an effort to make me feel more comfortable - my step mother changed the message on the answering machine to include me as a member of the household.
This is when my biological mother decided to begin her aunslaught of answering machine messages that would result in me having heart pulpatations when the phone rings - still to this day.
My biological mother was an alcoholic (amongst many other things) and when she was drunk, she would ring our house and leave messages on our machine telling me how much I had hurt her, and my grandparents. Sometimes she would be upset, other times angry - but the point she was trying to make was always the same - why and how could I do this to them?
The one message that sticks in my mind above all others is her saying (in a drunken slur) "I hope YOU and your MOTHER are HAPPY" I am not sure why these words cut me so very deep - but I still carry them with me.
My step-mother changed the message on our answering machine after that - to say that we ARE VERY HAPPY, THANK YOU. hehehehehehe
(My step-mother still has the tape recordings of these messages - I will see if I can upload them to the page)
The next time that I suffered severe anxiety, I was 14 years old - and, again - it was caused by my mother's actions and words.
When I told my mother that I was leaving to go back to my father, she began to panic and obviously didn't want me to leave (for fear that someone may find out that she had allowed her father to have a sexual relationship with her daughter for the past 3 years).
When she realised that her threats and demands would not make me stay, she moved onto a different strategy. She began using my brother and sister (my mother and my step-father's children) to convince me not to go.
She would say things like "how could you do this to THEM?" "How can you LEAVE THEM here?"
At the time I did feel so terrible about leaving them - because I had looked after them, taken my brother with me to school, fed, clothed, comforted them both for the three years that I lived there with them.
When the day came that my step-mother arrived to pick me up, my mother had gone out with her new boyfriend - and left my brother at home. (probably thinking to herself that I would not leave him there alone)
He helped me load a few of my belongings into the back of my step-mother's car. He knew that I was leaving, and he was crying. He was 9 years old.
Just as we were finished and getting ready to leave, my mother pulled in to the driveway. She had brought Maccas home, and asked if I was going to stay and eat. (pretending like she had 'forgotten' that I was leaving that day)
The last thing she said to me before we drove away was - "If you leave now, you can never come back".
As we drove away, I was crying. And so was my little brother.
Looking back, I think these experiences 'set the tone' for my future of severe anxiety.
Once I had moved, I changed schools (stressful) and had to make new friends (stressful) - but for the most part, the change did me the world of good. I got to create a 'new' me. A me who nobody really knew.
It was my life out of school that continued to build anxiety. I would panic every time I left the house for fear of running into my mother, grandmother - or God forbid .. my grandfather!
It got so bad that I would actually hide in the shopping centre or street shops if i saw someone who even slightly resembled my family.
I would walk with my head down incase they happened to be driving past in their car. I lived my life in total fear of seeing them again.
But, they never tried to contact me after I left. I never saw or heard from them again until one week after my 18th birthday.
My mother called.
By this time, I was living with my husband (back then he was my boyfriend) and I got her 'birthday message' passed on to me from my Aunty - who was living in the house that used to be my father's.
It was at this moment that I made a choice that would affect the next 7 years of my life.
I called her back.
My whole body shook as the phone rang and rang. I was so nervous that my grandfather would answer the phone - but it was my grandmother who answered.
I spoke to her briefly and then spoke to my mother - who wanted me to go and see her. I was so reluctant to go because she lived in my grandfather's backyard.
I convinced my husband to come with me for support - and made it very clear that I did not want to see either of my grandparents at all. I threatened to call the police if they did show their faces while I was there (not that it would have made a difference).
The whole time I was there, my mother begged me to go in and see my grandfather. She told me he wanted to speak with me, that he had something to tell me ... my heart was racing and I felt as though I could pass out - but i didn't go in.
I knew that even if he wanted to appoligise (which I highly doubt), it just wouldn't be good enough. I didn't want his words - I just never wanted him to lay eyes on me again.
We left the house after about 1 hour of listening to my mother carry on about what I had done to THEM???
I stayed in contact with my mother from that night - up until about 7 years later (when she finally told me she didn't want to see me ever again - see my blog post 'my mum was no mother')
About three years after that first visit to her house, my mother told me that my grandfather had died a few days after I went there. She tried to make it MY fault - because I refused to speak to him on his death bed!!
In that moment, so much of my stress and anxiety left my body and mind. I felt at peace for the first time EVER. He was gone! There was absolutely no chance that he could ever hurt me or see me again!
His death gave me a new lease on life .... it was a wonderful feeling, and I lived completely without anxiety for a short time - maybe a year or so.
But, I slowly slipped back into my anxious ways. It was too deeply entrenched in my brain by then. I had already been diagnosed with PTSD at 21, and little did I know that my ability to make myself sick with worry would become much more damging the older I got - but that is another blog post!!
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