phobiairaqlove

phobiairaqlove

Friday 4 March 2011

Chapter 1: The Onslaught of Anxiety

The story begins in a midsized southern Australian town. I regarded my childhood as nothing out of the ordinary. I was raised in a three bedroom brick home on a quarter acre block with fresh veggies from the garden, raspberries from the raspberry patch and fruit from the fruit trees. We had a beach nearby for summer swims and schools within walking distance. There were children in the neighbourhood to play with and when I reached my teens I grew interested in girls. I became interested in sailing and went on regular bushwalks into the mountains.

My father was the breadwinner and my mother was a dutiful housewife and cared for the home.

But then towards my late teens something occurred which changed my life forever.

I was invited to a distant relative’s home for dinner, when during the meal I experienced an anxiety attack. At the time I didn’t even know what one was but suddenly I was struck with the symptoms of sweating palms, rapid heart beat and shortness of breath. I had difficulty swallowing the food I was eating as my throat felt like it had closed up and I felt I needed to visit the bathroom continuously and urgently. Eating the remainder of the meal became an ordeal and things became worse when everyone was waiting for me to finish so they could move onto the next course I should have said I was not hungry any more and pushed my plate aside but considering I was experiencing an abnormal internal bodily experience I tried to appear on the outside as normal as I could and finish the plate. Incidentally, I would discover that this was the worst thing I could have done.

After the ordeal of trying to contain the anxiety through out the remainder of the meal I was left confused and frightened as to what had happened.

After a period of time I wrote the whole thing off as just an isolated incident and expected it to never happen again.

But I was wrong, it did.


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