I was diagnosed with hypertension ‘in crisis’, panic disorder and GAD (generalised anxiety disorder) a year ago after my blood pressure was found to be dangerously high and I was experiencing severe panic attacks. My aim for this blog is to document my own recovery but I also hope it might help someone else who is feeling terrified and overwhelmed just like I was.

I’ve spent the past year educating myself in an attempt to understand what happened to me. How did I end up in that scary place and how do I make sure I don’t go back there? I want to share this journey (my happy path) because if we talk about the bleak dark times and what works for us and lifts us out of those awful places, we can all be more optimistic. And of course if we normalise discussions about mental health maybe the stigma around it won’t exist any more.

It was recommended that I have a few therapy sessions and take time off work. I agreed to 10 therapy sessions but I didn’t want any more time off work. I believed I could build up my resilience and was worried that the longer I was off, the more difficult it would be to return. The truth is I was absolutely not ready to go back to work. I constantly felt anxious, shaky and emotional, really not strong enough to be testing my mental fortitude.

Rather than being given support at work, more responsibilities were piled on top of me and my workload became unmanageable. I weakly mentioned that I was struggling a few times but it wasn’t taken seriously and I didn’t have enough faith in myself to speak up. I knew I wasn’t well and yet I subjected myself to chronic stress over and over again.

So why did I let this happen? I’d been told to take time off by the doctor, my therapist, my fitness trainer and my family. The simple answer is, I didn’t know how to tell anyone and it was embarrassing. I was worried about the consequences of admitting I had mental distress. If it had been a problem with my heart (which we all thought it was to begin with) that would have been easy. So surely I just needed to get a grip and sort my head out? I didn’t look unwell. I was a healthy weight, ate wholesome food and exercised regularly. No-one would believe me, I didn’t believe me.

And this is exactly why we need to talk about mental health. Nobody should find it difficult to find the words to say they are struggling mentally. We shouldn’t be embarrassed to say we need time off, or we need support. We shouldn’t be scared that we will be judged or labelled as weak or lazy.

My mental health crisis was caused by a highly stressful environment with unrealistic expectations. I thought all I had to do was ‘tough it out’ without any survival skills. This is exactly why I’m here. I want to get better and I want to be even better than I was before! I want to speak my truth, take up space and do all the things that I was put on this Earth for. I need to be a strong warrior to do that, even if it’s an anxious one sometimes.