It was really really difficult. With my son I feel really embarrassed, I think he picked up on my anxiety and he became very clingy, he wanted to be with me all the time, he was kind of physically holding onto me and that was the last thing I felt I needed. I didn’t actually want him to see that I was anxious, but he needed reassurance from me that I couldn’t give him, not honestly, because I felt I didn’t know where it was going. And I would just sort of say, Mummy’s not feeling very well and I need five minutes to myself and but no, that made our relationship really really difficult and I was, he’s a very spirited child anyway, and he would get into situations at school, or in the playground that would require my intervention, and I didn’t want to be the focus of attention, so that was really hard for me, I was kind of like forced to deal with situations when I was feeling very vulnerable and shaky. And I was shouting at him a lot, I had no kind of tolerance or patience, or, again I think that was the exhausted part of me felt I couldn’t deal with his demands on top of what I was struggling with.

I find this culture of anti-ageing really disturbing actually, and particularly face lifts, or cosmetic surgery. And I feel there’s such a culture of self-hatred almost, particularly amongst women, and it’s happening to men now that there are all these men’s magazines springing up, seeing eating disorders and things like that becoming issues, but no, all the messages out there are you’re not good enough as you are, and unless you, yeah have a face lift, or three inches of flab taken off your thighs or something, you can’t expect to be loved. And I think it’s very very disturbing actually what’s going on. Because no amount of money can make somebody happy with themselves, it’s an internal process.

Well there’s a kind of sense of loss. From this point on I might never have another child. There’s a sense of loss around that. I don’t know that there’s a sense of regret, but there’s a sense that that’s just not going to be a choice anymore, that feels quite strange, and I guess it makes me aware that I’m ageing that I’m mortal, that I’m kind of just used to for years and years and years, that’s how you are as a woman and nothing particularly changing significantly about your body. And your body going through all these extraordinary changes like puberty. But I feel quite accepting of it all actually. I kind of see well it’s all very natural, it’s all part of the cycle of life and death, and in some ways it’d be quite, I’m sure it’d be quite nice not to have periods . Not to have that kind of inconvenience every month.

What was the trigger that sent you off to the GP?

Desperation. Really, yeah. Yeah. I didn’t, I guess that I found that experience mixed actually going to my GP because the negative side of it was that I never saw the same person, over that entire period of about six months, I never actually saw my own GP, but I saw a different GP every time I went, and I was going about once a fortnight.

And then actually what I did is I switched GPs and that’s been fantastic actually.

What made you do that?

One because I wanted some continuity of seeing the same person, and secondly because oh the other problem with the last Gps practice was that I couldn’t get an appointment for maybe two weeks, you’d have to book when you went in, you’d have to book for two weeks ahead. If you just rang up you could never get an appointment in the same week.

And you couldn’t ask for a specific doctor?

You could, but then you’d be waiting even longer.

I’ve got no issue with the actual GPs, I think the service they provide is fantastic, and I felt very supported and listened to, and respected, but just the access to the service was difficult and when you are feeling that you’re going mad, and then you’re said, Oh well, if you want to see your GP you’re going to have to wait three weeks it’s like, that could push somebody really over the edge. So, with the clinic round the corner, you can get same day or a couple of days maximum really.

And I work in alternative health, so I tried to do whatever I could think of to manage this anxiety for myself, and through alternative health. So, I went to see a craniosacral therapist which I do anyway actually. I find that a very calming treatment but it would only last for a few hours and then I’d be back into this anxiety state. I went to see an acupuncturist, and that didn’t seem to help me at all – lots of people had experience that this worked with anxiety, I didn’t find that helpful.

I went to see a cognitive behavioural therapist as well, because again that seems to be the latest theory that CBT manages anxiety. However, what I found helpful about it was somebody didn’t think that I was going mad because I felt like I was crazy, and that was the most beneficial aspect, but I think when you have such chronic anxiety and you’re not able particularly to think rationally, and CBT is a very rational model and I didn’t find that it helped me manage the anxiety. So I was doing yoga, that was helpful, but I felt like I needed to be doing it every couple of hours, and so this, and I was continuing to work but feeling very out of control, and in the end after about, this was about three months of trying to, oh, also I was taking St. John’s Wort, and that I felt was having an effect, but not quickly enough.

And because I’m on my own, and I needed to work, I felt like I needed to find a faster solution, and all of the time I was going to see my GP and eventually I agreed to try antidepressants [citalopram]. I was really adamant that I didn’t want to, mainly because I work in alternative health and it just felt like a big no no, I couldn’t, I felt kind of fraudulent about taking antidepressants and working as a therapist, and it was a big issue for me, so I delayed, I delayed taking them really for about three or four months. And then things were so chronic that by that point, that I then took five weeks off work, I couldn’t, I was quite paranoid, I was probably quite depressed by then because I’d tried everything I could think of to manage the symptoms and I wasn’t managing them. And I wasn’t having a social life because I couldn’t cope, even going to the shops was difficult. So fortunately for me the first antidepressant I tried worked.

I very rarely have them in the day, I usually have them at night, just before going to sleep and it’s just extraordinary rush of energy, and breaking out in a complete sweat, can sweat right through your night clothes, even into the sheets. I don’t actually mind it in a way. I guess if I hadn’t known about it I might have found that quite disturbing, but actually my sister’s been going through that prior to me so I was quite aware in a way. But in some ways it’s quite nice because I’ve always been a person whos cold in bed at night, now I feel like I’ve got my own hot water bottle to keep me warm at night.

Did you have to change the bedding and your clothes at night when it happened?

Sometimes. Yeah, sometimes.

And how did that affect your partner?

He’s just kind of curious actually. Yeah, he’s asking questions, he’s asked me like, What does that feel like I said I thought it was a bit like having a panic attack, something that happens, that you don’t really have any control over.

Can you describe it?

it’s really, I find it really hard to describe but I guess it would be like being in a tropical climate, a kind of clamminess and sweating, and it’s not, I don’t find it particularly unpleasant, actually.

How long does it last?

Well it comes and goes, it’s like waves of heat so they might last a few minutes at a time, and then it kind of recedes and then it,

How many times a night?

For me, two or three.