Gail Marie Mitchell - Loving the Life Less Lived: Living with Anxiety and how Acceptance has the Power to Change Your Life

About the Author

Gail Marie Mitchell has tried her hand at many things over the years from studying chemistry at the University of York to teaching in the favelas of Brazil. She now works in the exciting world of accountancy, supporting small charities in the East Midlands area. She lives in a country idyll with her husband and spends her time working, writing and trying to make sense of this crazy, confused and broken world we live in. She has lived for much of her life with anxiety and depression, conditions she has slowly learnt to accept and celebrate and which have led her to write Loving the Life Less Lived .

Published by RedDoor
www.reddoorpublishing.com

2017 Gail Marie Mitchell

The right of Gail Marie Mitchell to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

ISBN 978-1-912022-77-9

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the author

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Cover design: Liron Gilenberg www.ironicitalics.com

Typesetting: Tutis Innovative E-Solutions Pte. Ltd

Song lyrics on by Martyn Joseph, all reproduced with kind permission

All statistics and information taken from the Mental Health Foundation is reproduced with kind permission www.mentalhealth.org.uk

Any use of the information in this book is at the readers discretion. It is not intended to replace medical or psychiatric treatment or specialist teaching methods

Dedicated to Angela Leaney
who unwittingly inspired this book from 3500 miles away

The day I decided to write this book I had a panic attack. Theres nothing remarkable in that in my forty-something years I have had hundreds of them, too many to mention, more than enough for it to be my norm. That day was different. As usual, panic took its punch, a roundhouse to my delicate self-esteem, whispering its loathsome, piteous half-truths that were guaranteed to seep through my withered defences; it went for the knock-out.

Here we go again, I thought, waiting for the referees inevitable ten-second count to my defeat. I panic. I cry. I run away. I never go back. It has always been that way, always will be. Why would today be any different?

It had been a strange old day, wet and wild, made for snuggling by a fire, not battling around a supermarket. Come to think of it, no Saturday was ever made for battling around a supermarket, certainly not for anyone who is followed by the Poison Panic and shadowed by the Fearful Phobia. And at that time I was strange, too. I was changing my medication and as well as the expected tearfulness, shakes and churning stomach that accompanied my every waking moment, there was a weird hypersensitivity hanging around me like an aura. I felt dizzy but at the same time hyper-alert; everything was loud but strangely distant, the lights had a migraine-inducing brightness, but it seemed like I was somewhere else. It was a day when I should have known better than to venture out alone.

Unusually I was on my own and in a supermarket with which I was unfamiliar. I wont say its name, but it was not the orange, blue or green one it was the yellow one. I picked up the minimal groceries I needed by deeply breathing my way around the aisles and mentally reassuring myself it would soon be over. I then headed to the checkouts. Self-checkout seemed the best option. I only had a few items and the queues at the manned tills were gridlocked. I got to a till pretty easily. I was on the home straight.

Progress is a wonderful thing, as are computers. I even celebrate self-checkouts when they are working. That Saturday, they were most certainly not working. The first item I scanned triggered the red flashing light above the till and told me to please wait for assistance. OK. No problem. I mentally comforted myself using all the therapeutic techniques I have learned over the years. There was one attendant on duty and he was very busy, but he came eventually, swiped whatever it is that they swipe and I was good to go. The second item I scanned produced more red flashing lights, more waiting for assistance. I started to breathe more deeply, trying to calm my body and mind, but my mental reassurances were becoming verbal. Dont panic, were nearly there, itll soon be over, I found myself repeating out loud as tears streamed down my cheeks. Once more the assistant did his best to get me scanning again, but come the third item the red flashing lights started again, same for the fourth, same for the fifth. There was more waiting, with each time taking longer than the last. Each time my adrenalin rose, the world become more surreal. It was time to sob hysterically; time to run away; time to never go back. Panic had entered the ring the undefeated heavyweight world champion. Panic would win. Panic always won.

But something was different this time. I looked at the groceries we needed for the weekend. I thought of the emotional energy Id put in getting them from the aisles. I didnt want to go through all that again. I didnt want to have to phone my husband (who was at an important meeting or would have been with me and supporting me) and tell him there was no lunch. I didnt want to tell him that, when hed finished his meeting, hed have to go and get the food shopping himself while I waited in the car, unable to cope with even this simple task.

No! For the first time ever I decided that I wasnt going to roll over while Panic lifted its arms in the air and claimed another victory.

There are angels all around us. They are there when we least expect or believe in them and they come and go unaware of the profound consequences they have on peoples lives. Well, maybe theyre not angels, rather Good Samaritans, but in the midst of despair they feel like they are heaven sent. Today the angels were dressed as middle-aged men: one in a trench coat and panama hat, the other in a rather ordinary blue anorak. They were waiting at other malfunctioning self-checkout tills. They couldnt help but notice the tearful woman at the nearby till muttering to herself and looking as though she was about to implode. The milk of human kindness encouraged them to ask me if I was OK and if there was anything they could do to help.

Not unless you know how to mend these machines, I said pathetically. Im having a panic attack but Im not going to let it beat me. Im not going to run away. (This in itself was progress usually by this stage my ability to speak escapes me and Im left uttering random words like help or want to go home.)

The men smiled at me, not in the crazy-woman-lets-give-her-a-wide-berth way I had become accustomed to over the years, but in an encouraging, almost paternal way. Somewhere in my sub conscious I felt Panic take a stumble. This was a surprise move it wasnt expecting. I wasnt expecting it either. The mouse never fights back.