Bearing Disability: Battling Anxiety Attacks and Nausea

Of all the disabilities I speak about here, when it comes to my own, there is one I avoid blogging about the most. Mental Health, specifically anxiety. I accept my cerebral palsy; it is what it is, I adapt. There are things I can do with one hand that others struggle to do with two. My dyslexia I find fascinating on the whole. The weird stuff it does that makes sense, logically. I see how the cogs of that work. But for me, anxiety is another story, especially when it comes to anxiety attacks.

I have had anxiety since I have had memories… or potentially before, but you get my point. Only it wasn’t diagnosed until my second year of university. I can tell you, that was frustrating. Frustrating because of how my anxiety presents itself.

I have anxiety attacks. Sometimes, these attacks have triggers: insects, hair and germs. These are the triggers I am aware of. Other times, it doesn’t appear to have a trigger. It could be that my stress levels have increased for a short time, or it could just happen. I can’t feel the change in it myself until I am in an anxiety attack.

For me, this is not the common and well-known hyperventilating that people see on the TV. I wonder to myself, if it was… if I didn’t have to explain that my anxiety attacks were different to the stereotypical, would it make it better? Would I be able to understand it, accept it more?

I’ll never know my answer to that, because my anxiety attacks are not hyperventilating. They are the physical symptoms of anxiety nausea.

What is anxiety nausea?

Anxiety nausea is a physical reaction to stress and anxiety as part of the flight, fight, freeze response. It includes symptoms like dry heaving and vomiting and it is frustrating. There are times when I am enjoying myself and then I get a five second or less warning that I am about to dry heave or worse.

And in public.

Imagine, being in a restaurant and you’re stressed about something, god knows what it is, and you suddenly start to heave. It’s embarrassing and during this time, I struggle to speak. My throat hurts. There’s a lump in there. It is growing. My heart aches. I have a flush of heat. Can’t move. Can’t tell people what is going on. The edges of my vision close in. It looks like I am about to be sick.

Sometimes, but rarely, I am. Most of the time, it is dry heaving.

But…

This anxiety… this response. It’s not well known. Hyperventilation is. Hyperventilating is seen as the norm for an anxiety attack. I didn’t even know my anxiety response had a name until last week.

Because of the lack of awareness for this response, I am conscious of everyone. I am conscious that to the onlookers, this does not look like an anxiety attack. And when I have this attack in public, it is like I am in an ever narrowing tunnel with dozens of eyes on me. I’m scared. I want to explain. I can’t talk. if I am lucky, I may be able to move but that can make the attack go on for longer. The fear also attributes to that.

And I’ll be honest. This is one disability I struggle to accept.

Support

I have family and friends that support me. Dad is trained to counsel, so he and my anxiety mentor both know coping strategies that can help. The other day, when out at a restaurant, I had an anxiety attack and started to dry heave. Together, we did a grounding technique which really helped and immediately stopped the attack while we were focused on it. Unfortunately the waiter came while halfway through the grounding techniques which set me off again because my brain immediately panicked about him seeing me. However, the technique continued to work after the waiter had gone.

When out for my mom’s birthday, she also uses a technique that worked when I was younger – she would make me think of butterflies and repeatedly say blue butterflies.

I also have an anxiety mentor that DSA (Disability Student Allowance) funds for me. However, support for mental health issues is not the great in the UK. As I said to you, I was initially, officially diagnosed with anxiety in my second year of university (2016). I started a phd in 2021 and I needed proof from my gp that I have ongoing mental health problems.

Let me tell you about my mental health journey up to last year. I am still angry about it.

Mental Health and Anxiety Journey

When I was 16, I told my then GP that I was self-harming. Then in 2016, I told my doctors that I needed help around dry heaving and my triggers, I was referred to my first bout of CBT and got an anxiety mentor at university.

2018, my triggers had become worse. Doctor had no record of my anxiety diagnosis. Got diagnosed again, went for the second lot of CBT but as the mental health centre forgot I was going to university for a masters, they rushed my treatment. This had the opposite desired effect.

2020. The world falls apart. Stress is high. I can’t go outside. No one can go outside. I’m struggling to cope. Silence is loud! Silence hurts. Literally hurts. Triggers are even worse. Now, I am also worrying about hypothetical events. I have what I call my dark thoughts.

I have a chat with the doctors over the phone. They refer me to a third set of CBT. This one seems to help a little with the insects.

2021. I need evidence for DSA support as I have been out of university for two years… the doctor comes back saying they have no evidence of my mental health issues.

Complaint

I did attempt to complain to the GP about what I feel is neglect in my care. Nothing came of it. They have a system where you email the reception first and I doubt the reception sent my complaint to the practice manager. I certainly never heard back from them. There are two reasons why I stay at the surgery.

All the other locals are just as full. GP care around the uk is atrocious, there are not enough doctors, not enough surgeries. Also, there is a doctor there that is more gentle than the rest when it comes to the coil… and that thing HURTS, as does the smear.

Anyways, this post isn’t about the rubbish GP surgeries… it is about anxiety, so…

Anxiety Attacks in June, 2022

Last month was awful for me. Every day, I have had at least the dry heaving for at least 30 seconds… not too bad in length, but every day, dry heaving. It takes its toll. And it also increased my anxiety level… I don’t know when my next one will be. Whilst writing a draft of this, I had an attack out of the blue. Lately, if I am alone, I put the TV on or music when I am about to have lunch as I feel nauseous just before I am about to eat. I don’t feel anxious if dad is having lunch with me but he has to go to work, so this is not always possible.

I’m not 100% sure what is causing these attacks , however I do have a little inkling. My Progress Review Panel was Wednesday. It’s a presentation that determines whether I progress into second year. My supervisors have tried reassuring me, but it’s hard to argue with your brain… because you’re using part of the brain to argue with yourself.

Going to the Doctors again

Last fortnight, I had had enough of the heaving. I went to the doctors again for help. As I said, the doctors in this country is ramped. My call history if I call them will usually say I tried 100 times before I am put the queue… and no, I am not over-exaggerating. Also many UK doctors have this weird system where you can only call for appointments at specific times in the day: 8am and 2pm. You have 10 minutes to get through or all the appointments will be booked.

I get in the queue and my doctors hold message says: why not try our new online booking service at… so I did. While in the queue, in case it didn’t work, I went to their website and booked an appointment, happy.

Hmmmm.

YOU ARE NOT CONNECTED TO YOUR OWN SURGERY!

The doctor who calls you has no idea who you are. No medical history. Nothing. You have to explain everything from scratch, to only be told to see your own GP. We all know folks call doctors when they have a cold or something when they should be going to the pharmacy. This service is better suited to those types of people. I feel they should advertise it as such.

My appointment was at 11am. I call my surgery at 11:15am, crying and asked if they had any cancellations. At first, they were going to say no. But I think that because it was clear that I was crying and they always ask what it is about, they felt I needed an emergency spot.

I have been given Propanolol to try, I’m not sure if it is helping. I think so, I am waking up a little less nauseous on some days. I’ll just have to see.

Delivering Presentations

I liked presentations in undergraduate. They weren’t graded, it didn’t matter if they were done well or not. But I always put the effort in and I loved creating the slides. Masters was stressful. We were told to do it in a Japanese style. I think only me and one other person tried to do that and it was graded. The others were not penalised for not following the brief… I think it would have been less stressful if we were told we’d not be penalised if we didn’t do it in the Japanese style. Maybe the memory of the Masters stress has affected me for the PRP.

I attended the PRP on Wednesday, I passed and I am now progressing onto second year. I had hoped that that would be the end of my anxiety attacks or that they would start to settle but I had a several on Thursday and Friday. Maybe it takes my body a while to stabilise again after having them for a whole month, I dunno. I didn’t have one yesterday though, first time in a month and I am happy about this. I’m going to take it as a sign there is a light at the end of the dark tunnel.

Awareness for Anxiety Nausea

I think there needs to be some awareness for anxiety nausea. When people think of panic attacks and anxiety attacks, their image will be of the hyperventilation often seen in the cinema. And yes awareness of hyperventilation is needed too. However, until recently, I believed my symptom was odd. I kept saying to myself “no one else has this response, why do I?”. It wasn’t until I actually googled heaving with anxiety that I discovered anxiety nausea is a thing and dry heaving and vomiting comes under that.

I think believing that dry heaving was an individual thing has only increased and worsened my anxiety. However, I don’t think being able to give it an official name is enough. There is not enough awareness of it out there. So when I am in public and I am triggered by an insect, my immediate thought is still going to be… “oh god, how am I going to explain this?”

It doesn’t help that I can’t actually speak while I have it either. It makes me feel helpless and vulnerable. Like it controls me. And to some degree, it does. I don’t have picnics because that attracts insects and I know insects are a trigger. I’ll try and avoid eating outdoors, even on hot days for the same reason.

I am 26 now, and I feel this is getting worse, not better. However, maybe if awareness is built, maybe if people know anxiety and panic attacks aren’t just hyperventilating, but other physical responses too… then it might take some of the pressure off.