A local man is sharing his experience of managing acute anxiety after being diagnosed with the disorder around six months ago.

Up until that point John (not his real name) had never previously experienced issues with his mental health.

Initial experiences

Speaking to The Impartial Reporter, he outlined his initial experiences which led him to reach out for professional help.

“Obviously everyone has their ups and downs but suddenly I found myself kind of overwhelmed by my work situation,” he told this newspaper, going on to explain that he would be doing completely normal things and suddenly he would feel “uncomfortable and nervous”.

“In many ways it wasn’t terrible in terms of I didn’t feel pain really but I just felt very strange, nervous and uncomfortable for a while but then it would just disappear.

“I did discuss it with colleagues but it came to a head one day and I just had to leave the office immediately,” he said.

Explaining that he has a very good relationship with his doctor, John felt comfortable contacting them and was able to describe to them how he was feeling.

“They were very happy for me to go straight over to see them and they were very helpful,” said John.

His doctor then described to him that what he was experiencing was acute anxiety.

“I think that’s probably a fairly accurate description because everyone feels anxious for all sorts of minor or major reasons but obviously the acute end was something very specific where I’ve kind of gone a bit beyond the normal experience of feeling anxious,” he said.

Mental Health nurse

Following his initial assessment John was assigned to a mental health nurse who he has been seeing approximately every fortnight since.

However, John admits that at first he wasn’t quite sure how the medical practitioners could help him.

“I suppose I didn’t know what I was expecting, not having had any experience of it but at first I kind of wasn’t really sure how it was going to benefit me.

“As the time has gone on, and I understand the roles of the medical practitioners better, I’ve had a lot of very good support from them.”

Alongside his appointments with the mental health nurse and his doctor, John was referred to the ARC Healthy Living Centre’s social prescribing team.

“Anja came along as the social prescriber and we would meet up and go for a walk and just chat about things; how I was feeling, what might be the cause of it and if there was anything else that could have been affecting it. I found that very useful.

“In some ways it took my mind off it and I’d get a bit of a better sense of what was happening.

“Certainly it has been very valuable to go out for a walk and get some fresh air rather than sit in an office or a room having a conversation around a table,” said John.

‘Revelation’

He added that since his diagnosis of acute anxiety he has started running which he describes as a “revelation”.

“Once I started it made such a difference to my outlook on the day and just how I felt by the end of it. I felt invigorated and much more positive,” he said, adding: “If you’d asked me beforehand I would’ve doubted that it would have had that impact but it’s been amazing actually.”

Seeing how professional help has benefited him with his acute anxiety, John says that he would certainly recommend people to speak to somebody and go to their local clinic if they need to.

“There is help there and there are people there who deal with these things. I think doing it by yourself would be almost impossible, that’s kind of my experience,” he told this newspaper.