A journey into the abyss...
It starts. The constant shaking. Like a overloaded locomotive, it steams along until my arm is bouncing regularly up and down as regularly as a speeding metronome ticks from left to right. And there's nothing I can do to stop it.
For the past 72 hours, I've been caught up in an anxiety attack that has left me and my now very painful arm in the triage section of a busy major metropolitan hospital in Sydney. It's not something that I asked for, though with the high level of stress that I've been under recently, it was something that I subconsciously knew would eventually come.
Like a lot of people and more than a few journalists, I'm guilty of believing that I'm invulnerable from the high level of emotions and trauma that constantly floats around me. More often than not we view ourselves to be bulletproof until our own moments of vulnerability come along, at which time the little projectiles that have been flying around us come home to strike us emotionally just as powerfully as an atom bomb.
Though while prominent public figures including foreign correspondents such as Peter Lloyd, Zoe Daniel and Sally Sara, as well as politicians such as Andrew Robb and Jeff Kennett amongst others have talked about their experiences with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (otherwise known as PTSD) and depression, the all encompassing terror that anxiety can promote is something that few of us ever talk about. Needless to say, I could use some of their words right now as I'm scared, and not just because of my now extensively trembling arm, which is still rocking away on the arm-rest beside me.
I'm scared because I'm worried that if something doesn't happen now, that I'm going to start self-medicating with alcohol in order to escape how I'm feeling. With a pub on most street-corners of my home suburb of Newtown that's a really big threat, even though I mostly gave up drinking after I left University.
I'm also scared because while I've been able to accomplish some really outstanding things over the past few years as a journalist and media professional, I feel that I'm only just treading water while everybody else my age is working and having the time of their lives. Needless to say, being unemployed can be emotionally devastating, especially after managing the builds of state of the art radio stations, covering terrorist attacks for international media outlets, presenting documentaries in parliament, being published in books and working on major political exposes amongst others.
But what I'm most anxiety ridden by is figuring out how to break away from my emotionally reserved upbringing, dysfunctional family background and develop the type of relationships that I want to have going forward.
Being Transgender isn't easy and while I've made some major developments in who I am over the past two years which have left me feeling very happy, I'm still learning what the true meaning of friendship actually means. After decades of feeling like a square peg being smashed into a round hole with a sledgehammer, it's taking me a little while to realise that I don't need to keep my old emotional walls up for safety, now that I've found the perfect fit of being the happy young woman that I was always meant to be.
At that time, a very kind young Doctor walks into the waiting room, calls my name and leads me off into a diagnosis room. After noticing the severe emotional and physical discomfort that I'm in, he asks me a series of questions in order to try to see just how bad my anxiety feels, and whether or not I'm a risk to either myself or others. Between answering truthfully and letting it drop that I'm already getting professional psychological help, he feels safe in letting me go home and giving me medication to settle my arm down, on the provision that I reach out to my closest friends so that I don't go through this alone. Little does he know that it's been their love and kindness that's helped me get the assistance I need to move forward.
So while I'm not feeling all that great, I know that with love, patience and some psychological work that this is something that I'll get through and that reaching out for help, especially to my friends is nothing to be ashamed of. While change and anxiety may be challenging, they're also two things amongst many that remind us that we're alive and that life is meant to be lived. Needless to say, I'm glad that my friends and downright seismic arm have taught me this.
Share This Article
