Hi,
My name is Anna.
Im a 43 year old married mum of two young boys (almost 4 and 8).
I was diagnosed 11 years ago with Generalised anxiety disorder and Intrusive thoughts after a prolonged period of personal and professional stress. This saw me suffering with looping thoughts of a self harm nature with no desire or intent on harming myself. It took me over a year to get better using CBT.
I have since had flare ups and bouts of intrusive thoughts and compulsions and health anxiety, none of which were too debilitating.
At the beginning of last year i developed a twitch in my eye and face which I automatically jumped to the conclusion of being a terminal brain tumour. I obsessed and compulsed (Google research) so much it got to the stage of me having to be signed off work for 5 weeks while I underwent tests which thankfully ruled out anything serious.
I work as a corporate insurance broker and my job is incredibly stressful compounded by absolutely insane company inefficiencies and a toxic positivity environment where it is frowned upon if you criticise the company processes.
Since the birth of my youngest almost 4 years ago who we believe has ADHD. my life has gotten progressively more stressful year on year. My husband works away so im practically a single parent 50% of the time with absolutely no respite- if im not in work, im taking care of the kids. I have zero social life and barely any help with the children.
I forced myself back to work last year after the clear test results even though I was mentally still not well enough. I had zero support from my employer and was expected to pick up my caseload with no handover. I had extreme brain fog and cognitive issues. My job is extremely technical so i had to work over my hours to try and catch back up despite me struggling.
This level of stress continued until late October when I experienced what I can only describe as complete collapse / nervous breakdown.
I was having back to back panic attacks, insomnia, zero appetite resulting in losing 2 stone in month and looping intrusive thoughts that I was that out of control I was going to go mad and harm myself.
I was eventually seen by a psychiatrist in early January who diagnosed GAD, Panic disorder, health anxiety, intrusive thoughts (although further investigation needed for a full OCD diagnosis) and depression. In addition he also said I have traits of both Autism and ADHD. The latter two did not come as a surprise to me as both my half sisters (maternal and patetnal) have AuDHD diagnoses and we suspect both my mum and dad as being somewhere on the spectrum too.
In hindsight, I believe what im experiencing is Autistic Burnout as i have severe sensory sensitivities when my anxiety levels are high, have become unable to deal with anybody challenging me / disagreeing or debating with me, cannot properly look after my youngest as his behaviour feels too overwhelming.
I have been taking mirtazapine since just before Christmas which helped to restore my appetite and sleep and have reduced the panic attacks from the crisis levels they were once at but i remain severely anxious and I continue to have these looping catastrophic thoughts which are really getting me down.
I have been having CBT for the last 12 months with very limited effect. Knowing now that I am probably neurodivergent, it makes sense why there has been limited success with CBT and Ive just this week started seeing a neuro-affirming therapist in the hopes we can target my psychotherapy appropriately.
The reason for my post though is just to see if anybody can offer any words of reassurance that this problem is fixable. I feel utterly broken and a shell of my former high functioning self.
I do not intend to return to my job as I feel it has played the biggest part in my downfall.
Please if anybody has any words of hope and encouragement or advhce they can offer, I'd be most grateful.
Thanks in advance
Anna
