Happily Imperfect. Stacey Solomon

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СКАЧАТЬ be, and eventually I might get a few hours’ sleep. These days the attacks are fewer. I don’t know why. I tried every technique I could, including cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), yoga, Rapid Eye Movement Therapy (EMDR – Eye Movement Desensitizing and Reprocessing Therapy) and hypnotherapy. They all helped in small ways, and may be useful to anyone experiencing panic attacks. Do seek help and try different techniques if you suffer from anxiety – it really is worth it. In the end, though, it was accepting my anxiety, and enjoying my life despite the attacks, that made the difference for me.

      I have learnt that if I allow each attack to happen without trying to stop it, it will work its way out. When I’m in that scary place, when my body is freaking out and my mind is telling me I’m going to die any second and leave my babies bereft, it feels like it’ll never end. That’s why I talk about it to friends and family. Somehow the act of talking, of being open about it, makes it seem less overwhelming.

      If anxiety is part of you too, you’ll know that feeling – the first few prickles of sweat, the nagging thoughts, the sensation in the pit of your stomach that tells you an attack is under way. You may feel light-headed, restless, have racing thoughts, faster breathing, and your heart is beating, it seems, at a thousand miles an hour.

      At times like that it’s impossible to see the bigger picture, to know that this excruciating feeling will last for a few minutes at most. Knowing your triggers and building a support network of friends, family and GP are invaluable in dealing with anxiety.

      My trigger is always health-related. I know that the Big A will creep up on me and take me hostage at night if something upsets me.

      I’ve learnt to differentiate between nerves and full-blown anxiety. For example, I get nervous before I go on Loose Women or before I sing. That it isn’t anxiety because during an attack I feel like I’m going to die. I can’t control that at all. I’ve been with Loose Women for years but I get a bit nervous still because I care so much about my job. I want to do well. That isn’t the same as an attack. Before a show I can calm my nerves by telling myself that no one wants me to fail, the girls have got my back, or I remind myself that I’m capable of doing my job: that’s why I was hired. I can create a positive mindset through experiencing nerves.

      Positive self-talk is empowering because it helps me to keep my nerves in check so I can use them to try to do a better job. I like feeling that I’m giving something my very best shot.

      If I’m honest, I have days when I sit on the panel and feel under-qualified, or unsure of my opinion, but at those moments I make a conscious effort to tell myself I’m good enough, and that it’s okay to be unsure or even to change my mind on an issue. I tell myself it’s okay to be nervous. If I felt nothing, I would wonder whether I wanted or cared about my work.

      Knowing my triggers, working with my body and mind, and letting go of the need to stop my anxiety has helped me to keep the attacks in perspective, even to celebrate them. I find that turning a big negative into a positive is the way forward, though it takes time and understanding to achieve. I see my GP regularly, and I make sure my family and I eat healthily and do loads of outdoor play. I focus on creating a happy, balanced home and work life. The Big A can be a positive, even if it often doesn’t feel that way. The challenge for me is to remember that, and keep living my life the best way I know how.

      STAY POSITIVE

      Find someone neutral or trustworthy, perhaps a GP, family friend, partner, or mental health professional, and just open up. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Speaking up on any mental-health issue is brave and honest, and will make things easier.

      You may need further professional help, which may include medication or talking therapies. Work at understanding your triggers.

      Recognize that anxiety is part of you – and is no different from any other illness. If you break your leg, you go straight to a doctor, and it’s the same with panic attacks. Treat your condition as an illness rather than as something to be ashamed of.

      CHAPTER 3

       Ugly Duckling

      The pretty girls at school were petite with cute button noses, smooth, shiny hair, sculpted eyebrows, long lashes and fuzz-free skin.

      Then there was me. I was gawky. Ridiculously tall, with frizzy, unmanageable hair – barely there eyebrows and lashes, and a thick Yeti-like fuzz of body hair.

      How did I get through school with those ‘gifts’ from Mother Nature? I just didn’t realize how unconventional I was until people pointed it out to me. Even then, I was blissfully unaware of what people classed as pretty or otherwise. I hadn’t really thought about my looks until then. I’d concentrated on developing my personality. I could make people laugh, and if I was naughty and funny, I had friends. I thought less about what I looked like, and more about who I was.

      You could say that was where it all began for me. I had to cultivate my character because my looks didn’t mean anything to me. My Shallow Hal approach to life meant that looks were irrelevant to me. Whether someone was kind, funny or smart was way more important than how they looked. I still feel that today.

      Saying that, I knew I wasn’t cute on the first day I walked through the gates at high school with the rest of my year group, and someone, an older child, said quite loudly: ‘Ugh, she’s not little …’ And by ‘little’ they meant cute or sweet, or even ‘resembling someone my own age’.

      I didn’t resemble anyone of my age. I didn’t fit my year group. My body didn’t fit my age. I was much taller and awkward, with fully developed boobs yet I still had milk teeth. Go figure.

      I basically had an adult’s body, plus all the accompanying hormones, with a child’s face and emotional development. I was a complete mismatch. As soon as I heard that first ‘ugh’, I knew I was going to have to work harder than the other girls to be liked. As a kid, I’d always longed to be the cute one, the little one, but I never was. I was always the gangly one with shocking hair and tufty eyebrows. It didn’t take me long to realize that none of the boys my age fancied me. They all went for the smaller girls with the straight sleek hair and button noses.

      My hair was long but it was frizzy, so much so that my sister Jemma and I nicknamed our hair the ‘Jewish-fro’, or Jew-fro for short. Straighteners hadn’t been invented, and if they had, I wouldn’t have been allowed to buy them. Neither my mum nor my dad was vain and they’d have laughed at me if I’d said I needed to buy something to straighten my hair, though they relented when I was older. They thought we were beautiful as we were – which until then I’d believed. School had set me straight. I like to describe my ’fro in those days as part Joan Rivers, part Cher, part Monica-from-Friends-when-she-goes-to-Barbados. A fright, basically.

      By the time I hit year seven, I had braces to add to the mix. Another nail in the coffin of my physical appearance. My front teeth were so far apart I liked to joke they had had an argument and were trying to get away from each other. At one point, pre-brace, I could fit a pound coin in the gap. My eyebrows had become small tufts that sat waving at me from over my eyes, and I’d been blessed with thick black hair all over my body except in the places that girls want it. My body was, I thought, horrendous. I was embarrassed by it and by my face. I wanted to stop time so I could go back to being young, but my physique wasn’t letting СКАЧАТЬ