Valium is to kryptonite

This week I’ll be leaving little label/tags around unsuspecting parts of Sydney for innocent bystanders to discover in hopes to boost numbers to my blog, and expand my “following” outside of just the people I know. 

This idea was inspired (completely stolen) by my beautiful friend Nicole who has been sticking post-its with my blog URL on it around the world on her overseas trip.

If you’re one of the lucky people to find one, or should I say “the chosen ones”, who have made the curious and courageous step to see where the oh-so-mysterious piece of paper leads you, WELCOME to my blog! I would really love to hear from you in the comments box below. Where did you find it? Where are you from? How do you like your eggs?

In other news, as mentioned in ‘You Only Live Twice’ – I am dedicating this year to doing things I want to do for me. With the help of a very generous friend, I was able to land some time singing at my favourite lounge bar ‘The Red Door’, located in Surry Hills on Friday night. I sang 3 songs all up. A couple of videos of the songs can be found below, but keep in mind it’s very dim-lit, so the lighting in the videos is less than ideal (ie. probably the worst ever), and if at times it sounds like my voice is shaking because I’m nervous to the point of near-excretion…. It’s probably because I was.

SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT - NIRVANA (COVER)

ELECTRIC FEEL - MGMT (COVER)

I haven’t done anything like this in a while and I was getting my nervous system confused with my anxiety symptoms from earlier this year. I wanted my racing heart and butterflies to be gone with, but unfortunately it’s not as easy as chanting “BE GONE WITH YOU, NAUSEA! YOU ARE BANISHED!” – When my anxiety began to flare up, I would usually take a valium (prescribed) to help with subsiding the sensations.

…I can easily see how people might get addicted to valium. When I first began to take it, I was cautious. Being a 5 foot Asian girl, I don’t have a great reaction to alcohol, so I’m often hesitant/against trying physically altering substances (energy drinks, illicit drugs, etc). It would only be in extreme cases, where I’d be crouching over the toilet at work dry-retching where I would consider taking half a pill. I soon came to find that valium was anxiety’s kryptonite and not long after I found that I was taking it at even the slightest hint of any sort of discomfort.

Anxiety seems to be a really vague term, and if you don’t know much about it, I don’t blame you. Before being diagnosed, neither did I. I had to learn about the condition as I went.

Anxiety to me, prior to being diagnosed had a stigma of being a condition whereby you wouldn’t be able to leave the house or function like a normal person because you were afraid of everything outside.  Personally, I suffered from un-triggered nausea. I would basically begin to feel my throat closing in, and the sensation of wanting to choke or throw up out of nowhere. I’d had this for a long time, but only in very small doses. Maybe 30 seconds or so of nausea once every few months, so it was entirely manageable. I honestly just figured my body had a weird reaction to certain weather patterns, or something equally as trivial.

It wasn’t until earlier this year when my nausea “attacks” became a lot more frequent, and could last for up to an hour. When these bursts of nausea happen, it’s not as simple as “feeling sick”. I physically wouldn’t be able to move. Once the feeling would come over me, I would freeze wherever I was and just have to wait until it subsided.
One time I was 15 minutes late to work because I was on the other side of the road at the crossing, just watching the light go green as everyone else walked past me. All I had to do was take one step onto the road, but I couldn’t do it. All I could do was watch the light go green. I watched it go 10-15 times before I could convince myself that I was going to be okay if I crossed the street too.
It’s a really hard thing to describe to someone who hasn’t felt it before, and it’s even more frustrating for the people you spend time with, because without any visible signs of you actually being sick, it’s hard to sympathise or understand. Being constantly told by someone that they feel sick gets old pretty fast.

When my attacks began interfering with my day to day living, I knew I had to see a doctor. It was conflicting, because I didn’t know what was happening to me at the time, and it just didn’t seem like a legitimate medical problem that a doctor would know how to deal with. Like a fool, I would try to think of different ways I would explain my symptoms that would lessen the possibility of me sounding completely insane.

“So, it’s a funny thing, really. I’m sure you get this all the time…  But sometimes, for no apparent reason, I just start feeling sick. My throat just closes in, and I can’t move or talk. I feel like I’m choking. I don’t actually throw up, I just feel like throwing up if I move…  It’s this weird thing I get occasionally… Not too often, just 3-4 times a day….. That’s pretty normal, right?”

 So yeah, you could see my dilemma………

One Saturday I went to see a doctor I had never seen before because my family doctor wasn’t working that day. I told her of my symptoms with full expectations to be shut down and told to stop wasting her time. It was busy that day at the medical centre, so I could tell she just wanted to get through as many patients as quickly as possible.

“You have anxiety. Here’s a prescription for valium”
“Umm……. WHAT??? Uh…. Ok?”

Without any real explanation as to how she knew what it was so quickly, and how my symptoms could possibly relate to anxiety, I just bought my medication and left. That night I told my mother what had happened, and she suggested I get a second opinion.

The next day our trusted family doctor was in so I saw him. He pretty much said the same thing, but thankfully with a lot more explanation. He gave me a “mental care pack” which entitled me to 10 free sessions with an in-house psychologist.

I went home and I researched the fuck out of anxiety; the causes, the symptoms, the remedies. I still had the attacks, but its funny how much more scary something can be when you don’t know what it is. Once I knew it was anxiety causing my symptoms, it didn’t make them go away, but I could rationalise what was happening to me in my head a lot better.

I began seeing my psychologist, and she basically became like a best friend. I could tell her all about the darkest aspects of my life, the things that were bothering me, things I had done, and I could tell her the full, uncensored version. The additional one-up she had on my closest friends is that she could also educate me about how to deal with my attacks, should they occur. She taught me breathing techniques and helped give order to the chaos in my life at the time.
Together we narrowed the cause of my anxiety down to a couple of triggers. An unpleasant work situation, and the fact I was in a relationship I knew wasn’t going anywhere.
Both of these situations have been removed which has alleviated most, if not all the symptoms I used to get.

I haven’t yet finished my mental care package. My psychologist only comes in on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and right now I really can’t afford the time off work. I’m doing okay without her for now though. My only problem is if I do have a random attack, I don’t know how well I will deal with it, but…. I guess that’s something for future-Zerah to worry about.

After going through the system, I have complete faith in and respect for all psychologists out there, and my best advice for someone who is seeing one is to be completely open and honest with them. 
They will help you, if you let them.

I’m glad I didn’t take the valium on Friday night. I’m proud of myself, for not being dependent like I normally would be, and for not taking the easy way out. I think it’s still yet to be tested, but I’m definitely on the road to normalcy.

Oh, and Arj Barker is in Sydney, and didn’t put it up on his website. I've tried tweeting him, but I think he likes playing hard to get.