My introduction story, hello.

Hello, This is my first post to an Aussie forum. I’ve been a member of many a foreign country forum. So it does feel strange. My first remembered experience of a panic attack was when I was about 12, when my drunk father went psycho in the family kitchen.

He threw kitchen chairs and anything he could throw, even punnets of strawberries. I bolted and my whole family had bolted long before me, as I was looking for my kitten. I thought my dad had also thrown my kitten.

I got on my bike and rode the fastest I could. I couldn’t breathe and thought I’d developed asthma for the first time and this I believe was my first panic attack. I knew at 12 my dad was an abusive alcoholic. He often would target me as I was the most sensitive. He hated his new life in Australia and had issues of self esteem so he took them out on me.

I didn’t get too many more panic and anxiety attacks until I was 17. Its been a hell ride ever since. I have moments of time where panic and anxiety took a break, but I was always reserved in not making waves or being too noticed because what will people think. I was raised, not good enough.

I’ve not been diagnosed as such, but it is evident. I suffer anxiety and panic with bouts of depression. I’ve asked to be diagnosed, but psychologists being what they are won’t give the label. They say, ‘whats it going to prove?’ They say, we need to be objective.

I am now shopping for a new psychologist, and have a list from the gp with about 150 to pick from. Eye roll.

Up to today. I am going through some of the worst anxiety and depression to date and even need a prescription of medication.
I can’t eat, I can’t sleep and its all I think about.. This is affecting my health and I can feel the constant adrenaline is going to hurt me.
Silly me looked up dr google about constant anxiety and depression and I found psycho-social stress and how stroke is a risk factor. So now I’m worried about that.

We buried our 13year old Staffy, Rose 3 weeks ago at home and that just plunged my into severe grief and 2 days after her burial my sister who lives upper queensland tells my she has cancer on her lung.

My whole body just tingles really loudly from the top of my head right through to my feet in the most horrible way, the darkness of it all just resides in the pit of my stomach now and when I take a short nap from exhaustion,
I wake up in shock because it is real. I force myself to eat now, because I just feel like vomiting all the time.

Most people when they have bad news pull themselves back from the escalating thoughts of cancer but not me. I jump from 1 diagnosis straight to 10, she going to die.

I hate myself, because I am hot handling it like my younger sister who is an oncologist nurse and I’m not saying she is handling better but it appears that way. My sister with cancer prefers I don’t call her, because my upset would affect her. So I feel really weak and pathetic.

I am too panicky to find out any more about her surgery date to remove the cancer stage 4 from her brain which is aggressive. There is stage 2 on her lung. I have not heard the prognosis for her. I am really close to her, because we have suffered the same horrible crap in our family from our father and then now our crazy mother and sister. So we are 3 sisters who are close. My depression is the fact of my older sister really has had the most bad luck of her life and now this cancer just tops it off.

I know I am trying to push away from it, don’t want further news. I sound selfish, but I don’t want to feel more worse than I do. Its not just grief, its really complicated grief.

I have to keep it from myself and only talk with my husband about it and he thinks I have a choice in how I am dealing with it. I am not allowed to talk with anyone else as our mother and other sister are cut out of our life for being psycho toxic and abusive.

Every hour is a struggle, I hope I have not scared anyone here with my current situation. The sadness is really painful and the shock out of sleep is horrendous.

Thank you for reading

Dark Olena