Tuesday 2 May 2017

Checking Time Ten Times | Travelling With Anxiety

Hey!

Welcome to another blog post! I thought that today I would talk to you guys about travelling whilst having anxiety. If you've read my blog for a good amount of time then you will know that I think that it's necessary to talk about mental health. My mental health hasn't been that great recently which is one of the reasons why I'm writing this post.

Anxiety can make the easiest things become difficult and complex. It can make going out of the house a struggle. It can make day to day activities difficult but most of all it can make meeting friends or going to different places very challenging.

A stock image of a rectangular long white train with a black rimmed window on black train tracks with grey gravel. All within a train station with a dome of glass with black beams going across it on a bright background.  

Making Plans: 

Before you even try to travel can be an absolute nightmare. Making plans can be troublesome and frankly very anxious. You have to ensure that it's somewhere you've been before so that you know where it is otherwise there's a good chance you might have an attack if you're like me who gets anxious if they don't know exactly where they are. There's also the fact that the meet up place might be packed which might trigger your sensory overload. Once you've sorted a place out then there is the whole thing of timing. You end up agreeing with whoever you're meeting which then you question if you're still meeting at that time ten times after confirming. If you're going to somewhere with a fixed time then you end up setting several alarms beforehand to ensure that you're up and ready way before that time.. The same normally goes for meeting someone.

Transport: 

I end up setting off an hour beforehand getting transport to travel because a billion things go through my mind like what if the bus is late? What if the train comes in early? What if there's really bad traffic? If I'm getting a train I double check that I'm on the right train and stop everything that I'm doing until the man has spoken via the tannoy to ensure that I know that I'm on the right train. I also sometimes count how many stops and when I'm meant to get in for. If I'm meeting someone at the station then I have an app on my phone to ensure that I know what train they're getting and when it's meant to come in so I know I don't have too long to awkwardly wait where we said that we would meet.

I know that all of this sounds stupid but it's just second knowledge for me to do this otherwise I know that at some point I'd probably have an attack and I'd feel embarrassed. I've had anxiety attacks in train stations before and it feels disastrous when train staff members have to try and calm me down.

I hope that this little rambly post has given you some insight on what goes down when I travel to places for things such as blogging events and meeting friends.

I hope that you have learnt something and hopefully enjoyed this blog post. I hope that you come back next time for another post!

Thanks for reading! 
Jamie x

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