[Skip to content]

Listen to our site| Site map| Switch to text only| Change the screen width| print friendly| Larger text| Normal text| Smaller text|
.

Hayley's story how fear and anxiety affects her life

Hayley tells her story about how fear affects her life
Hayley says

 

"I‘ve spent nearly everyday of my life, really, wrapped up in my fear. It comes out in all sorts of ways. I've been diagnosed with having obsessive compulsive disorder, tourette's syndrome, compulsive skin picking disorder, panic disorder and panic attacks, diagnosed with depression, self harm, so I really have been at the very, very bottom.

"I got really bad, at one stage I didn’t go out for nearly a year, as I every time I did I had a panic attack".

If you could put me in a physical prison, I couldn’t have been more enchained, my mind was imprisoning me, my house was imprisoning me, my way of seeing the world was imprisoning me.

 

It’s really hard to see a way out, it’s really hard to see a way out of that.

 

It's little tiny baby steps to get out of it, but I’ve really have been at the bottom, at one stage I was actually spending 19-20 hours a day with obsessive compulsive disorder rituals, it’s been a really massive struggle.

 

But, I’ve tried to take little tiny baby steps to get over it. I think the first step is actually the hardest one. I had to say to myself I’ve got a choice. I’ve got to believe I’ve got a choice, I’m going to force myself to believe that I’ve got a choice and things can get better.

Is fear holding you back? Appeal

"I remember thinking what on earth can I do? And I thought I’m going down to the leisure centre to see if anyone’s playing badminton, which was a big thing for me to do, because I’ve got social anxiety and was terrified of going out and was really depressed. I just couldn’t be bothered, but I couldn’t stand it any longer".

So I just walked down to the leisure centre, and I was really scared. They must have thought I’d ran down, because I was heavy breathing and when I got to the counter and I was really nervous.  It just so happens that they'd actually got a badminton course starting the day after.

 

I remember walking in and feeling very vulnerable in shorts, as I’ve got fat legs. As I say, that first step was the hardest, and I played and I lost and I was rubbish but everyone was nice to me, which was a really big thing. I don’t think anyone realised what it had taken for me to get there, but I did it, I did it. I was really proud of myself for doing it.

 

Still to this day, the people that still play with 2 -3 years later, I don’t think they realise how big it was for me to walk in.


We had a little competition today and I came last and I thought even after 3 years I still came last, but if you actually look at my life, you’d actually think I’d come first…
Back to top