See: To perceive with the eye, to be conscious of what is around you byusing your eyes

At the end of 2012 I was diagnosed with vocal chord dysfunction, a severe anxiety symptom, born from my high levels of anxiety at the time. Basically, whenever I had a panic attack (which was at least once a night) my vocal chords would begin to close over and I would struggle for breath. That, along with asthma and an inability to calm down and regulate my breathing, made for a rough few months with far too many ambulance rides.

I spent the following weeks in and out of doctors and counselling, the first to prescribe Lorazepam for acute attacks and the second, to put mental steps in place to alleviate the stress and begin breathing exercises. As my partner would attest to, these were not easy times. The amount of sleepless nights, uncontrollable shaking, crying, outbursts of anger and weight loss only added to his own stress of university, and together we became very reclusive.

This isn't to say that we weren't happy, we were just struggling and treading the ever deepening water of our relationship. We went to social gatherings when we were needed and most people were none the wiser of what we were going through as a couple. I like to think that I was the victim of my anxiety but unfortunately, it has a contagious effect when you live with someone else.

Thankfully to his resilience and many of my close friends, I was able to gain confidence over my anxiety and come off the Lorazepam and learn to control attacks through regimented breathing exercises and yoga. I continued to take Venlafaxine for depression and Quetiapine as an anti-psychotic/sleep aid in the hopes that I would also be able to work my way up to removing them from my daily intake. 

A month ago I stopped taking the Quetiapine as I was becoming reliant on it to sleep. Not only that, I also found myself abusing it if I had a particularly hard day or simply couldn't deal with the pain inside. It became increasingly easy to just knock myself out instead of facing my problems. I would wake up groggy and and see traces as though I had been on an LSD bender the night before. I was having nightmares that I couldn't shake all day and was confusing dream with reality. Some days were so foggy that I literally couldn't remember what I had for breakfast or how I got wherever it was that I was going to. I lost weeks of memories and conversations all from a tiny pink habitual pill. 

Although this last month has been a bit of a blur it makes me realise all the things I've seen but didn't get a chance to see. I was there, it happened, but I didn't truly see what was happening. Just like others see me out at a dinner or at a party, they only see surface value, not what is underneath. It never ceases to amaze me how little we actually see of the world around us and just how little we really know our peers. People are often heard saying to someone feeling negatively about themselves "I wish you saw yourself how I see you" or "If only you could see what I see". To even begin to see yourself as others do takes immense courage and strength. Too often we base opinions of others on gossip and hearsay, using our ears and not our own eyes. The same can be said for when we try to see ourselves the way our loved ones do. We only focus on our own bias opinions of ourselves and wade through layers of insecurities and self instated flaws so by the time we reach our outer beautiful selves, all we see are the flaws. When others look at us, they don't have these negative layers smearing their view they only see the outside.

I did not consult my physician before I ended my love/hate relationship with Quetiapine however I discussed it in great detail with my counsellor. I in no way advise anyone else to stop taking prescribed medication without first consulting your doctor. I am still working on building up a healthy, unassisted sleeping regime and hope to eventually wean myself off caffeine and high concentrate sugars as well.

As the great Mrs Beauregarde said "Eyes on the prize violet, eyes on the prize."

Stay: to continue to be as specified, to hold out or endure, to stop or halt.

The last month has not gone well for me.  My 25th birthday grows closer by the day and I am nowhere near where I thought I would be at a third of the way through my life. For the most part, my disappointment is derivative of social expectations and my lack of lucrative accomplishments but I am struggling to feel adept when I am constantly surrounded by 'successful' people. I feel vulnerable, scared and extremely small.

For all intents and purposes, I am small, I am just a number on a screen, I am just another name on a page. I am counting down to a personal milestone that literally no one else in the world gives a shit about, so why do I care?
Who am I really comparing myself to?
When do I find that 'dream job' we have been told about since we were kids?
What is the point?

Last night as I sat feeling like I had been pooped out the anus of life, I ate my third meal for the day, I sat in front of a lovely warm fire and went to sleep under a stable roof. I woke up this morning and drunk my speciality plunger coffee and spread Marmite on my Chia and flax seed toast that cost $4.49 a loaf. I had a hot shower and put on warm, dry clothes, then drove to work.

The point is, that although I may be turning 25 (in 2 months and 11 days) and I do not own a house or have a job that would make my parents brag, I am fortunate. I am on my own path that is not dictated by girls on Instagram with bikini bodies sitting on tropical beaches. I will not succumb to a completely consumerist and privileged lifestyle because that how western society ranks the elite. I am humbled by my gratitude and vulnerability and happy to take my place in line. I know that we are not just given the life we want, circumstantially or otherwise, we have to work for it.

"If all mankind were to take their troubles to market with the idea of exchanging them, anyone seeing what his neighbour's troubles were like would be glad to go home with his own."
— Herodotus (The Histories of Herodotus of Halicarnassus)

Fear: Something that causes feelings of dread or apprehension; something a person is afraid of.

Fear is the cat fur of life. It gets on everything and you have no idea how it even got there. It follows you around like a physical manifestation of your mind. Fear indulges uncharacteristic behavior and not dissimilar from cat fur, rubs off on other people. Living with Depression and Anxiety, I wake up every morning with fear hanging over me like a one night stand that wouldn't leave. My mental state of mind is driven by the swift realization that I have another day to face and the fear that I may not make it to the end of that day. Eleanor Roosevelt once wrote in her book You Learn by Living that "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look at fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do." So who am I to argue with an esteemed First Lady who went through more shit than a dysentery patient? My intention in this journey is to find answers not from others, but from within myself and to face my fears.

As a child I was scared of trivial things like werewolves or my parents or getting lost. Now I lie awake at night, terrified of bills, becoming a parent and being lost. I stay up listening to things I never said in my head like a persistent "tink tink" of a car engine cooling down and worry that I will always be this way. I had never considered that I too one day, may find myself with the white picket fence and 2.5 children. How am I to raise a young malleable mind when I had my childhood ripped from me at such an early age? Am I to spend my life vicariously recreating the childhood I never had through theirs? Fear creates a longing for something lost that cannot be recovered (seemingly parallel with my debilitating debt) and pulls you and out of reality with its strings of hopeless expectation. I am extremely lucky to have such an overwhelmingly vast amount of  love and support from those that care about me however I know that is not the case for many others. This is where I would like to extend my help to those in similar situations because just like Mary Schmich wrote in her column for the Chicago tribune (later turned into one of my all time favourite songs Wear Sunscreen), "my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience".

Although I am still working on facing my demons with an affirmed confidence, I believe there is nothing more valuable than listening to others and being forthright with your afflictions. There is no shame in having a mental illness and the stigma around it is only created when people are ill advised on the symptoms of those who suffer.

Learn: to acquire knowledge of or skill in by study, instruction, or experience.

I can't swim. I wish I could, just like I wish I liked egg yolk or any music by The Smiths but unfortunately I just wasn't born to do everything. I like to think I have a sound understanding of the world around me but when I really look at something to discuss at great length, all I have is my own alluvion of experience. My attention span is so short that in this world, where we are given information in such quick succession, it is much preferable to find myself at the business end of a chocolate bar watching videos of cats rather than educating myself on Florentine architecture during the Renaissance. I can easily stay afloat in an intellectual conversation by adding quick fire facts and anecdotes but do I really even understand my contribution? For the most part, the answer is no (unless discussing a feline's ability to incite laughter on every level of stupidity) and thus uncorks my crippling social anxiety. Just like my inability to swim, my panic towards amicable "chin-wagging" is driven by fear. My fear of inhaling water and flapping aimlessly in a black abyss psychologically propels me into heavy breathing, sweating and snotty tears.

I spend most of my timing holding malicious thoughts at bay and taking medication to prevent grotesque panic attacks. Medicating mental illness is comparable to wearing inflatable arm bands in deep water; it temporarily stops you from sinking but doesn't actually fix the underlying problem which is of course that you are on a swift course to drowning. How I got so far out of my depth I'm not sure, but the medley of pills on my medical carte du jour for the past decade has created a crutch that I now so desperately cling to. I have been pharmaceutically treated by my GP for depression, grade 2 bi-polar, insomnia, acute anxiety and even Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder yet am still bound to my physician and his team of state-funded psychologists in a merry-go-round of emotion and instability.

To break this cycle I have now decided to try and teach myself to be happy physically, mentally and spiritually through a self-medicated dose of exercise, healthy eating, quitting smoking and trying out the Mantra that is Mark Manson's "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck". I do not intend to undermine any prior help given to me but more to offer myself a chance to live life how I want to live it. I also wish to invite others who similarly have been 'condemned' with ailing mental illness to join me on my bare all quest for happiness in hopes that it may aid them on their journey also. (Cat taxes included with weekly post.)