Opening

Here goes, the start of something that I never thought I'd write about. Infact, some people in my life have discouraged me from even talking about some of this, which I don't think has helped me at all. This isn't about throwing anyone under the bus, so I'm going to give fake names and such, but everything I write here is the truth. My therapists have all encouraged me to write about this properly, instead of via the odd social media posts like I used to do, and I can't even count how many people have said, "Wow, this sounds like a plot from a movie. You could write a book!", so while this is not a book, here I am doing just that. While they never advised that I write this with the intention of people reading it, I've decided to make it public as I keep being told that by sharing parts of my struggles via social media, it's actually helped some people. Infact, when I was going through the worst of all this, I myself was desperately searching the internet for others that were experiencing similar, just to feel less alone with it, so If i can do that for just one other person, then this is all worth it. Also, whilst it's a very morbid thing to think, if anything ever happens to me and I meet my maker, i'll be taking all of this with me. I don't like that thought at all, so I want to share it while I can! So much has happened that I'm not even quite sure which part is responsible for the difficulties I've faced in 2025, or maybe it's just a culmination of everything. In August 2024, I collapsed at work for no apparent reason and then on New Years Day 2025, my body seemed to turn against me completely. I was suddenly suffering some terrifying symptoms such as dizziness, blurry vision, high blood pressure, tremors, anxiety attacks, restless leg syndrome (which became so bad that I was losing skin from my toes due to all the wriggling) and confusion. I had multiple hospital and doctors appointments and at first, they couldn't find anything wrong. To my horror, everyone seemed to get far too comfortable with labeling this as anxiety, as having been an anxiety sufferer for over 20 years, I knew that this felt much different. Still, they wouldn't listen and the attacks continued, over and over, getting more and more severe day by day. Their only answer was to prescribe Sertraline, which I was extremely against, and with good reason. I'll explain more about that in future posts. At times, I couldn't get out of bed and I actually felt like I was dying, to the point where I started to think about saying my goodbyes, just incase. You can call that dramatic, but it's the truth. I challenge anyone to not feel the same way if they were experiencing the same symptoms! Unless someone's experienced it, they can't really judge. My career has been put on hold due to all of this, as has my social life. It's even affected my friendships and other relationships. Eventually, Doctors started to think outside the box and since then, they've told me that they suspect peripheral vertigo, CPTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), autistic burnout (I didn't even know that I was autistic but I wouldn't be surprised), and FND (Funtcional Neurological Disorder, which can be caused by trauma). None of these have been confirmed yet but the tests for FND are ongoing. I'm currently out of work as I'm unable to get through a day without these attacks, but things are on the up since Doctors also discovered that I was suffering a vitamin D and folate deficiency. I'm one month in to treatments for it and my dizzy spells are occuring less and less, which has been a huge relief! To end this first post, I want to say that I know many wont be interested in this and that's completely fine, but this is for anyone who might be helped by it. Sadly, I'll be writing about my experiences of abuse, trauma, sexual abuse and those who turned a blind eye to it, so be warned. I've never fully discussed it with anyone but I'm sick of being known as "that singer with anxiety". There's waaaay more to it than that and I want it to be known. I wasn't just born this way (Sorry, Gaga). If nothing else, I'm hoping that writing about all of this will release the trauma that I've pent up inside me and help me to get my life back on track. I'll also be trying to inject a little humour as I go, because sometimes we just have to laugh, right? (Also, I laid out this post much more professionally but this site has condensed everything into one long paragraph. DOH!)