Then There Were Four

Chapter 13

A/N: TW - vague description of anxiety attacks

I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder a little over 2 years ago. Although, I have been told I've always been a pretty anxious child. Most of my panic attacks happened while I was in uni and they were the real reason I had to drop out.

I was really lucky. My entire family was incredibly supportive when they found out about my disorder and have been ever since. When I had my first panic attack, just after I turned eighteen, my little sister, Julie, helped me through it. She hadn't known what I'd had back then but she's always been pretty level-headed when it came to things like that. It had happened just before one of my A-Levels and she'd heard my hyperventilation and had come to my bed to talk me through it. It was pretty mild and, after we'd told my parents, we all hoped it would be a one-time thing.

About a month later, I had another one out of the blue about nothing in particular. I think I had had a lot of stress building up and it all became too much. This one was considerably worse and when no-one in my family could calm me down adequately, they rushed me off to hospital. That's when the doctors told me I had anxiety and directed me and my family to psychiatrists, websites and support groups that they thought could help.

I didn't have another one for months and, nobody said it, but I knew we all hoped that I was "normal" again. I still read up on the websites and everyone tried to keep me as far away from stress as they could. My older brother, Tony, became really protective of me and we grew closer than ever.

This was when One Direction came into my life. I'd heard a few of their songs before then and I thought they were all pretty cute, but that holiday was when Dee really introduced me to them and I became a proper, all-out Directioner. For me, becoming a Directioner was kind of like having my first panic attack. I didn't know that it was coming and I didn't know what to expect, but it changed my life completely. The only difference is that, even through all the bad times of loving those five idiots, I actually love being a Directioner; however, I despise having anxiety.

I had another bad panic attack a few weeks before I had to go to university and my parents thought it would be best if I stayed home for at least a semester until we had it "under control." I stayed home, did a few odd jobs and only had one mild panic attack; although, eventually I had to get out of my safe cocoon at home and had to go to university.

For the first semester, I roomed with a girl called Ashleigh. She was pretty friendly but mostly kept to herself. A few weeks into the semester, I told her about my disorder and I was pretty lucky to have told her because a few days afterwards, I had my fifth panic attack. It was in the middle of an afternoon, I was in our room, alone and trying to study when I freaked myself out over all of the work I still had to get through and couldn't handle it. It wasn't the first time I had freaked out over my work but this time I couldn't control it. I started to hyperventilate and tried to calm myself down by drinking water but I couldn't slow my breathing and it felt like I was being strangled and I started to cry and I didn't know where to go and I didn't want to phone anyone and worry them; and then Ashleigh walked in. She really helped me and it turned out she'd done some research about anxiety after I'd told her and she'd learned a few ways to help me. We got pretty close after that.

The number of panic attacks I had that year increased exponentially but Ashleigh was a great help. She was studying to be a psychologist at the time and I actually ended up being a great help for her studies too because she got some real life experience.

I moved in with Dee during the holiday at the end of that year and have stayed with her since. We live quite far from campus but it was alright because I was generally an early riser anyway. Dee and I have been friends since Year Four and when she told me she was thinking of moving from Bath (where we're from) to Brighton (where my uni was), I told her it'd be a fantastic idea. Ashleigh was moving to London to do her postgrad at Brunel and I knew that living with Dee would be a blast. I was also hoping that having my lifelong best friend around me would calm me down and this anxiety thing would go away.

It didn't.

Over the next semester I had panic attacks weekly, sometimes more. Dee was incredibly helpful and she always knew the exact right thing to say so they were all pretty mild and at first, I thought I could push through until the end of the year but I later decided to drop out at the end of the semester.

In the three months since I dropped out, I have only had two panic attacks, one of which Dee was there to help me through. The other, I kind of managed myself.

It was incredibly frustrating not being able to do want I wanted to do. I think that might be the most frustrating thing about having this disorder: it hinders me from being able to do things that I dream of doing.

I still get a quite embarrassed about having anxiety as it feels so stupid to tell people that the reason I can't do certain things is because there's something wrong with my brain, so I tend to keep it to myself and usually hope that no-one notices if I'm a little out of things. Even now, the only people who know about it are my parents, my brother and sister, Mark (who Dee insisted I tell, just in case something happened at work), Ashleigh and Dee.

But now, I think Harry Styles knows too.

~~~

A/N

I first wrote this chapter almost 2 years ago when I was in grade 11, and at the time I hadn't had a mental illness (or at least not been diagnosed). I recently decided to reread this fic and upload some of the unpublished chapters before I abandon it completely and, over the years, I had forgotten about this chapter.

This is the author's note I had planned to upload with this: "I'm sorry if this chapter is a bit boring... I hope you find it even a little interesting. So, I thought you guys should know, I don't actually have anxiety so I'm just writing from the research and reading that I've done. However, if any of you ever need to talk to anyone, please know I am here! xx"

Reading this now has been a strange experience because I remember not really relating to Kelly much when I wrote it but now I'm in first year at university and I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety a couple of months ago... So let's just say I really relate to Kelly. I just thought it was interesting how I wrote this years ago, yet it feels pretty close to what I'm going through now.

Anyway, I still love you for reading and I'm definitely still here if you need a chat.
Rea xx