Author: Buck

Well, that was terrible, but it seems to be over.

I’ve had patches of giddy excitement and happiness. While I was barking my brain was depressed. I don’t mean I was sad, per se, but sluggish of brain. I couldn’t get excited or happy, I was just mentally weary and wanted to sleep. That’s another indicator, while I was loony I could (happily) nap all day and then sleep at night. Since I’ve got better my brain is whirring and I find it hard to sleep at night again.

Also I’ve been looking, with intent, at bikes again. I even bid on one. The price went up slightly more than I was willing to pay, but I was in the game.

I’m struggling with this anxiety lark. I had two really good days just before my last blog and was thinking the pills were kicking in and it would be all plain sailing until full sanity. Nope. I’ve been anxious every day. Not good. I was doing OK with it, it was there but I was dealing with it. Then I took a wrong turning and drove into a busy customer car park. There was no room to spin it around so my anxiety was mounting, I turned down one of the car park lanes, hoping to get out at the top but there wasn’t enough room. I tried to turn, but I just couldn’t fit. I was stuck. My anxiety exploded into a full-on panic attack. For a quick moment that was it. I just couldn’t. I wanted to run away in terror. My mind was totally gone. I turned off the engine, put my head on the steering wheel and somehow got a grip.

Once the panic passed the actual mechanics of reversing at 1mph across a busy car park, across multiple junctions with cars driving behind me and crossing me, was just terrible, not mind-numbing terror. One of the junctions had a few empty car parking spaces next to it which gave me just enough room to get to the end of the row, bump over a barrier with bushes in it, and escape back to the road. It was a genuinely stressful event, but this loony and the panic attack made it a thousand times worse.

I’ve just had my 3 week pill. The doctor said up to 6 weeks for it to kick in, but I was really hoping, expecting,for it to have worked by now. Wendy was sane in 3 weeks. This sucks.

Writing my last post I was a bit dismissive of the lunacy and I was just taking the pills to be on the safe side. I’ve had a rough ride since then. It has been bloody awful. So stressed that I’m shaking at work. I’ve been feeling so bad I just want to stay in bed, preferably asleep, all day. It’s the only time I’ve felt relaxed. I am so glad they gave me the pills. 3 weeks and I should be straight again. That’s 9 days more. Work is the worst time for it, so call it 6 more work days and I should be sane.

I’ve not done anything except work, walk to the shop, and sit at home. No runs, not worked on my Harley, I have let a local (10 miles away) bike that I had my eye on get sold without even contacting them. I couldn’t face calling them, going to see it, collecting it, anything. This evening feels like the first sane and relaxed patch for ages.

It has been bad.

I’ve gone barking mad.

The last few weeks I’ve been constantly scrolling on my ‘phone, head down, refresh, refresh, refresh, avoiding runs and bike tasks. Then I noticed I was feeling low and emotional, like I wanted to cry. Then my stomach started getting knotted up with anxiety and I had a panic attack. I realise now that the desperate fixation on my ‘phone was a distraction mechanism.

I was willing to deal with it up until the last symptom. I have the experience and the drills to deal with constant anxiety and emotional distress, but I defy anyone to accept living with panic attacks. Too horrible for words. That was over the weekend. On Tuesday, my first day off, I rang the doctors, they gave me an appointment with a real GP an hour later, and she gave me full dose loony pills. Apparently they can ease you into them with a trial of 10mg for weeks, which do nothing, then 20mg, leaving you loony for 3 months until they give you 50mg. This doctor, gawd bless ‘er, cut straight to the chase and started me on 50mg.

The last month or two, since Wendy told me I was entitled to a lump sum army pension, and I should spend it on a nice bike, I’ve been on a journey. I was desperate for a modern sports tourer, like the Triumph Tiger Sport 660 or the Yamaha Tracer 900. But I looked into the stats and it’s marginal gains over an old Honda VFR750 and multiple times the price. Then my Triumph Bonneville started acting oddly in the wet and I knew it was time to move on. I saw a one owner, 12,000 miles, 1997 VFR750 for £2,250 and another with 20,000 miles but full stainless exhaust, and I’ve been flipping back and forth between them, as to which would be the perfect bike to have for the rest of my life.

The catch was I didn’t have £2k.

I’ve spent about 2 weeks fixated on getting my perfect VFR.