An Irishman’s Journal

Content warning: this article contains detailed descriptions of anxiety and panic. The author also shares his own personal views on the use of medication for mental health.

“You must be having the best time ever”. The same words said to me from each conversation from relatives at home as they look at my life through the screens on their phone. Each Instagram story, a reminder that I am still away from home and out of the social norm. It’s not false to say I wasn’t having the best time ever, but it is true to say that my relationship with my mental health plagued most of my time in Canada.

I am 23 years old, coming from Co. Kildare. I moved away to Vancouver with my friends in the summer of 2017. I had just finished college and broke up with my girlfriend so was looking forward to a great summer. And by God was it a good time. I feel like I have always had anxiety but never knew what it was. I would just say “ah that’s just the way I am” whenever I got nervous or when my face went red while talking to someone. It wasn’t until I went to Canada did I really begin to understand what was going on. It all began one summer morning when I woke up after a night out. Me and my mate decided to smoke a joint and go hit a post session workout. All was good until mid way through the workout. I felt a tiny pain in my heart and from there I felt an overwhelming feeling of dread and fear, something I had never felt before. I began to convince myself I was going to faint and I was going to die. It wasn’t until I ran out of the gym in such a panic and got into a taxi to go home that it subsided and the feelings began to go away. I kind of forgot about the whole thing for the rest of the day and just assumed I had a bad high from the weed. The next day I decided to smoke again and 10 minutes after I got the same overwhelming feeling. The more I tried to fight it the worst it got. But this time, it was bad. I went up to my bed and for about 4 hours, was in the worst place I have ever been.

Hallucinations, feelings of going insane, the thought of having to tell my parents I’m gone mad, you name it, I taught it. A constant fight with my mind, one that just kept going. Doctor Google didn’t help either. For every 10 positive articles that I read, that one negative one would bring me down and start the whole thing all over again. After countless articles online and many hours later, it began to subside and I fell asleep. The next morning was one of the scariest moments of my life. I felt as if I was ok but there were moments when I felt detached from my body. As if my arms were not a part of me and the food I was putting into my mouth was not going in to my mouth, but something that was not a part of me. I later found out this was depersonalization, but holy Christ was it scary. The only thing that would help it was drinking. And I don’t mean a few cans, I mean blackout drunk. Drunk enough so I wouldn’t feel anything. Drunk enough that even the thought of it was gone and if it did arise, the brave, drunk, Irishman in me would say “ah see, you’re Grand, nothing can stop me”. Being drunk was great but the day after would bring so much existential dread that I would curl up in my bed and wish I was back to the way I was. The mornings were terrifying but I soon got over it. I moved out of the frat house, got myself a basement apartment with a few of my mates and got myself a good job as an audio visual technician. Working kept me busy enough that I soon began to forget the whole experience and life continued as normal.

After a few months of not smoking and working, one of my best mates came over from Ireland and I soon forgot that smoking weed triggered the whole thing. It was October and I began smoking again with him. We both loved weed during college and the thought of it brought me right back to being happy and normal again. But was I wrong. We took a trip to Seattle on the bus from Vancouver. Oh, were we buzzed. Drinking on the bus. Going out and meeting some big shot lawyer who bought us drinks and got us into a big club as VIPs where Galantis was playing. We both don’t remember much after that but we know we had great fun. The next day we decided to take a trip to a weed dispensary. It was the biggest one in Washington state and we asked the guy for the best stuff they had. He gave us something called “Cherry Cola”. We smoked it in a parking lot, then both of us stoned, strolled around Seattle. We got to this beautiful pier where the sun was shining and a guy was playing a saxophone. It was gorgeous, a place of serenity. Suddenly, I felt it coming on. The strong release of adrenaline from my adrenal gland and my amygdala firing as if being attacked by an army out at sea. I was beginning to have the worst panic attack of my life. I sat down on a set of steps but nothing I was doing was making me better.

My friend didn’t really know what was going on but I could tell he knew I was freaking out. We walked around to try shake it off and it did begin to subside. There is a massive museum in Seattle called, the museum of pop culture, and us being music production graduates, decided to visit it to see if it would take my mind off of me being in a full blown panic attack. But it didn’t. I tried walking around for a bit but me trying to make it stop just made the whole thing so much worse. So I ran. I ran outside until I found Wi-Fi and rang my mam in Ireland. Freaking out, I burst into tears at just the sound of her voice. She offered to try get me on a flight home asap, and I’m sure she wanted me home. I’d say there is nothing worse than being on the other side of the worst, listening to your 21-year-old son on the phone crying about how he thinks he’s going mad and how he doesn’t know what to do. I think I rang her because I just wanted reassurance from a voice I could trust. We decided to go back to the hostel and spent the rest of the day lying in bed just fighting this feeling. After about 8p.m, I mustered up enough courage to go out and get pizza. Of course, after a few drinks I was feeling great and we continued on into the night. I kept drinking until we came back to Vancouver. The next day, I was in work and I could not settle myself. I would get times when I forgot about being in this hyper sensitive state, then I would get times where I was close to tears. It was horrible. That night was Halloween, and I made up an excuse of feeling sick, knowing that drinking that night would make me 100x worse the next day. Everyone went out, and I stayed in the basement, alone, with the lights off, cuddling my knees until I fell asleep.

My friend eventually left and I followed him home as we were both graduating. I couldn’t wait to get to Ireland. To see everyone and to just get help. I knew there was something wrong. I had tried to see a psychiatrist in Vancouver but she talked for 20 minutes about money and fees and 5 minutes about how I was feeling. And the only thing she said was “stop smoking weed”. Well no shit. I knew that was the stem of the problem and I wished nothing but to go back and never smoke, but the damage was done and I needed reassurance from a professional that I was alright. But I never got it. My mam brought me straight to a doctor specialising in mental health. He managed to squeeze me in as he heard my situation and knew I only had 10 days at home. He was good and gave me all these exercises to do, but I was naive. I went in thinking I would come back out cured, but I didn’t. I began to do the exercises and after a while gave up because I didn’t see immediate results. I felt hopeless. The day of my graduation should of been the best day of my life. A few of us had booked a hotel in Dublin and I had a nice dinner booked with my family. I arrived at the graduation and nothing else was running through my head except having to stand up on front of all them people. Over a 1000 people, looking at me. It was terrifying.

I spent the whole first half of the ceremony fighting off the onset of a panic attack. Then, I heard it, “Ryan Lally, music production”. The rest is a blur. I honestly cannot remember going up on the stage. The minute my name was called, I was hit with a wave of anxiety so strong that my instincts took over and it glided me from one side of the stage, took my degree, and walked to my seat, without me even knowing what had happened. After I felt a rush of relief. The thing that annoyed me the most was the videos. There’s me, looking happy as Larry, posing for a photo on stage, seemingly on top of life. But inside I was Wilson from castaway, drifting away from Tom Hanks on the island with no idea how to get back. It was horrible. The rest of the night was plagued by me trying to enjoy myself but constantly reassuring myself that I was ok, even though I wasn’t. That was a tough time. I still look back at that as a very traumatic experience and a sad time in my life. I was so lost and I didn’t know who to turn to.

My one thing with battling anxiety is I’ve always been against taking any sort of medication. I am kind of glad I’ve been like that. Even in my worst states, I am glad I thought “this is awful, but it’s something you need to get control of yourself, without exterior substance”. My constant use of alcohol as a suppressant had subconsciously told me that this wasn’t a way to deal with this. I eventually went back to Canada, with a book in my bag about dealing with panic attacks and a brain that wouldn’t relax. Life was ok. I was coping. Life just went on.

It was the 22th of December and I woke up to go to work. Like any Normal day, I had a shower, put on my clothes and legged it to my bike so not to be late. I cycled out onto the alley but had only noticed that last night it had snowed, but the paths were somewhat clear, they must have salted the roads. I began cycling to work until I reached the junction from arbutus Avenue and south west marine. I began to brake and before you know it, I was on the floor, rising to my feet, with my right arm flaying all over the place, like a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube-man. Little did I know but I had shattered my elbow, torn all my ligaments, broken 2 bones and dislocated my elbow. After a long hospital visit with my boss, and 12 hours later, I had a flight booked for the 23rd back to Ireland. It was horrible. They had put my arm in a full cast and reset my elbow into a shape that allowed it to be stable enough for me to go home. I was an absolute mess. The weight for the flight had me trying to practice mindfulness. But I was in the early stages of reading about this technique. How could I calm myself down when everything I wished wasn’t going wrong, was happening right at that very moment. I got on the flight and I wasn’t 20 minutes on the plane until I put my arm down to get my laptop when I heard a weird noise and a strange feeling. I was so high on oxycodone and running off no sleep that I didn’t realize that my elbow had just dislocated itself.

I had a nice 14-hour journey home. First to Amsterdam then to Dublin. Was that Hell…. I got off the plane, hugged my family and went straight to Blanchardstown hospital. I waited in A&E until I was brought into a room. The nurse checked me out and with a subtle “I’ll be back in one moment” and returned with an infantry of nurses. They put me out and before you know it, I’m in a ward, new cast and no dislocated elbow. I went home the following day with instructions to be back for surgery on new year’s eve. That Christmas was the worst one ever. Plagued by anxiety and sadness, I resorted to the sitting room. Watching movies and eating chocolate, trying not to think of everything going wrong in my life. I eventually went for surgery and got many a screw in my elbow. I continued to live it home for 6 weeks. Rehabilitating and trying to nurse myself back together. I can’t remember my mental state at this stage but I think I was ok. I returned to Canada and continued working until the summer. Me and 2 of my mates decided to go to whistler. To live in a ski resort before going home. It was the best decision ever. I lived in staff accommodation which consisted of 2 houses, 4 floors on each, 13 rooms on each floor, 4 people to a room and 2 people to a bedroom. It was one of the best things I ever done. I started working on the golf course. My schedule would change from 5am starts to 2pm starts. This was where my insomnia began. I never really had trouble sleeping before I moved here. My roommates worked only evenings and would come home at 11 or 12 and start blasting music and having parties. I’m all for partying but when I know someone else is up early, I’m generally good at being quiet. I gave up asking them to be quiet so decided to move rooms. I started getting it into my head that if I went asleep now I’d get 5 hours and this only made me not sleep. Sometimes I would do 3 days in a row with no sleep. It was exhausting and it just made my anxiety so bad. I couldn’t function. Id leave work and while everyone was going to the lake to drink and swim, I would go home and try get an hour sleep. It was horrible.

I eventually sat my manager down and told him and he was pretty good at understanding and scheduled me to just evenings. It’s hard to control your anxiety when you’re running off no sleep. I used to have a few pints and pass out within seconds. This started my whole casual few pints before bed phase. I couldn’t sleep unless I was getting drunk. If I wasn’t in work the next day or if I had the evening shift, I would sleep like a baby. The noise from all the surrounding rooms would keep me awake all the time. I bought earplugs online and they started to work like a charm. I began falling asleep so quick and it was amazing. The summer soon ended and I got a job in the hotel working as a banquet server. I had a good 6 weeks off and everyone had practically left so I went to the gym a lot and stopped drinking. I began going to the library to study for the TEFL so I could go to Vietnam to teach English. It was nice. The weather was bad but I was calm, free of any drink, except the odd pint, and was getting in good shape. The winter soon came and new people started to arrive. I began working the odd time here and there and life was good. The skiing season started and I began becoming friends with loads of new people. We started going out again. There’s not much things better than going up skiing all day then riding to the village and getting food and a few pints. Life was so good. My sleep was always still bad but I started to cope with a few hours sleep. 8 hours sounded like a dream but it never really came. Work began getting really bad. They had us working 12-14 hour shifts and then expected us to be in 8 hours later. We would start at 10, finish at 10, then would have to be back in for 6. It was horrible. I started getting it into my head that I wasn’t going to sleep and then I never would. Some of them days in work were the worst I’ve ever had.

Wandering the halls, feeling dizzy, not being able to remember what people had told me to do, and on top of it they wouldn’t let us take more than 15 minutes break. My whole 3 day sleep diet started again and I would see 60 hours with as little as 3 hours sleep. I used to get so annoyed when people said they slept good or they feel great. I couldn’t drink coffee either because it would only intensity my anxiety and give me panic attacks. I still kept a straight face. No one knew what was going on but the odd day I didn’t feel like talking or was just too tired to function, everyone would notice and I’d have to put on a face. I eventually decided to go to my boss and gave him the ultimatum of “give me evenings or I quit”. It was hard for me because my work gave me accommodation so if I quit I would of been homeless, with hardly any money. We eventually decided on the fact that he would give me no shifts or just evenings. It was the best news I had gotten in months. Finally, I began to sleep good. I wouldn’t have any money but I didn’t care because I was sleeping and my mental health began to improve.

The months went on and I was having a blast. Nothing like going to the mountain and skiing when you start to feel anxious. You forget about everything and just focus on going fast. I soon had to get another job as I was barely getting any shift and before you know it I had 3. All giving me just enough hours for 40 hours a week. It was hard. I had to try balance all of them and make all my shifts while doing back to back shifts in the hotel so I wouldn’t get fired and lose my house. The sleeping started getting worse again. I started meditating before bed and had a ritual of journal entry and not looking at my phone. It worked well some days and then I would just have them days of not sleeping at all. I eventually quit everything for the last 2 weeks so I could enjoy some skiing and get some sleep. At the start of may I decided to move down to Vancouver for my last month to enjoy it with everyone that had moved down. I stayed at 2 of my friend’s house who so kindly let me stay on their pull out couch. I wasn’t working so had plenty of time to sleep. But that wasn’t the case. My panic attacks had just came back to me recently and I couldn’t get them away. I developed a fear of going to bed. The thought of me going home to get into bed would just trigger my anxiety. This forced me to stay out late and get drunk. If I didn’t drink, the minute my head hit the pillow I would be brought into this state of panic. I’ve learned to cope with them. Not let them be fully brought on. So they would begin to take hold but just before it went into a full blown warfare, I would be able to use CBT to calm myself down. It was still horrible but I could cope. I began getting 2- 3 hours a night and it was getting to me. I cracked one day and went straight to the local doctor. I needed something, even though I was against medication. He took me into a room and gave me a list to fill out. He concluded I had extreme anxiety and mild depression. He prescribed some benzodiazepine for the panic attacks and an anti depressant. 10 benzodiazepines and 30 days work of anti depressants. I can remember holding in my hand 10 nights of good sleep and in the other, something I wasn’t willing to take without a steady place to call home, someone I could see regularly to check in on how I was doing. I felt worse after then I did before. I went outside, found Wi-Fi, rang my mam and completely broke down again. It was the lowest point a person could feel. I felt hopeless. Here was all this great things happening in my life and I was an absolute mess not knowing what was real and what was fake. I’m so glad I decided to not take the anti depressants. It’s not that I’m against medication, I just think you need to be checking up with a professional weekly. At the time I had 2 weeks left in Canada. I started taking it and man did it feel good. I can remember lying in bed trying to get anxious, and I just couldn’t. I would pass out after a while. It was great. But holy God was the next day bad. I would wake up so groggy that I felt as if I hadn’t slept and just drank a litre of vodka. I learned that this was a common side effect of them. I decided to give them up. Being anxious was better than feeling drugged up and not being able to handle myself. Both drugs are still in my drawer.

The first of June I moved to New York city. The big Apple. I was excited to live a steady enough life. I was going to live with my auntie and 2 cousins. The start was good. I didn’t sleep much at the beginning but soon started working in a moving company. I was in at 6:30 every morning. That meant getting up at 5:30 to shower and cycle. The first few mornings were awful, but I began to get used to it. Before I knew it, I didn’t have trouble sleeping. It was fantastic. My anxiety calmed down. I started to go to the gym and eat well and gave up drink during the week. I was having the best time. I started to do a lot of stuff by myself. I went out to the city, I went to Brooklyn, I went to Boston, Philly, all by myself. You begin to appreciate bring by yourself. Not having anyone to obey to and just doing your own thing. If you don’t feel like going somewhere, you don’t go. If you don’t feel like staying in that bar anymore, you get up and go without having to make up an excuse. But it got lonely. I’m not too bad at talking to people at a bar but for some reason I would always make up an excuse to sit by myself, in silence, just me and my thoughts.

During the day, I began to get irrational thoughts about reality. I began thinking if what I was doing was actually enjoyable, or if I was trying to chase the high of normal day life that I once knew. I’m still dealing with that today. There were good and bad days. But I think that’s the case with everyone that suffers with any type of mental health issue. It’s something we’re not thought it school, that you will always have good and bad days, it’s normal. I think for me I always think back and forget about how I felt at that moment and just reminisce saying “I wish I was as happy as I was in that moment”. But I felt the way I do now. I just don’t remember it. I’m going home in a few days. After 2 years of traveling on and off, it’s finally over. I’m sad but also excited to get home and get help on a consistent basis. To just have someone to talk to that isn’t through a phone screen. Anxiety sucks but I know I will get through it. It will never go away, I’ve accepted that, but I will learn to cope and learn to live with it, as my Robin to my batman. I just hope this helps the next person realize that they’re not alone. Wherever you are, however you feel, just reach out. It’s the best thing that can happen. Who cares what you think they’ll start talking about. Chances are they’re going through something similar and they just don’t want to admit it. Speak up, keep going. Life will get better xxx