Me, Anxiety and Heights

Following my last post, things have been happening; good and bad. The good is that I am now on another tablet for my blood pressure which has calmed me down a bit when I'm indoors. The bad is that my anxiety turned into both anxiety and panic attacks, which were the heart palpitations, shaking, dizziness. I still get anxious about coming downstairs, but have now found a way to cope with it in the morning. I breathe deeply, do a mindful exercise (tense and relax arms, hands, shoulders and head), tell myself to look to the floor, go slow and go. That way does work. I have managed to come downstairs at the first attempt using that method, inc this morning. But the anxiety raises my blood pressure. I haven't gone up and downstairs during the day or evening yet, although I do go and have a nap in the afternoon, when I am all right. I think it is because I am in my bedroom for all that time and not going back and forwards across the upstairs landing which looks down onto the stairs, which I do in the morning. I get changed for bed etc down in our utility room, which does have heating in. It's smaller than the bathroom but will do for now. I thought that it was just the stairs at home that affected me, but when I went into a Boots yesterday and they had a few stairs going down, I froze then, too.

I am going to take it a step at a time, knowing it will be a long term thing until I am better. I am going to my GP on Thursday to ask to get counselling about this, esp now that my anxiety has affected another part of my life - going out on my own, esp crossing the road. We shall see what happens. My next post will be about anxiety going out and what I plan to do about that.

Inspiration behind 'A friend in need'.

I have just published on Amazon my latest adult romance ebook in the Geraldine's Gems series. It is book 6 called 'A Friend in Need'. There are two inspirations behind the idea of the book and why I put bullying and counselling in the book.

The idea of the story was for Faith, who is bullied and suffers abuse from her boyfriend, to find someone else who was the opposite and she falls for him. The idea for a bullying boyfriend came from both agony aunt letters in newspapers and an article in a girl's magazine about someone being bullied by her partner and how she got out of it. Faith has a bit of help from her late Aunt Geraldine, and a colleague, Jenny. In the book, Faith is a teacher but with encouragement from Jenny and Ben, whom she falls for, she decides a change of career and wants to become a counsellor. There is a scene where a pupil is locked in the outdoor girls' toilet and Faith helps her out. This scene was inspired by a true experience of mine when I was at primary school. Two girls, whom I thought were my friends, did lock me in the toilets, but they let me out in the end.

So, that was what inspired me to write the story idea and that particular scene.

'A friend in need' is available from Amazon UK at http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00T3ET0OG
Amazon US at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00T3ET0OG