GAD taught me something important in life.

[GenSec]

Hi,

Late last year when anxiety hit me and i thought every little ailment meant i was dying, i thought it was something that could never be positive and i was better rid of it, how i longed for my old life again.

However, recently i have begun to realise that anxiety striking me also brought me massive benefits in my life.

Mainly, i figured out relationships better and got my priorities straight.
Like most average blokes, i had friends who i mated around with, drank with and socialised with. I had known some of them from my pre-teenage years and i thought these relationships were the most important in the world.
When anxiety struck, what happened? These friends were nowhere to be seen. They walked away. Disappeared. Often even without a simple bye or explanation. For a long time i felt so depressed about this.

But now i no longer feel that way. I feel anxiety taught me a lesson i will remember for the rest of my life.

Friends - or so called 'friends' - are fleeting. Temporary. They pass. I don't mean to sound cynical here.... but i reckon most of the "friends" we will make in life are just hangars on who derive some sort of personal benefit from us, and thats why they hang around.

When the percieved benefit they feel they got from you ends.... so does the friendship. Most of it is fleeting, fake and false even i would say.

Who stuck by me during the dark times? Who gave me those hard lectures, those shouting matches, those tough talks to get me out of my self-absorbed world of anxiety? My family.
Mother. Uncles. Sister. Cousins. Even more distant relatives (i come from gypsy ancestry so we have connects with VERY distant kin!) These were the people that taught me to fight back and to begin the stuggle to victory over anxiety. They were the ones who remained.

And that i will never - never - forget.

No friendship i ever make will ever be the same again. Never will i see them as dear things to be fostered, treasured and time spent on. Never will i see a "friend" as a confidante or someone to be trusted with secrets. My view on relationships has changed forever. I see them as they are and i see them for what they are crystal clearly.

An uncle of mine died 2 years ago now from cancer. I visited him, but i never really went out of my way to see him in his final days. I was always too busy. With friends. Socialising. Drinking. Having fun. Like many young people that was the centre of my universe. And it was all a waste of time. They disappeared without trace. Yet my uncle spoke about me just before his death and left me a substantial amount of money in his Will.

I was betting on the wrong horse. And yes, i do feel bad for my priorities at that time.

If only anxiety had hit me 2 years ago and set my priorities right.

No "friend" will ever let me down again because i now know what its all about and how to treat it all.

Anxiety - which i am finally conquering and putting in its place - has taught me a valuable life lesson, and made me a better man. 

Thanks for reading.

[GenSec]

Although - should add to another of my own experiences here!

I have never spoken to my own father and his family in 7 years.... i see them every so often, he has brothers and a sister. My father was abusive towards me and my mother, so i have nothing to do with him.

A few weeks ago i seen his eldest brother. My father's family tend to look very similar, i look almost exactly like my father (unfortunately  ) and his eldest brother looks just like him too.... so the similarity between us (we both have the same hair and both have a moustache) was striking.

I was with an uncle from my mother's family. He does not know my father's family, however he looked at my father's brother and said "he must be related to you he's the spitting image of you and your father" and i told him who he was. As we walked past him, he looked at me, and then visibly turned his back on me.
I used to quite like him, growing up as a child.... however that went out of the window for him when u cut off my father, obviously. Previous til that time, we had gotten along quite well and i had stayed over at his house with his own son at times now long gone.

Sooo..... what i am saying is..... even family in general are not that trustworthy i suppose....
Its just that, in my case, a particular branch of family is trustworthy for me, i can rely on them. However as time goes on, more and more pass away. I am the youngest. They are my safety net i suppose. But a decaying and shrinking safety net. Without them, i would have nobody left worth hanging on for.
And i have no idea how i will be able to continue when the last one leaves me.