Caroline Foran

Like it's like you've lost your skin.

Yeah.

And you are so vulnerable to light, to like sounds, to all the sensory input, which feels threatening.

And your body just wants to shut down and be safe.

And it's again, I thought this this anxiety has taken me over.

It's attacking me.

But actually, it was me trying to protect myself when my nervous system was so fraught and so overdone.

But because I didn't understand that, I made it 10 times worse because I was so hard on myself and I thought this is like, what is this thing about you?

Like you're a disaster.

So losing that perception helped me overcome it.

But I remember in Dundrum having a panic attack and then

just thinking like, what does this say about me?

And I, worse than the panic attacks was the aftermath and how I would treat myself after where I would be so like, look how bad you are.

Like, look where this, look how bad you can't, this is evidence of how not okay you are.

Look at all your friends are fine.

You are not for this world.

You are not

able to you were not meant to be here like I had all these horribly intrusive thoughts of like negative self-talk so yeah something must have been wrong when I was born they missed something like yeah like I started to think like I was just a bit broken or like just out of step with everyone else and all of that was the anxiety fueling those thoughts but like I say it was it was the fear of the fear I was so frightened of when I'd feel it and I felt it all the time but then there was times when it would be so acute like a bomb going off in my body

And I wouldn't have to be anywhere for that to happen.

I could be sitting on my sofa at home.