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Andy's Story - His Anxiety, Panic Attacks And His Recovery

Andy is a part-time singer with a band - with full-time aspirations!

"Oh, it was always my dream to be in a band. My parents say I started singing before I could talk. I'd just wail along to songs on the radio! They couldn't make a single word out and said it sounded awful!"

At school, Andy loved music and excelled on the piano. But it was the electric guitar that was his real passion.

"I got my first Fender when I was seventeen and haven't bothered with any other instrument since. I was playing in bands from age fifteen and never really spent any time studying. Music was, and is, everything to me."

Everything was fine until Andy became anxious.

"I wasn't aware I was anxious for a long time. I suppose at first I just put stuff down to my being a bit superstitious. Silly things really, like I'd tell the guys in the band that we had to perform the songs in a certain routine or set the stage out in a set way. Otherwise I'd think the night would go wrong in some way. Pretty soon, it was getting out of control."

Andy began falling out with other members of the band, who were becoming frustrated with his increasingly restrictive working patterns.

"Looking back, having left the band, I feel bad that I may have cost them their chance. But it wasn't me really. I mean I wanted the band to work as much as any of them. It's just that I didn't always appear to be 'on side' with them. They saw my behavior, the results of my anxiety but not the anxiety itself. They couldn't understand why I was being so obstructive, but I wasn't. I was just coping."

Andy admits his behavior led to the band's break up.

"It all began fairly innocently just superstitions we all shared. You know, the A&R scout from a label won't come if we don't open with that song or repeat that mantra. Just band stuff! But before long, I was demanding we only perform a set routine or set the stage out a certain way, even getting to gigs along a certain route. And if we didn't, I ended up getting anxious. I was really controlling to the outside world, but inside I was constantly terrified."

By this stage, Andy was no longer being simply superstitious. He was anxious - suffering three or four panic attacks a day.

"They were the most frightening things I'd do anything not to have them. I felt so ill, I was convinced something was physically wrong with me. But I was in denial. If there was something wrong, I didn't want to know!"

Andy hid his panic attacks from his friends, believing he had them under control.

"They could see something was wrong with me, but so long as I felt in control, I just remained in denial. I wasn't ever in control. I just pretended to myself that if I did this or that, that I was somehow managing it. Looking back I know I was just feeding my anxiety by pandering to it. It's like the more you do to try to control it, the harder it becomes."

Andy admits to using drugs, both medically prescribed and recreational ones.

"Drugs are part of the scene and yes, I was smoking marijuana. It made me feel more relaxed, well, for a short time at least. Eventually I was prescribed medication for depression. Far from feeling in control, I felt worse. The drugs affected everything my appetite, my sleeping, my sex drive, even my interest in music. I knew something was wrong with me and seriously wrong with my life but I felt that if I could stop that next panic attack, I was in control."

However, it wasn't until Andy was kicked out of the band that he decided something had to be done.

"I was devastated. It was a really bad time for me. The anxiety had reached the point that I was getting affected by crowds and by traveling and by meeting new people. And it was just no good for the band. I didn't blame them. How could I? I was totally controlling, obsessive. I was dead wood. But when I realized how little control I really had over my life, well, that's when I went looking for help."

Andy discovered The Linden Method by searching on the Web.

"Charles' story really struck home. So much of what he had to say sounded like my life. I read about his OCD and realized I had been showing signs of having it for years, but I just never knew. Suddenly I had a label for it. All the other signs of my anxiety, the superstitions, the mantras, the avoidance, the agoraphobia, they all just clicked into place. It was only then that I realized that everything was down to my anxiety. It was a massive relief."

Although he had been treated by conventional medicine for depression, Andy realized that he wasn't physically ill in any way.

"Charles explained to me over the telephone well, actually over many phone calls, that I wasn't suffering from any physical illness. I'd just convinced myself that I was. This led me to become ever more anxious and it was just a vicious cycle. The worse you feel, the worse it gets."

Andy began practicing the Method and noticed changes within a couple of days. After two months he was fully recovered.

"When I was anxious, I'd felt like my life had hit a wall. With every added symptom, every panic attack, every fear, it was like another brick was added to this wall and it was getting bigger. So then as my anxiety got worse, so the wall got bigger. My reaction to that over the years had been to build a bridge to get over this wall. Each time I learnt some kind of controlling mechanism was another step up, higher and higher as the wall got bigger and bigger. But I never managed to get over that wall!

The Linden Method tells you to do away with the wall all together! Forget it! Instead of building a bridge across the top, and spending all that time and effort on this wall, just get rid of it. As soon as this clicked, a whole lot of stuff fell into place. I realized I'd spent years waking up frightened and looking for ways to manage my day ahead. But once the anxiety's gone, there's no need to avoid this or repeat that. I was in control of my life again well as much as anyone can be!"

Twelve months down the line, Andy has joined another band, part-time and showing none of the symptoms of his anxiety.

"I'm having a breeze! And I know now that you don't have to be in control all the time to be happy!"