I know you’re thinking “How on earth can anyone fail at grief!” Of course you are absolutely correct and in fact the one truism that I learned on this journey is that the only right way to handle grief is your way. I believe it…really I do….but then that nasty illness called ‘anxiety’ finally beat me.

I am a ‘Type A’ personality and I don’t handle the whole failure thing very well at all. 🙂 It was 6 weeks after my husband was killed in that tragic accident at the gliding club.

Read: The Day My Heart Broke

I was doing the best that I could just getting through each day the best way I could. I was taking sleeping tablets every night as otherwise I just stayed awake all night wandering around the house, and this quickly left me exhausted…so I took the sleeping tablets.

I was still determined to do this whole grief thing cold turkey though, and despite encouragement from my doctor, I refused to take the anti-depressants that she recommended. I would manage. Somehow.

Then one night I was lying in bed when I felt a sharp pain in my chest. I felt sweaty and shaky, and despite trying numerous positions I couldn’t escape the pain. Was I having a heart attack? I really thought I was. My thoughts turned to my kids who had just lost somebody important in their lives and I thought “They can’t lose me too.” I was genuinely scared that I was going to die.

“Panic attacks are typically experienced as time-limited episodes of intense anxiety. The effects of stress can accumulate slowly, and a person is unlikely to be aware of the extent of their stress until a panic attack occurs.“

Justin Kenardy: Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Queensland

But sometime during that awful night the sleeping tablets must have kicked in and I fell asleep….and I was still alive in the morning. I rang my daughter (who suffers anxiety) and she said “Mum, you had a panic attack.” I argued though “No, it wasn’t a panic attack as the pain was absolutely real and so intense!” She laughed…”Yes, a panic attack brings real physical pain.”

Well, that was new to me! I’d been supporting her anxiety for a decade or more and I’d never known that it brought actual physical pain. I always thought that it was ‘real’ in one’s mind…but it wasn’t actual pain. It was a revelation for me.

It should have stopped there but over the next few days I was clearly in trouble. I felt physically shaky and ‘strange’ so didn’t want to drive, and I was terrified of having another panic attack. So one truly awful day when I was lying on the outdoor lounge and felt like I couldn’t move, I called my doctor and made an appointment.

She prescribed anti-depressants…..and I took them.

I felt like such a failure at the time…like I wasn’t able to handle life without help from medication. The doctor did try to placate me and assured me that I was perfectly normal and definitely not a failure….but I still felt so bad about myself. I felt I was weak and lacking in resilience.

Fast forward 12 months and even though I’m feeling differently. I look back at what I’ve been able to achieve in a year….how far I’ve moved forward in creating a life for myself….and I know that I couldn’t have done this without drugs. Good grief…back then I was so bad I couldn’t drive, couldn’t have a sensible conversation and was terrified of having another ‘heart attack’!

So I’ve come to terms with the fact that I needed to take drugs to be able to manage the grief. If it was just the intense mental anguish of losing my husband I would have managed, but the debilitating symptoms of anxiety meant that I would not have been able to do what it has taken to feel like I’m living again. It sounds like I’m justifying it all doesn’t it…and possibly I am….but I’ve come to terms with what happened and I’m beginning to build a new life for myself.

I have begun to wean myself off….14 months after starting them. I intend to take it ever so slow, but I think I’m ready to go it alone. No ‘heart attacks’ yet! 🙂

Has anyone else had a similar experience with anxiety and grief? Drop a comment below as I’d love to hear from you.

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Marlene is an Australian widow who has written about all the good, bad and ugly stuff that happened after her husband Norbert died tragically. Marlene responds to all comments.