A trigger is a strange thing.

In terms of my anxiety, a trigger could be a simple thing that I would manage, deal with and move past for weeks on end. Then, out of nowhere; that simple thing would blow up. Become a hard to manage, impossible to pass situation – that I simply had no way to counter.

The granddaddy of all triggers for me is failure.

Of course you can easily throw in a soupcon of rejection, a dash of change, a mere morsel of overloading – but in the end it all comes back to one thing – the fear of failure.

Episode one, as we will call it to keep things simple – was as much to do with overloading as it was with anything else. I was trying to change jobs, move house, plan for a new baby, and admit I had to reconsider my lifestyle – when BLAM – I’m heavy breathing through a microphone in Accident and Emergency.

At the time I was in complete denial that it could be anything other than a heart attack – looking back it’s clear to see that I was so convinced that every component of my life would fail, that it was hardly surprising that I managed to work myself up in to such a state.

I had doubts as to whether I would be a good enough father for Lauren; whether I would fail her as a dad. Those doubts continued well after she was born. It didn’t help that my head then started to over think implausible, unlikely situations. What if someone walked in whilst I was changing her nappy – what would they think of me with a naked baby – other than it being a normal act of being a father? It got to me so much that I almost had to stop changing her, could never apply nappy cream – it was daft, but the over thinking was really starting to hurt my head.

It took a lengthy chat with Amy, who helped me to understand how ridiculous that all sounded, for me to manage that impossible to deal with situation. Now the only frustration I have is when, like all children, she simply won’t lay still as we try to change her.

Some might find the work situation interesting – a touch ironic perhaps (not my view). I’ve spent most of my working life in change situations. Project management, promotions, business redesign – I am employed, more or less, to guide people from point A to point B, often in a completely new way. I have to educate them on the best approach to take, deal with the pitfalls, but always to embrace change as a means by which to improve.

Apply change to my life, or at least my life past my first period of redundancy, and it is clearly something I have struggled to manage.

I’ve stayed in jobs I didn’t like for far too long for fear I might lose the next one (I’ve been made redundant three times). I eat the same sandwiches for days on end without any consideration for trying something else – I bought the same jeans, the same trainers, the same beer – all because I assumed changed would equate to a negative experience. Why alter from the path of mundanity, when I at least knew what to expect?

The biggest change I struggled to deal with, was that of my social life in the lead up to, and after Lauren was born. I used to be massively in to going to clubs. I often got paid to express my opinion on clubs for DJ Magazine – it would be rare for me to go more than a month without spending one Sunday morning with the tunes blaring, VH1 on in the background – and draining whatever booze we had left in the house, before retiring to bed for the next 24 hours.

Then one night I found myself getting overly twitchy in a club. I asked a DJ a painfully idiotic question – they were polite, but I could see the disdain in their eyes. I turned around to see a couple of mates having a right old good night, but something didn’t sit right. I was no longer comfortable being there. That life was no longer for me. I was a father to be now. Without saying goodnight, I bounded up the stairs, dived in to a cab – physically shaking on the back seat – and left that world behind. I haven’t been back.

But then cold turkey was harder than I thought it would be. Every day I spend about 40 minutes walking in to work. As I do I usually flick through my iPod and load up the latest podcast or CD that reminds me of the good times I had clubbing. At first I could just about make it in to work. Then I had to turn it off after 15 minutes or so. Then just the sound of four beats, four bars would root me to the spot. I was no longer capable of doing something I loved, all because it had such a negative impact on the way I felt. I cleared the iPod of anything remotely upbeat and downloaded factual, historical podcasts instead. Occasionally even the ‘noise’ of those is too much to take.

It did get better. But I needed to find myself somewhere surrounded by old, familiar faces – without Lauren – and a set of decks in front of me, before I could listen to a mix CD again.

But then, weaning myself back on to dance music was positively easy compared to the hardest acceptance of failure I had to deal with at that time – that of losing a game of bowls.

One of the darkest periods of my life with anxiety came on a slip road used for lorries on the A64 just outside York. I’d just lost a game that seemed impossible to lose. We were so far in front, only Carol Vorderman gave the opposition any hope of getting back in. But then, something went wrong. I went cold, ice cold. My body tensed up, palms became sweaty – my decision making process evaded me. I was near drinking the spray version of Rescue Remedy, overcompensating with my loud, mocking self – anything to deflect from the way i was playing. As is a literal, running theme here – I got off the green and in to my car as quickly as I could. I drove for about five minutes, then, realising I might not be in the right state to carry on – pulled over, got out and took countless deep breaths.

I got back in the car. I went to start the engine, but instantly found myself beating the steering wheel. Not once, but a number of times – not softly but with as much power as I could muster. It was only when I hit the horn that I realised exactly what I was doing.

That whole episode taught me one important lesson. I may not have beaten my opponents on the bowls green that night, but it was clear I had a bigger battle to win if I was ever going to happily set foot on the green, change a job, change a nappy or play an Essential Mix ever again.

This fear of failure couldn’t go on.

Image: Trigger from Only Fools and Horses

The next three connected posts – planned to run over the next three days – are about a subject that is, quite literally (Jamie), close to my heart; anxiety.

The first, connected, will try to give an understanding of how I came to accept I had to deal with my anxiety. The second, disconnected, will give an insight in to the root causes of my anxiety. The final piece, reconnected, will shed some light on how – I hope – I’ve learnt to identify and manage the times when the feelings of anxiety begin to take a hold.

It’s not something I find easy to write about. It’s not something I necessarily care for others to know about – but if this blog is about me, and my life, it seems wrong not to mention it. Even if I then choose to delete these posts sometime down the line. Ah well, here goes:

It’s been two years since my last episode.

The first person I went to see about my condition told me not to refer to them as panic attacks. He said they were more anxiety episodes, as though by softening – almost rounding the edges – it would make it easier to tackle.

I didn’t really get anything from those sessions.

I can vividly remember the last episode, for want of a better word then. I was sat in work, minding my own business, lost in my thoughts – which were clearly, wholly negative – and I felt what can only be described as a captain’s armband of pain grip my upper arm. I felt dizzy. My mouth was dry and my heart was racing. I was, at least I told myself I was, having a heart attack.

This was my third heart attack that week.

I quickly got up from my desk and ran to the door of the office; gasping for air – palms sweating so much that I struggled with the door knob. I thrust my hand in my pocket and took out my phone. I called Amy and told her I had to rush home. I had to see her. Only she could save me.

I didn’t tell anyone from work where I was going. No one would have cared anyway.

I near ran, for I can’t run with my knee – nor would I dare to run mid-heart attack – to the car. When I got there I saw someone had smashed in to one of our wing mirrors. That was my fault. Ours was the only damaged vehicle in a row of cars, but I had clearly parked in such a way that only I could be blamed for the smashed mirror. I went in to a rant. It was a rant at me more than anything. All the time I am still on the phone to Amy. Who was looking after Lauren – barely a month old at this time.

I got home. Checking for FBI helicopters as I drove (oh wait, no – that’s Goodfellas). When I got home I rushed to Amy, who was still holding Lauren, and sought instant salvation – from my heart, my head; my fears. I think I then went to bed, exhausted – as only nervous energy can wear you out.

I knew at that point that I needed extra help.

The episodes started shortly after I found out I was going to be a dad. It wasn’t just the fact I was going to have a child, but it was the last of a number of factors that seemed to push my mind in to the “precipice of doom” (I am prone to exaggeration). I had just agreed to buy a new house. I was changing jobs, but not one that made me feel any less of a failure than I did at the time. I’d stopped with most of the writing I was doing, and then – even after months of planning – the news that I was going to be a dad kind of hit home harder than I thought it would.

I ended up in the Leeds General Infirmary with a shortness of breath, as well as chest and arm pains – all classic heart attack symptoms. They did a few tests – they asked if I drank coffee (not too much), if I had any issues at home (no – though I am moving so which home do you mean?) and whether I was doing anything at the time I noticed the pains (not really – I was just moaning about how much I hated my job).

I went back, almost sheepishly to work. So there was nothing wrong with me I told myself.

As we moved through the months between Episode One and Lauren’s birth, my fear of heart attacks grew on an almost daily basis. I had an episode that made me run in to an Oxfam bookshop. I assumed, logically of course, that only old people go in to Oxfam shops, and as such they would be trained in CPR. I had another episode that meant I stood outside without any shoes on, so that if I did collapse, a passerby would note something had to be wrong – and they could save me. Why I was shoeless is still unclear. I even had an episode at the bottom of the hill that leads up to our house. I called Amy to come and drive me up the 200 yards to home, in the rain, whilst heavily pregnant, as otherwise I’d have stayed there all night.

I was back in the LGI on the day Lauren was due. It was clearly too much for me. They said they wanted to keep me in overnight for observation. Amy refused point blank, telling them she was due any day now. Amy was standing – nine months pregnant. I was sitting, sweating and moaning about my arm band of pain. We laugh about it now.

There was a lot of self doubt during this period – a lot of “oh woe is me” sort of internal and external monologues (I just talked at Amy). I missed a few nights out with friends, unsure I could get through a meal or drink without taking all my clothes off and running amok through the restaurant. I knew I wouldn’t, but then would you take the chance? No – exactly.

There was also a lot of toilet visits. Very little eating (I lost over a stone – which hey, that would help the old ticker) and plenty of (more than usual) moaning.

Which brings us to yesterday.

I wasn’t right in myself. I went to toilet a fair deal. My mouth was dry, my head held in my hands – I was irritable. I wanted to just curl up in a ball and hide from the world, from my family – from my thoughts.

Yesterday was the end point of a number of days. A number of days of moaning, of feeling down – of wanting to get away – of bad coffee and of upper arm tension. It was also the last day of my holiday. The day before I returned to work, a job I enjoy but wonder if – well, I could be doing better?

I thought I was past those sorts of days.

Clearly not – so I did the only thing I thought I could that would help me in that situation.

I cooked a ragù.

Title taken from the lyrics to “Panic” by The Smiths

As I sit here listening to Daphne “Change” (great track by the way, you’ll love it – or at least I will try to encourage you to love it), it’s starting to occur to me that change is somewhat dominating our lives at the moment.

We watch a cartoon called Humf, where the main character this morning proclaimed his sheer delight at the fact he could change his mind on the things he likes. Obviously the lyrics of the record I’m listening to are all about people changing their minds – I even opted for a beer from the fridge, when I had initially gone to the kitchen for a glass of wine before I started to write this.

But then those examples of change are nothing compared to what you are going through right now.

Every day it is as though something happens to flip your whole world upside down – making you do something completely different to how you start the day each morning.

Looking at them in their simplest form, it usually involves an adult telling you that we need to do something that goes against what you actually like doing. Encouraging you to grow up, without actually asking you if that is what you want to do.

In the last week you have moved up a class at nursery. This will undoubtedly mean a change of scenery, key worker, possibly even a change of classmates – though you will know most of them. It will mean leaving behind your familiar play room, the key worker who has always been there to encourage you over the last year; even those friends who haven’t quite reached the age where they can move up.

We as parents have lied to you for the first time (I think?). We’ve taken your dummy away from you – because we feel that at two, you shouldn’t be so reliant on something comforting to get you to sleep. We did this by collecting all your old dummies up and putting them in a bag. Mum then hung them on the outside of the front door. We told you that if they were gone by the time you both went to check – that other babies wanted and needed them more than you. In reality your Mum simply went out, took them out of the bag and threw them away. I don’t doubt that it will be the only time we ever use such a tactic, but it’s still something new to us; a change to the way we parent.

You’ve recently moved from a cot to a bed. This has been a massive change, as it enables you to exert some control over how you go to bed. Previously we’d give you a bottle, a dummy, put you in your cot and you’d be contained – seems a better word than trapped – until you really wanted to get up in the morning. Now you just get out of bed, open your door and let us know exactly how you feel about being stuck in your room. If it’s still night time, then we have to come and sit on your floor and wait for you to be ready – this change affects us all.

On top of all of that, we are also in the process of potty training you. This change will mean we no longer have to change you – a double change then. You will soon be able to go to toilet just as big girls do – being a big girl is important to you. It’s a difficult process. You don’t always go where you should – often behind the curtains – but your command of when you want to go is improving.

This may seem like a lot for you to be going through at one stage, but then it’s clear to me that this is just the start. We’ve night time bottles to get rid of; new likes and dislikes that will emerge. There’s another class at nursery; then there are new schools for you to go to. The biggest change I fear will come from the changes to your body. I think I might need a book to teach me how to explain everything to you properly – that, or hide behind your Mum.

The thing we most want you to understand as you grow older is that whatever changes do happen, you do not approach them on your own. Mum and I have both been through a lot of change – school, work, where we live and who we have in our lives. Just talk to us, open up to us – we are here to reassure you that nothing is set in stone. If you don’t like something – you have the power to change it; just as we have. We wouldn’t know each other had we not changed something – so plenty of good does come from new beginnings. It’s not all about lost dummies and wet carpets.

You even forced us to change.

Before you there was one life; after you were born, a completely different one. Yes we still do a lot of the same things we did before you were born, but very little matters as much as you. You were a change worth embracing, and we are grateful that you gave us the opportunity to change.

But with all of this talk of change, be sure in the knowledge that our love for you will never alter; no matter what arguments we may have, how you may feel you are being punished or even when we are being “unfair”. Our love will remain our one true constant to you.

That feeling will never change.