By BEN CAMERON
FOR the first 20 years of her life, Pakenham’s Jacinta Heyne felt mostly scared, anxious, a little crazy, often alone.
“For all of my life I was labelled as the ‘sook’ or the ‘emotional’ one,” she said.
“No-one took the way I was feeling as a genuine feeling. They thought I was putting it on or crying for attention.”
However a routine check-up finally provided some answers.
“It wasn’t until I went to the doctor for a routine check-up that she picked up how anxious I was,” she remembered.
“I was around 20 years old. A terrified 20-year-old who was about to be told that she had anxiety.
“I had no idea what anxiety was.”
Turns out it was something she was feeling “24 hours a day, seven days a week”; in fact, she discovered she’d never experienced what “normal” felt like.
“The doctor told me on a scale of one to 10 my anxiety was around an eight,” she said.
“I thought that the fear I lived with daily was normal and I thought that how emotional I was, was also normal. Apparently not.”
The breaking point came when she had her first anxiety attack.
“I thought I was dying,” she said.
“My heart was racing, I felt dizzy, I had pins and needles down my arm – all the symptoms of a heart attack.
“Because my anxiety is based on my fear of being sick or dying, this only made it worse. I couldn’t calm down.”
She began to have panic attacks regularly.
“I went to the doctor insisting I was dying and she would reassure me I was fine and send me on my way,” she said.
“She tried many times to medicate me but I was too scared to take the tablets.
“I didn’t want to get addicted and I certainly didn’t want to take tablets every day. Daily my heart would palpitate, I wouldn’t be able to breathe, I would get dizzy and I often felt sick.
“Headaches weren’t uncommon to me and I now have teeth, gum and jaw problems from clenching my teeth so tight every day and night.
“I thought I was going crazy. I felt alone and I was scared.”
Luckily, she confided in a friend, who put her in touch with another friend who also suffered from anxiety.
“Finally, someone was able to relate to me and I no longer felt alone,” she said.
“I have my ups and downs but I have since gone on the medication to keep my anxiety at bay and I am feeling a lot better than I was a couple of years ago.
At first she was embarrassed about taking medication to treat her condition.
“I didn’t tell anyone as I didn’t want people to think I was a ‘fruit loop’ or a ‘mental case’,” she said.
“Until I realised that there were people out there that were going through what I have been going through and felt alone because people that suffered from the same thing weren’t open and honest about it.”
Sadly, she recently lost an uncle to depression, after he took his own life late last year.
“I had no idea someone who could be such a larrikin was really suffering so hard on the inside,” she said.
“My heart aches for his sons and to watch his siblings say goodbye to their brother is something I often shed a tear over.
“Then there is my nan, an elderly lady that has had to bury her son that she cries for daily. No family should have to experience this.”
But through all the heartache has come something tangible and positive, with Jacinta planning a major event, The Blue Ball, to be held in the city later this year.
Its chief goal is to raise awareness about anxiety and depression, where people can dress up in blue, let their hair down for the night but also talk about their problems with people that understand.
“There is not enough education and support about anxiety and depression and there are far too many people who think remaining quiet is the way to go about it,” she said.
“We need to let others know they aren’t alone and try to help others understand just how serious this is!
“It is not something you do for attention. It is not something you can just turn on and off.
“If you can control it, that is amazing, but most of us have no idea how to.”
To donate to or help sponsor The Blue Ball, contact Jacinta on jacinta.heyne@gta1.com.au
