Join us for an interview with Lauren and discover how she has been able to manage through her journey with managing Asthma, Anxiety, Depression, and PTSD. This is Lauren’s Healthful StoryTM. Please note that the video may only play in landscape mode on a mobile phone.
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Navigate Lauren’s Journey:
00:11 Introduction
00:18 I’m 29 years old
00:20 Diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder when I was nine years old
00:32 Asthma
00:45 My father is an alcoholic so growing up in a household like that at such a young age really had a big impact on my life
01:25 After a while, I went into a really big depression
01:28 At the age of 13 I had attempted suicide
02:34 I actually wasn’t even diagnosed with asthma until I was 21 years old
02:38 I had been in the hospital so many times for asthma but I didn’t know his ass at the time thinking it was bronchitis
03:51 First they give me a shot of steroids and then they give me a taper of prednisone which is a steroid
04:33 What did that feel like for you to have the anxiety and and when was it to the point that you realized that it wasn’t typical anxiety but it was a condition that needed needed attention
04:55 My stomach would hurt to the point where I could not move
05:09 I was always severely underweight
05:24 It started a lot with actually having anxiety over sleep
05:40 So I would just stay up all night trying to sleep and freaking out and not being able to sleep and the stomach aches just continued to get worse
06:34 So from there they had taken me to a psychiatrist who had diagnosed me with anxiety and it was a relief for me to feel like I had a diagnosis finally because I never know what was wrong… thinking something’s wrong with me
07:10 But the Prozac really really helped me
07:13 It took weeks to work but once it was there it helped me and my anxiety had dissipated a lot
08:47 So when did you realize that there was more than the anxiety and how did the PTSD manifest and could you could you determine what might have caused it
8:55 The PTSD was diagnosed much later in my life
11:26 How many different um episodes of asthma attacks did you experience before getting the formal diagnosis
12:10 I would just hurt my lungs really bad and you mentioned you were going to the hospital every couple of months
12:49 Asthma presents itself in a lot of ways and the way it presents itself in me is I cough a lot and it’s known as an asthma cough and I didn’t know what an asthma cough was
13:56 I went to an allergist in the meantime as they had thought my cough was allergy-related so they had put me on a medication Singular that I was on for 10 years
16:47 I don’t always present wheezing a lot of times I only present wheezing when I’m actually sick
16:52 I get viral infections a lot which triggers my asthma and usually causes me to get bronchitis
20:10 I’ve been going to therapy since I was nine years old so my parents put me straight into therapy even when my dad was going through his being an alcoholic
20:45 I have since moved from Virginia and I have a new therapist and he does CBT therapy which has been really really helpful for me for
21:17 When I was a child she would actually we would just kind of like play she would have a dollhouse out and we would just kind of play together and talk and I would just talk about things how I felt and she would ask me questions on how does this make you feel which made me feel less alone 27:06 Lexapro was the worst medication I was ever put on. I was put on that to deal with panic attacks and severe anxiety and at first it helped a lot but then my thoughts would be racing 24 7 and i couldn’t remember things
31:08 So I only struggled through the years with relationships. I was in a very abusive relationship where I was really dumb and I went off all the medications and I had a plan to kill myself and I ended up in a mental hospital for a week and I kept still trying to contact this guy because I was in this weird relationship where I just couldn’t get away
31:42 So I moved back home from college and I went back to my psychiatrist and I went back to therapy
33:35 It sounds like you’re in a good spot today but it also sounds like it’s a continuous journey meaning every day you have to ensure that you are taking care of yourself as well as taking the medication and doing many other things: the CBT, the journaling to ensure that you are able to be the best you you can be
34:26 I would want to say that if you’re struggling mentally that there’s help out there and that getting that help is going to be so beneficial for you it’s going to make you feel so much better, I know sometimes it’s really hard to ask for help especially if you’ve been on your own so much but when you get that help of therapy it just changes your entire life
36:13 If you have you know chemicals in your brain that are not balanced, that’s not your problem. It’s not your fault but these medications they balance out those chemicals in your brain they make you be able to function so that’s very important
37:16 The notion that as you said in the beginning of this conversation knowing that you’re not alone is such a powerful thing so wanted to thank you so much for taking the time today to share your journey with us