Most people think anxiety is just stress or overthinking.
They don’t see what happens when it takes over your body, your thoughts, and your day-to-day life.
This isn’t surface level.
This is where everything starts to feel off, nothing makes sense, and you’re left trying to hold it together while losing control inside.
This blog explains what that actually feels like and why it happens.

If you’re new here, I’m Joe Riding. 3 boys, family man, business owner, and everything about what I do is exactly what you see. If you haven’t read my book yet, Turbulence, or seen any of my content, I help driven men get out of the anxiety hell. Why? Because I’ve been there. Not just once, twice. It ripped through my life at 100mph and each day got worse.

Now I get a lot of comments on my ads and my content posts, and I think the reason why mental health and chronic anxiety is so misjudged is because not many people have been to the depths of despair.

I’ll get comments like, it’s screen time, it’s heavy metals, why not fix your exercise and health, or just try manning up to life experiences.

Come and do a day in my shoes. Come to the gym with me. Come start a business with me and try to even compete with my father skills.

I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I work out regularly and eat well. I’m driven, and yet still anxiety crept on me and sent me into complete despair.

This is how it started.

One panic attack from an intrusive thought.

The next morning I was feeling off and questioning if the feelings and thoughts had gone. They hadn’t. This was the start of the hellish journey.

The checking in became daily. That self-analysing became daily.

New symptoms cropped up, to name a few:

Panic attacks
Intrusive thoughts
Memory loss
Feeling like a dream
Paranoia
Insomnia
Loss of confidence
Loss of self-worth
Feeling like this was forever
Feeling weak in my body
Days felt like forever
Time felt unusual

The worst thing…

Doctors had no answers. Psychiatrists were no help. Anxiety help was spent just filling the time slot you pay for.

Now listen, there’s no finger pointing, and I’m not one for saying it’s anyone’s fault.

I found myself here, and I started feeling sorry for myself, and I didn’t have a way out.

Until I got help from a book. (Someone commented on one of my ads a short time ago saying books won’t help. That’s correct if you have that mindset, but I needed change.) At Last a Life from Paul David. Buy that book or buy my book, I don’t care. Both have similar stories. It’s never a sales pitch. My mission is bigger than £14.

Now here’s what the books taught me:

What exactly was happening
How the anxiety loop works
Why fighting this is the worst thing you can do for recovery
That it’s just your nerves that are frayed right now, and once they start recovering, the symptoms start disappearing

You really don’t need more information once you get the answers. Anxiety, forums, Googling, and YouTube become your identity, and we need to:

Allow time for recovery
Build a purpose bigger than anxiety

One message I got recently was:

“COME AS YOU WISH. The only thing anyone’s ever said that’s made sense. You quoted it on a video and it stuck with me and has helped. Cheers mate.”

​If this relates and you are in a very similar situation, you were okay before this happened and you just want your life back, I’d urge you to grab my book Turbulence in the links around this page.