Knots in My Stomach: Coming to Terms with Anxiety

By Andrew N. Bell

From childhood to retirement, this is a life story. An ordinary life story of someone who suffered throughout from anxiety. It is not sad but resolute. It is varied and sometimes funny, as is life itself. Above all, it is an offer of reassurance that if you strive to carry on, despite how you might be feeling, you can emerge a happier, stronger person.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press UK
• Release date: Mar 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781982283285

Andrew N. Bell

The author is retired and lives with his wife in Lincoln after a career in the Civil Service. He is heavily involved with the U3a, which he recommends to all no longer in full employment. He also became involved in community musical drama on retirement, and has performed in a number of highly acclaimed shows.

Book preview

dedicated to all who struggle through the fog of the human condition. May they find the sunlight beyond.

To my wonderful, supportive wife and my family and children. We are stronger together.

And to my lovely grandchildren: go forward with hope, determination and love.

Knots in my stomach

By

Andrew N. Bell

Coming to terms with anxiety

Life can still be fun!

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Copyright © 2021 Andrew N. Bell.

Illustrations by Andrew N. Bell.

Cover design by Nick Peill at House Of Meanwhile

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by

any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system

without the written permission of the author except in the case

of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe

the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional,

or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly

or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information

of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and

spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in

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and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

ISBN: 978-1-9822-8327-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-8329-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-8328-5 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 03/05/2021

CONTENTS

Chapter One Private worlds

Chapter Two Our hill-top world

Chapter Three Time for school

Chapter Four Toughening up

Chapter Five Growing up

Chapter Six Breaking loose

Chapter Seven Pastures new

Chapter Eight A Coventry kid

Chapter Nine Birmingham and beyond

Chapter Ten A new beginning

Chapter Eleven Moving forward

Chapter Twelve More pastures new

Chapter Thirteen Highs and Lows

Chapter Fourteen Promotion

Chapter Fifteen Home again!

Chapter Sixteen Crash!

Chapter Seventeen Where to from here?

Chapter Eighteen Starting again

Chapter Nineteen Moving on

Chapter Twenty And so on……

Chapter Twenty-one Footnote

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Edinburgh 1948

2. Wensleydale

3. ‘Dinkey Toys’ on the Mound

4. Greenock

5. Coventry

6. Birmingham

7. ‘Veronica’ in the snow

8. The Solent

9. Florida

10. Lincoln

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Chapter one

Private worlds

Mum was unhappy.

She was often unhappy, except maybe on that all too rare occasion when something amused her. When that happened, an apologetic little smile would flicker and she would sigh a small titter, half-repressed, and then it was gone. But today she was really down, miserable and anxious for the future.

And why shouldn’t she be? Her life was about to change irrevocably. It was taking her away from her childhood and the safety of all that she knew. She had lived in Edinburgh all her life. It was where her friends were, at school and University. It was a city she knew and loved, full of life and intelligence and art, and now she was being dragged off to a new and unknown place. Married now to a young student doctor, innocent of life beyond the confines of home, she felt dragged off into a post-war unknown. Dragged off so her new husband could find work in the National Health Service now being created. The family were to move down to England, to the depths of Yorkshire, the grey, post-war world of the Dales in the 1940s.

This was no modern journey. It would be hard fought and full of uncertainty. An overloaded pre-war Ford ‘pop’, over hundreds of miles of single carriageway road; prone to breakdowns and overheating. Struggling up hills and racing desperately to overtake when the all too infrequent opportunity presented itself.

Finally a turn-off would lead us uphill. Uphill to an unknown land. No tourists. No colour. With narrow roads, often single track and gravel strewn, until finally we arrived and Mum’s agony was complete.

I remember none of this. I was barely one year old, but Mum’s constant recollections have etched it on my mind.

It starts as a vague sense of unease, a nervous twinge at the base of the spine. A curious tension forms behind the eyes and with it, a frightening sense of not quite being in the real world, as though behind a pane of glass. The chest starts to tighten and beads of sweat start to form on the forehead and temples as unseen fingers clutch at the stomach. You tell yourself to ignore it but by now it is hard to concentrate, and your legs are aching slightly and beginning to feel weak. You pretend that everything is alright but somehow the shape of your mouth has changed and it is difficult to smile. You are on fire and sweat is running down inside your clothes. Now comes the double whammy: you are overcome by a horrifying wave of terror where the future is too frightening to bear, and if that wasn’t enough the pulverising of your stomach turns your bowels to water. You are having an anxiety attack.

Although maybe momentary, these feelings have a terrifying sense of permanence, as though nothing will ever be alright again and no longer will there ever be any pleasure or relaxation. All you want to do is curl up into a ball. Things can stay like that all day. You either lie on the bed and try to shut it out or you wander from room to room, looking for an escape which isn’t there. Alternatively it can lead to a full Panic Attack which is totally paralysing… you think you are going to die. You can’t breathe. You crouch on the ground gasping and your hands start to clench and lock. This is because by now you are hyperventilating in a desperate attempt to get some air into your lungs.

These feelings are with you, to a greater or lesser extent, all the time. You can be busy and distract yourself from them but as soon as you stop and have time for reflection, back they come to spoil your enjoyment. You can learn to live with them. I did. I’ve had them all my life.

So in 1949, when I was one year old, we left Scotland and moved to North Yorkshire, to the Dales.

The Yorkshire Dales, in those monochrome years following World War II, were very different from the tourist destination of today. The roads being narrow, often little more than single track, were slow to travel, making journeys long and tedious and the whole environment was one of remoteness and isolation. As with a scene from Wuthering Heights, my early memory of them is of a world that was grey and rather threatening.

Another first memory is of Weetabix and hot milk, given to me for my breakfast. Even now, the thought of the hot milk makes my stomach heave.

I had been sent to County Durham to give Mum a rest. She was in childbirth with my younger brother and couldn’t cope with me (her words). I was staying with two maiden ladies who must have been friends of the family at that time but I’ve no idea who they were and never saw or heard of them since. I feel sure that they must have been very kind and it is an injustice that at the age of three, they are associated in my mind only with my life-long hatred of that white stuff they gave me for my breakfast.

I am not allergic to it. I love it flavoured or as cream, or on cereal, as long as it is cold enough to have no taste or odour. My dislike comes from some primitive sense of the animal in milk; of life at the breast.

So where was it we had come to? A large and handsome Georgian house, set in several acres of walled garden and by the time I was of an age to enjoy this spacious playground, its former occupiers were living in a bungalow in the grounds and the house was ours. Before that though, my parents had to suffer the torment of living as lodgers, at the behest of my aunt and uncle, whose house it was.

My brothers and I; I was at that time the middle of three, had in many ways, a wonderful childhood. The house we had come to was a palace with rooms to spare. Perhaps it would have been more of a palace for Mum had we not had to share it with Dad’s Uncle and his tyrannical wife who seemed even more grouchy than Mum. But who wouldn’t be grouchy on having to give up the better parts of your lovely home to a pair of strangers and their children and be relegated to an upstairs flat at the back, while a bungalow was built for them in the garden. Children and aggrieved wives don’t see things like that. All I saw was that Dad was working with his uncle and that was all I needed to know.

So here we were with a playroom where gridlocked lines of Dinky cars never wandered from where we left them and a Hornby ‘OO’ landscape stood undisturbed on a large trestle table. We had seemingly endless rooms to explore and get under the feet of inevitable grown-ups and we had that wonderful garden, probably two and a half acres of it, which was forest, prairie, war zone and Wild West to our young imaginations.

Granny and Grandpa (Mum’s parents) had followed us down from Scotland not long after our arrival, and they took up residence in a magical whitewashed Shangri-la up a lane not five minutes from our home. ‘West End House’ it was called, and we went there for tea every Saturday of our childhood. Grandpa would hold sway; part strict authoritarian (we had to be quiet as mice during the football results, while waiting for Dixon of Dock Green) and part comedian (or so he thought). His favourite one liners at mealtimes were ‘Do you ever stop eating?’ or ‘You won’t like it’ at which he would fall about laughing at his own wit, not realizing that it was him we were laughing at! Granny was lovely; the little old granny of everyone’s dreams; grey hair up in a bun and twinkly eyes behind periwinkle glasses. She lavished us with treats like Nestles condensed milk on a spoon (heaven) or Jap Dessert and Lamb’s Tails in a twist of paper which she called a poke. West End was where we went to feel loved.

Home for Mum and Dad, once his Aunt and Uncle had moved next door, must have felt very grand. They ate by themselves in the Dining Room and took tea in their lounge, its bay window overlooking the front lawn with its sundial and rose garden. We, on the other hand, the brats (as we were called in unkind moments) ate in the Kitchen. What made this arrangement possible was Joyce. There had been a predecessor: Cynthia, but I have no memory of her and her tenancy must have been short-lived. For us Joyce was guardian, cook, bath superintendent, comforter, and confidant. She was there for us when we fell and cut ourselves and once at school, there to welcome us home and give us our tea.

Mum and Dad only entered our lives in more than a passing way at weekends; between Saturday Lunchtime and Sunday evening; Joyce’s time off. Time when she returned to the bosom of her parents and 14 siblings (of which she was the youngest) in a nearby village. Saturday was tea at Granny’s (when Dad was usually still working) so Sunday Lunchtime was really our only family time. Sometimes I have happy memories of it: home-made horseradish sauce (the root freshly dug, peppery hot, from the garden), Dad carving huge portions from the joint, pudding with lashings of Chantilly cream (home-made with sugar, milk and butter in a pump). Often, sadly, it was a battleground. Rules had to be obeyed. Knives and forks had to be held correctly and no pudding could be had until plates had been emptied from the first course. I have one very painful memory of sitting alone at the Kitchen table (we only ate in the Dining Room at Christmas) long