The little victories

Okay, I don't know how to start this post off, except by saying this is so thing that is incredibly important to me and after seeing a few chats based around similar experience i found the courage to share my experiences of the mental side effects of long term steroids and the anxiety i suffered as part of it. 

It's become clear to me that steroids seem to attack us where we are most vulnerable, for me I've always had an anxious streak and was prone to panic attacks even before I got NS, I think that's why pred always seemed to bring out that side of my personality. For some people it causes anger and frustration untill they don't recognise themselves, for me it was a longing to feel comfortable in my own head again. 

Like I said anxiety was common for me and I was surprised how well I handled being diagnosed, I brought out a fight in me at first and of course happiness when i first made it into remission. It was my second relapse that saw the worse anxiety, I felt like I was fighting with my own head even when my body was fighting to fix itself, it made everything a lot harder and there was a lot more tears. But the calm came after the storm and somehow (even though of course I still have bad times) I knew at what times the pred would get me at my worst and I managed to tell myself it was just the tablets talking. 

Like I said the anxiety comes and goes and the lower the dose of steroid the better I seem to feel, I don't know if this is true of other people that suffer this side effect? But i think I'm secretly doing a lot better than I think I am, I mean somehow I've got myself to uni and living away from home. I cope with the usually teenage hassles as well as dealing with the ups and downs of living with NS. 

When I see all the shared stories of the journeys people go on with this condition I think sometimes we all need to take a step back and be proud of ourselves for whatever victories we achieve wether they're big or small.