T O P I C R E V I E W
redcatmonster
Member # 90518
posted 12-27-2012 11:24 PM
Hi again. Feels like I've been posting on here more and more often :/ This is probably silly (I really hope it is) but my anxiety is getting the better of me again and I really need to get it out there. My bf of ~15 months is in Alabama visiting his family for Christmas. He left on Sunday and he'll be back on the fourth of January. Every day since Sunday we've been emailing - just little notes about our day, the usual "keeping in touch" stuff. He said he'd probably be able to send one message per day while he was there, and when he said that I assumed that there would probably be a couple days during the two weeks when he wouldn't have time to message me. Fine, totally normal - and up until now I've been receiving about a message per day. Great. So here I am, nine pm on his fourth day away, and I'm shaking and in tears because I haven't heard from him today. He sent me a message at about 6:30 last night and I replied later. I KNOW I'm just being stupid and I know he's fine and with his family and I expect and want him to make the most of his visit. I've had these kind of separation-anxiety attacks before and my worries have never come to pass. I'm just having a hard time dealing with the fact that I can't deal with this. At the heart of it it has nothing to do with my bf, because even before I was in a relationship I would experience these kinds of worries if my parents went on a trip. Now I just feel like a stereotypical crazy, clingy girlfriend and it sucks. I hate that I get so worried about people so easily and for no reason. It makes me angry and sad with myself and I can't get anything done when I get into this kind of state. I'm at the point where I would seek medication for this, but I don't know where to start. Anyway. I just needed to type that out. Thanks for reading.
Robin Lee
Member # 90293
posted 12-28-2012 07:53 AM
HI redcatmonster, How are you feeling today? Can you say some more about what this worry is about specifically? It sounds like you have some kind of fear when your loved ones are far away from you, but I'm not clear on what it is. In terms of treatment for the anxiety, have you ever received any counselling, in general or around the anxiety specifically? There are a lot of anxiety-management techniques a good counsellor can teach.
redcatmonster
Member # 90518
posted 12-28-2012 09:19 AM
Hi Robin, I'm feeling under control today, a bit more rational, but I know I'm not gonna be fully okay until I hear from him. It's hard to pinpoint it as being one thing - I'm worried that something horrible has happened to the person who's away, and when I try to tell myself that if that were the case I would have heard something, I start worrying that maybe it's already happened but no one knows about it, or nobody's cared to contact me about it. Then I worry that nothing's happened, but that technology has failed and I won't recieve a reply or an explanation and I'll be doomed to wait in agony because he doesn't have internet access or something. To a lesser extent I worry that I've been abandoned, that he doesn't want to talk to me, that's he's never GOING to talk to me, even though I have been reassured to the contrary countless times before. So I'm stuck with this paralyzing anxiety that makes me feel physically ill and incapable focusing on anything, or eating or sleeping, and it's just not something that's healthy and I'm getting really really tired of dealing with it. I see other people nonchalantly saying things like "oh, so-and-so isn't picking up their phone" or "so-and-so is late coming home" and then just going back to whatever they were doing, meanwhile my head is buzzing with ways in which so and so has already died in a an awful manner. I've gone in for counselling a couple of times, for a while when I was about fifteen, and a few months ago I saw the counsellor at school (for a one-off appointment.) It helps, I guess, to talk to somebody about it but never in the long term, and I guess I've never felt able to articulate the severity of the problem (for myself)
Robin Lee
Member # 90293
posted 12-28-2012 09:30 AM
HI There, If you're interested in seeking counselling again, I think if you describe what goes on exactly the way you did here, that would give the counsellor a good view of what's going on. What I'm thinking of though isn't for you to just have someone to talk to, but to have them work with you on strategies to calm your thoughts and your anxious reactions.