Anxiety is ruining my life

[Idstain]

Have you read claire weekes' books ? They are an absolute godsend and will explain what is happening with you and how to get better

[Lb23]

Hello, I found this thread 8 months ago and was so happy to find people who have experianced the same things. At the time I was suffering from lots of the things other people describe here. I felt like I had another person inside my head, shouting negative thoughts about my relationship with my boyfriend even though I was happy with him.

My previous relationship ended slowly and painfully, I felt very guilty for not ending it sooner. When I started seeing my current boyfriend suddenly all the guilt and aniexty re-appeared, even though it didn't seem to have anything to do with him. He was very supportive and persuaded me to go to the doctor. Something that I wouldn't have done by myself because I didn't think I had an illness. I went along and was referred to a Cognative Behavioural Therapist who diagnosed me with GAD. I also read Claire Weekes' book 'Self Help for Nervous Illnesses' which talked about lots of the same things as my counseller (although in parts is a little outdated) and was a great help.

When I first began the CBT it was very hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel, I felt like I didn't live in the world with other people. My mind never rested and I was exhusted from being constantly anxious and incredibly detached from other people (particularly my boyfriend). But as I've gone on with the course and started to recognise the symptoms of GAD my life has improved hugely. I can enjoy ordinary things again and live in the moment rather than constantly feeling sick and anxious.

I didn't want to post on this thread until I felt I could give other people hope that they could overcome the same problem. I'm not saying my anxiety is gone entirely, I still feel anixous sometimes but i'm able to manage it far better and recognise it for what it is.

It's improved to the extent that i'm moving in with my boyfriend and very excited to being doing so! I'm alert for the anxiety that will definately appear with this new challenge but I think I can deal with it. I would urge anyone with symptoms of anxiety to visit their Doctor and talk to people around you who you trust.

[Wolfy18]

Let me just say that it is a relief that the feeling that I am feeling right now is not what I thought it was. I am having the same exact problem right now and its really destroying me. I am slowly getting better but sometimes it feels like I dont even love him and as you said, the "what if?" questions pop up. Its really good to know that some of the people on here have had the same problem I am having and are still with and in love with the person they had a doubt about. My boyfriend is amazing and has stood by me during this, even when I told him that I didnt know if I loved him anymore. I know for a fact that I do but my brain is telling me I dont. I was reading these and now I know that what I am thinking is a complete figment of my imagination and hopefully I will get through it just like you all have.

[rosebud1984]

Hi guys. I just came back on here as my relationship anxiety has returned, and I was scanning through the posts, read the preview to this post, thought 'that sounds exactly like me', clicked on it & saw it was my original post from 2006 ha ha!! It's weird how this is a place we all return to when we slip up again. It seems that anxiety will never leave us completely - we can go for years feeling absolutely fine & then bam! It hits you again out of the blue. But I just want to let you know that despite my relationship anxiety returning there is a happy ending out there for all of us. Yes, you will get through it, yes I did I am happy to report!, & I know I will again. It actually made me cry to read some of my original posts from 2006, to see how helpless I felt. And I just want to share with everyone of you who was so supportive to me when I was so down that me & my bf are still together. In fact, he is now my husband!!! We got married last August So to those people who posted on here in the past year, wanting to know if you can get through it, the answer is yes you can. It will pass. You have to fight it. You have to never give up. You have to be pro-active in using anti-anxiety techniques & you have to be vigilant for those warning signs that tell you you're slipping down that spiral of anxiety and/or depression again. I do have anxiety again, hence why I found myself on here again, but I have gained a lot of hope just coming back on here & seeing how far I've come. I want this to be a post of hope, so I'll leave my current 'panics' to another time. It's made me smile being able to tell you guys that I did get through it & knowing that he's now my husband! It just goes to show that deep down we know our feelings are true & we should ignore those irrational thoughts that panic us so much. So never give up guys. That's how you beat it

xxx Rosebud xxx

[thomasg90]

Hello I have been suffering from anxiety with my biggest worry being everything relating to my girlfriend who I have been with for a year and a half now. She is perfect for me, I had been going through some tough things in life (lost my job and struggling on a college course) and she has made me happy and has changed everything in my life, I dont ever want to lose her, hurt her or let her down in any way.

I have been feeling all the feelings that you all have listed eg all the what if's, no sleeping, no eating and worst of all for me - doubting whether I love my girlfriend .. Which I know I do an undescribable amount. Im only 20 but we have a mature relationship and are both confident we are meant to be together, which at times makes me worry more incase I keep telling myself stupid things like we aren't meant to be together or something along those lines.

The worries seem to come and go whenever they feel like it. The other night they were so bad I had to wake my mum up at 3am to come and sit with me because I was worrying, crying and telling myself stupid things which are not true! Reminded me of when I was a little boy being sick through the night !!

My gf is an absoloute star and the last thing I want to do is ruin the perfect relationship we have. We have a perfect understanding of each other and always make each other happy. She has full time college aswell as working about 32-36 hours a week so this makes it hard to see her as much as I'd like even though we only live about 3 miles from each other.

I have been trying to fight these stupid thoughts, but after about a week I decided to have a look on websites to see if anyone else has these feelings and Im glad (as mean as it is) that some people feel the same!

I only discovered this week that my dad and cousin have had a bit of anxiety before over various things and that my nana had it quite bad in later life.

Reading these previous posts has made me feel better I think. I read that some people were having therapy, I am thinking about contacting my doctor about having this arranged for me.

The things Iv been experiencing are : vomiting, upset stomach, no apitite (when I manage to eat, not always kept down), no sleeping for days, no desire to be in the company of my friends (dont want to be on the phone to them or be in any sort of contact, which is strange for me), light headedness and panic attacks - finding it harder to breathe.

As a result of the anxiety I have missed a big chunk of important college work and a good few shifts at my part time job as I dont feel comfortable being at either of them. This adds to my thoughts and makes me worry further about stupid things. I know Im smart enough and will hopefully catch up this work as fast as possible.

As a result of being silly and worrying about my girl, I have been starting to stress about growing up such as losing people close to me, job prospects, families and so on. So so so stupid I know but im sure some people will understand that?

If anyone has anything to ask/say feel free the give me a private message or anything.

thanks
thomas

[mynameis]

Hi Thomas, I'm so sorry you are feeling like this. If you look through my previous posts, you'll probably notice it's a bit of a rollercoaster of despair then hope, then a step backwards, then forwards etc etc. You'll probably be disappointed to hear that it's unlikely to be a quick fix. However, it can be managed and pushed firmly into the background. I'd advise you to start at the very beginning in terms of trying to deal with it. As you've discovered, you're not alone. Next (if you haven't already), tell somebody, even if it's your GP. Try to ensure though that you have an understanding GP. I've had to resort to counselling where I am now, but it was much better than the CBT I underwent back in England. So, counselling can be useful, but again, only try to use a recommended therapist. Don't feel shame, you've seen the numbers here, and how many more are out there who don't know they're suffering with it ?

It's so tragic that this is happening to you while you are doing your college work, as distraction and occupying myself did wonders for me. With a part-time job and college work to do, it doesn't seem like you'll have much time to spare. You will develop your own coping skills in time, of that I'm sure. Some methods here may be easy to say, but not easy to do. But see what works for you, and take little steps. Even a change in routine might make a difference. My first counselling session taught me to do one thing a day differently, but just for myself. Instead of worrying constantly about other people, I put myself first for the first time in decades. I've got to admit, I worried at first that I was neglecting others, acting almost selfishly. Right now, I don't plan, I just do. Whether it's just calling in to see my wife at work, or dropping in to see a friend, or just simply stopping by a cafe for a cup of tea, I now don't have a routine. I'm not in that cycle of work, food, bed. Some nights, I don't even switch on the television. Not earth-shattering, but those little changes keeps my brain ticking over, and stops me falling into a rut.

All those things you feel are anxiety. With the right treatment, you can almost feel as if it isn't there. To do that, share with somebody hopw you feel. If you feel uncomfortable, talk about it in a 3rd person scenario to get some feedback from others. My very first coping mechanism was 3 things 1) Realise it won't kill me. 2) Understand that it will pass. 3) You will go back to normality.

If you do need medication, again there's no shame. Habit-forming tablets are a nightmare, but if there's no alternative, then so be it. Long serving members on this board will probably have been on these types of tablets, and no longer are. I'm one of them. We do what we have to do. After all, why suffer ?

I'm confident you'll get better, simply because you've reached the all-important first stage; admitting you've got a problem. It took me years to realise, and oh how I wish this board was here back then.

It's hard to be confident when you feel so fragile Thomas, but you've got a lot of things going for you. An understanding girlfriend and mother for starters, and at times like this, they're worth their weight in gold. There will be bad times, but believe me when I say there will be more good times. Good luck, and take comfort from the moderators on here. They've walked in your shoes and are now in a position to help people like you & I.

[lot84]

Hi,

It's such a relief to read this particular post. I've had anxiety for years now but it's recently come back worse than ever. Up until last week i've been really quite fine, still anxious but controllable then i woke up in the middle of the night with a massive panic attack. I was ok again then as I rationalised it and was relatively fine. A week later the best thing happened that i've been wishing for for years and my bf proposed. It was a complete shock as I wasn't expecting it but I was happy and said yes. Ever since though i've just started analysing every feeling that I have towards my bf - am I feeling happy enough about the proposal? do i love him enough? how much are you supposed to love someone to know your ready to get married? should i be arranging everything straight away or waiting? if i wait does this mean i don't love him?

Even reading this sounds ridiculous as I know I love him, we've been together for years and live together and i've never once doubted my feelings for him, he's always been the constant through all my ups and downs which is why I think i'm panicking so much. My friends are always so jealous because we get on so well and I never have any mixed feelings about him. All i've been saying for the last few years is how i'd love to marry him and properly settle down with him so why am I suddenly getting these intrusive thoughts?!

Sorry, i've gone on a bit but i've never had anxiety this bad - i'm not sleeping, can't eat and am trembling constantly because I can't get these bad feelings towards my boyfriend to go away even though I know there not how I really feel. It's bad as i'm now at the point of being in a constant state of panic and thinking that i'll have to leave him as it's not fair on him to be having these thoughts. It's making me cry just thinking about it.

As a bit of history, my biggest struggle has been intrusive thoughts but I thought i'd finally learnt how to deal with them with the 'it's just a silly thought' method. This one seems completely stuck though, I think it's because of the pressure of the marriage proposal perhaps as I feel that I have to be really happy right now which in turn makes it worse when I have a bad thought and i'm in a constant cycle of questioning.

Any advice would be appreciated - I just want to feel myself again.

[thereisalight]

Hi everyone,

What a relief it is to have found this website, this forum, and this thread!

I am in the same situation as all of you. I felt that I was looking down a big black hole of worry, stress, depression, that I was hurtling towards something I didn't want - breaking up with my fiance.

Okay, so this will be a long post, but it's all relevant, so grab a cup of tea and settle down...

I have been with my fiance for 5 years this month, and we have been engaged for a year. He is the only man I have ever been with. We have a wonderful relationship - he is everything that I have ever hoped for in a partner, and he makes me feel so loved and cared for every second of the day. We had a rocky start because there is a 19 year age gap between us (he's 46, I'm 27), which bothered my dad very much. My dad is only a year older than my partner. Anyway, we got past the hard times with my dad and things are wonderful. My partner was married previously and has 2 boys from his previous marriage. This used to make me very jealous and sad. How on earth could marriage the second time be as special for him? He had a vasectomy when he was married, and we have now booked a reversal operation in the hope we will be able to have our own child. I used to think that he would not be as excited to have a third child, and this made me feel very down. I have since got over these feelings and moved on, although it did take me a good four and a half years!

Last September, an old school friend of mine got in touch with me through Facebook. We had been friends when we were 14 and, back then, I'd had a huge crush on him. We would hang out, and swap books, but he never asked me out because I wasn't one of the pretty and cool girls - that was his type - but we were friends. When he got back in touch, he was very down. I asked what was wrong, and he said that he had testicular cancer, and a brain tumour. He also said that his girlfriend had just left him because she could no longer deal with his illness. I felt absolutely awful for him, and so we arranged to meet up. I'm a member of a choir, and I convinced him to join in an effort to cheer him up. We would meet before choir, go to the pub for tea and a chat, go to choir then we'd go our separate ways after. We only saw each other on choir days, but we did text each other a lot. Over time, his texts to me became more flirty, then suggestive. I do not remember actively flirting back, however I knew that by texting him I would at some point hear something from him that would make me feel good about myself. He told me he liked me, that he wished we could be together, that he should have never let me go at school. It got to the point where I thought I might actually like him back. I realised that I didn't, and so I told him that we were just friends, that I love my fiance and that the texting had to stop. My school friend then got very upset, said he loved me, videod himself singing lovesongs to me. Although the attention made me flattered, I never wanted anything more from him. It eventually stopped. I didn't tell my partner about it at the time because we have a view that to flirt is to cheat - I felt that I had cheated my fiance. Eventually, my schoolfriend gave me a cuddly toy and I had to tell my fiance that my friend had given me a toy because he liked me a bit - a very condensed version of the story, but I didn't want to hurt my fiance. Since then, my schoolfriend has moved to another county and his illness has gone away. (I also discovered along the way from a friend of his older brother that he was not telling the truth about being ill - he was making it up. I never confronted him about it, but when I asked him questions about his treatment he would get defensive and angry, which was proof enough for me he was lying.)

I thought that that was the end of it. But then, at the beginning of May, it came to hit me like a tonne of bricks again. I beat myself up over it for weeks - how wrong I had been to enjoy attention from another man, how wrong I was not to tell my fiance everything at first, how on earth could I have questioned I might want someone else. I told my fiance everything. He wasn't angry with me. He said that there is nothing wrong in asking your heart a question. He said that perhaps I should not have let the texting go on as long as I did (2-3 weeks), but that I've learned from that now. I searched for advice from friends who are in long-term relationships, and a friend of mine who has also only ever been with her boyfriend. They told me it is completely normal to find other people attractive, to have a bit of a flirt, to wonder about another person, as long as you don't want anything more to happen. My one friend called it her "Wild Oats" side! Even though I had been told I had done nothing wrong, and that I had been forgiven, I couldn't shake the feeling that I have done something so so wrong, as if I had actually had an affair. I came to realise that I was over-thinking the new friendship with my schoolfriend, that I needed to realise that it was just a friendship that was beginning to get out of hand, and not an affair, or even semi-affair.

Then, just as I thought that I was getting over it last week, I looked at my fiance and this thought just went through my head: "I don't love you". As simple as that. And then I felt as if my heart broke right inside my chest. My stomach turned, knotted. Each time I look at him I feel intense guilt. Guilt that I do not love him, that I do not deserve him, that I do not love him enough, guilt that I think I should leave him, guilt at how it would break his heart, guilt that if I stay with him he is not free to be with someone who truly loves him. I have been off work sick these past three days and sometimes it's all I can do to even look at a photograph of him, or his pyjamas lying on the bed! I feel as if I am hurtling towards breaking up with him, and I have all these imaginary conversations with him in my head where we do break up.

Now, I know that this is all wrong. I went to the doctors yesterday and have been prescribed Citalopram and counselling, which starts next Friday. I know that you cannot wake up one morning and suddenly be out of love with the man you have adored, worshipped for 5 years, if nothing has gone wrong between you. It is as if my brain will not let me forgive myself for the flirty friendship with my schoolfriend. My fiance hasn't changed, and the only thing that has changed in me is the fact that I feel like I am an adulterous cow for enjoying some attention from, and texting, another man and questioning whether I wanted more from him. These feelings of guilt have affected me physically as well as mentally. My mouth is always dry, so I drink lots of water and, inevitably, have to go to the loo lots, my stomach is always churning, sometimes it feels as if my heart absolutely races in my chest, my palms sweat, I struggle to take a proper breath, I get incredibly hot, I have trouble sleeping and I don't eat anything like I used to. I also no longer get enjoyment from the things I used to love, like going to choir.

There is a teeny tiny rational bit of my brain which gets to peep through now and again that tells me I have anxiety at the moment, that the feelings I am experiencing are not my genuine feelings, that it's as if there's a baddie in my head intent on ruining my life. I'm scared that this anxiety has centred itself on the thing I hold most precious in the world, and I want it to stop. I wonder if I feel that I deserve to be punished for my friendship and, because I haven't been, my body has devised this worry that I don't love my fiance enough as an ultimate punishment, which could, without being melodramatic, ruin my life.

I hope that you are all starting to get along a little better. I'll be back with a, hopefully positive, update soon!

[worried 101]

Hi there. Just want to start by saying like many others I was so pleased to find this website and this particular forum, because it sums up my problems perfectly!I have been a very anxious person since I was very young and as I have got older its has escalated and become a very severe mixture of anxiety and depression. I regularly see my doctor and recently it got so bad that my doctor sent the 'crisis team' to my house to help me as she felt it was out of her depth and they have recommended that I up my medication to the highest it can go and also have refered me to the anxiety and depression service that the nhs provide, where I can get one to one sessions and hopefully work on my issues.I also feel that my anxiety is obsessing on my relationship,it felt like it came out of nowhere and no matter how much I try to ignore these thoughts they never seem to go.I have the most wonderful boyfriend, he is kind, funny, talented and basically everything I could ask for in a man and I love him more than anything, but still this doubt seems to creep in to my mind about the relationship. Like you, 'there is a light' my partner was previosuly married and has two lovely girls from this relationship and we also have quite an age gap of 11 years.(I'm 20 and he is 31). I can completely understand your feelings of your partner having done it all before and how it couldnt be as special and its made me so so jealous.My partner could tell me how this wasnt the case till he was blue in the face but I struggle to believe this, most likely because I have no confidence in myself at all. I always feel from the moment that I wake up to the moment that I go to sleep that I have this constant ache of anxiety and feel so bad for my boyfriend, he has been so supportive to me but when I see him I get so nervous because I'm scared of these horrible feelings I get, I feel like I have this voice in my head,my own voice but not me, feeding me all this negativity and doubt and it taking over my whole head to the point where I dont feel like I have control over my thoughts anymore, its so scary and sad and I hate it so much.I feel like whenever anything is good in my life my head trys to destroy it, like its happy when I'm not.I have had similar feelings like this before and managed to get over it, mainly when my partner became a little cooler towrads me because he was obviously feeling confused and hurt about what I had said and then I panicked that I would lose him and sort of snapped out of it.But alot has chnaged since then. we moved in together, maybe a little to fast and right now im staying at my parents to help give us a little space, mainly for him as I am very hard work right now and extremely up and down; with two little girls living there as well alot I would not want to put anything like that on them either it is not fair and they wouldnt understand.
I just wish so much that I could wake up and lose all this anxiety during my sleep, I cant remember the last time that I just felt 'OK'. I would like to say also to 'there is light' that I can also sympathise with your feeling of guilt, but i think it is definetly working overtime!Your partner and your friends are right,and you have to forgive yourself as really you have done nothing wrong.I really like you partners description of 'nothing wrong with asking your heart a question' and its very true. You sound like you have a very strong realtionship but continuing to punish yourself will not help you or your partner. But i know it much easier said than done to get rid of that horrible guilty feeling so perservere and I'm sure that over time you guilty feeling will heal. Basically I know theres no miracle cures for all this but I just thought id write to maybe help others in this situation not to feel alone and also if any one has any advice would love to hear from them.Hope that one day we can all beat this.