Just gt engaged!...but already the anxiety is overwhelming...please please help me!

[worried 101]

Hey guys.
Ive written on here a few times about my struggles with rocd and anxiety and how ot sent me over the edge a little while ago.
Well i got alot better,not great but improving.now my lovely bf or should i say fiance asked me to marry him yesterday and i said yes.we have been together for four years and i love him so much,but ofcourse the old rocd and anxiety is already kicking in.i am an extreme worrier and straight away the little voice in my head starts telling me horrible things like,you wouldnt feel this anxious if you really loved him and just all these nasty thoughts.
Ive been sobbing all day yesterday as felt so terrible and just feel so bad for my partner as althpugh he knows what im like its not exactly the typical response!all i want to do is feel the feelings normal people feel,but all ive got inside me is anxiety so bad.
Ive always wanted to be eneged to my partner,and i have suffered from rocd throughout our relationship but always pulled through it and been fine.im just scared that its auch a big thing(and any chnage throws me as well) that ots to much.
Theres no one else i would rather be with than my partner and ots making me so sad that i cant be normal and have the normal reactions to being engaged.
Any advice would be soooo good or if anyone has been through this please please post as would help put my mind at rest.x

[danj]

Hiya -

first, congratulations on getting engaged :yesyes:

My experience is that there anxiety and excitement are closely related so it's not that surprising that people like us who are sensitive to anxiety could be triggered by such an exciting event.

You need to trust how you have been feeling towards your fiancee over the past 4 years and that you're current thoughts are unhelpful side effects from the anxiety.

I hope this helps a little

Dan



Hey guys.
Ive written on here a few times about my struggles with rocd and anxiety and how ot sent me over the edge a little while ago.
Well i got alot better,not great but improving.now my lovely bf or should i say fiance asked me to marry him yesterday and i said yes.we have been together for four years and i love him so much,but ofcourse the old rocd and anxiety is already kicking in.i am an extreme worrier and straight away the little voice in my head starts telling me horrible things like,you wouldnt feel this anxious if you really loved him and just all these nasty thoughts.
Ive been sobbing all day yesterday as felt so terrible and just feel so bad for my partner as althpugh he knows what im like its not exactly the typical response!all i want to do is feel the feelings normal people feel,but all ive got inside me is anxiety so bad.
Ive always wanted to be eneged to my partner,and i have suffered from rocd throughout our relationship but always pulled through it and been fine.im just scared that its auch a big thing(and any chnage throws me as well) that ots to much.
Theres no one else i would rather be with than my partner and ots making me so sad that i cant be normal and have the normal reactions to being engaged.
Any advice would be soooo good or if anyone has been through this please please post as would help put my mind at rest.x

[worried 101]

thanks soo much for your reply.
Its so hard because I feel that its almost my thing in life to never have a happy moment.
I have to say that my partner is amazing, he has been through everything with me, and i have been to the point where i didnt want to be around anymore-caused by a mix of anxiety over relationship and other issues.
I am very aware of my relationship anxiety, if anything ever goes wrong i assume it must be becuse I cant cope in the relationship, what I'f I dont love him?What if we are not meant to be togther? I always get through it and we then carry on as normal and I am so happy.
I must mention that my partner has two children and we get on v well, though there have been times when they were younger that it was extremely hard and I did have some bad times where it felt like to much but again we got through it all.
They are alot older now 5 and 7 and its easier as can do alot more for themselves, but last weekend I found myself really irritable with them for no reason-stright away my anxiety was up and the rest of the week had that little voice in my head saying its cos you dont love them, you dont love tom etc
(I had a feeling that my partner may have been planning to propose soon and straight away I panicked and said not to do it around christmas as it wouldnt be a suprise as thought he was, but it was more becuase I felt like I couldnt cope because of all these horrible little voices in my head)
Again I need to say I have always wanted my partner to propose to me and the thought of being marrried always made me feel really happy.
I was so shocked when he did it and immediatly said yes, but it was like when the words came out of my mouth i felt this anxiety, then I felt happy and then unbelievable anxiety.
I literally cried all day into the eve and this morning, I felt like I was a nasty person having anxieties over him as he is such an amazing guy and did such a lovely thing and he said just think of it as present of how much I love you, we dont need to get married anytime soon, just wanted you to know that I am there.
I feel like i am a terrible person to have horrible negative anxities in my head when he has done something so lovely, when I'm with him I almost feel like ive chaeted on him or something terrible.
I truely do love him, and just wish I could feel the normal feeling that peole have, not this overwhelming anxity and scaredness!

[danj]

sounds like he's very loving and caring which you probably also need to be to yourself. don't be so hard on yourself, these feelings are not your fault!

[Rennie1989]

Congratulations on the engagement!

When I was engaged, after the initial excitement, I started feeling slight dread for numerous reasons. Saving money, finding a venue, making it all work, and the actual commitment itself. It's normal to feel anxious during engagement, planning a wedding can feel daunting and the commitment itself quite overwhelming. But you say you can't imagine anyone else but your fiancé, which suggests he is the one.

Just take it slowly. Plan the wedding for 18 or 24 months away, to give you time to save and plan. The beginning should be fun, buy loads of wedding magazines, join bridal forums online and start browsing for ideas! Have coffee with mum and friends to get their two cents.

I'm a newly wed myself (3 months ago exactly) so I still have some fresh ideas and advice on wedding planning if you need any help :) I love weddings!!!

[Brunette]

Dare I suggest stop seeking perfection both in yourself and those around you?

It's perfectly normal to get short tempered with those we love - it doesn't mean we don't love them. It's also normal to have worries and doubts.

Your relationship has survived in spite of difficulties. That's an immense positive so stop beating yourself up for not being loved-up and blissed-out all the time. You think what you feel is somehow wrong - it isn't.

[worried 101]

Thankyou so much for all your replies.i really dont know what is wrong with me....woke up this morning and literally couldnt cope. felt like i didnt deserve his love as was so worried by the fact that i wasnt feeling the happiness off being engaged and had a major freakout.im back with the home treatment team now and i know there were issues brewing the week before we got engaged for me,increased anxiety over our relationahip..and it was like the cherry on the cake and was waiting for the rush of pleasure but all i felt was fear.
God i would gibe anytbong not to have such shitty anxiety

[Jeffro]

Hey! Thought I would reply worried101, just to let you know your not alone! I get horrendous relationship anxiety, so bad that I cant sleep, I feel completely awash with fear and dread and anxiety throughout every second of my waking day....this can go on for months! not great! It was really bad in my last relationship, and a time before when my girlfriend moved in. We ended up breaking up far sooner that we needed to, tho in hind sight it was prob for the best... It sounds like you have something worth sticking with though, so my advice would be to face your demons and push past these fears.... even with me they did subside. What really helped me was therapy and discovering the root cause of my fear, abandonment. I was given up for 2 weeks when first born, as my mum was ill... This primal fear of being alone buried itself in my subconscious, and was reinforced by my own neediness and the fact my mum did actually leave us when i was 15... Its left me with an overwhelming relationship anxiety disorder, most of which I cannot control as its deep inside my subconscious, latching on to every slight sign that the women I love will leave me, or that the relationship is not right... Self defense i guess, trying to get me to take action to ensure I dont let them go! Im thinking you might well be similar, a core fear of being alone, abandoned and left to the wolves!! Something no doubt the result of an experience or a way of thinking, you anxiety is trying to protect you from this happening, setting your mind off at a thousand miles an hour full of dread and worry, which you interpret in any way you choose!! but in reality it just unbeleivably annoying and frustrating!!

My advice would be seek a good therapist if you don't already have one, get to the root of the problem, use CBT to rationalize your worries, but overall you may just have to accept this is part of you, if your like me then there is no amount of rationalizing that stops the anxiety, its buried way to deep!! I just have to accept that each juncture of a relationship I will be met with fear and worry!! It will pass, and hopefully the more committed and loving your fiance is the quicker it will pass.... Communicate with him, let him know your worries, he will reassure you and that will sooth the scared inner child a bit..

Thats my advice after a years worth of therapy!! The same thing lays ahead for me, i know it, im taking a well earned breather before trying again, sucks doesnt it??? But when you find someone as good as your fiance sounds then its worth pushing through.

Jeff

[worried 101]

hey jeff.
Thanks for the reply, I agree that therapy would defiently help me, I think I need to talk through issues in my past. I really struggled with breaking up with my last boyfriend was very painful and i was full of anxiety, so I dont know if I have issues related to that that makes me panic in new relationships...i dunno. The anxiety that I feel is just horrific,like this morning I wake up and it hits me like a tonne of bricks, my stomach feels like its turning and i cant breathe, all i want in that moment is to dissapear. I wish relationship anxiety was a more widely known about subject becuase it seems to effect quite a few of us out there.