Anxiety and love

[ubma]

Hi all,

Although I haven't been diagnosed with GAD, I've had treatment for anxiety (CBT) before so figured that this was the best place to post. I'm 22 and have been with my boyfriend for 3 years. He's intelligent, witty and quite honestly my best friend. I love him deeply and the thought of losing him is terrifying.

However, I also have problems with anxiety that focuses on my relationship. In my one serious relationship before this, I experienced similar levels of anxiety but didn't really acknowledge them - it's only recently, since being with my boyfriend, that I've been able to come to terms with my own anxiety and seek treatment for it (he has OCD and, I think, depression - more on this later).

I spend a lot of time monitoring the state of our relationship. I feel as if I'm hyper-vigilant and that I overreact to things a lot (e.g. worrying about kisses on the end of texts). I find it difficult to access feelings of love, although I often have intense flashes of emotion. I try repeatedly to force myself to feel love (as in butterflies and euphoria when I think about him, rather than feelings of tenderness and companionship), which only makes me panic more. I find it particularly difficult to deal with feelings of annoyance etc towards my boyfriend, and immediately jump to thinking that he must not be right for me, I have to break up with him, etc.

This is particularly compounded by my boyfriend's OCD (he has Pure-O). Before anyone suggests it, I don't feel that he makes me anxious - or, at least, that he makes me any more anxious than anyone else would. But although I am kind and caring towards him most of the time, and have always known that his OCD would be a part of our relationship, I occasionally find myself becoming frustrated and that scares me. When he says he feels worthless I occasionally feel like agreeing with him, although I don't think I really mean that. Thoughts like that send me into a cycle of self-doubt and panic that I struggle to escape.

Even as I write this I am trying to gauge the depth of my feelings for him. I also find myself flipping between being scared that I don't love him, and panicking that he's going to leave me - I can do this several times in a day. One day I will be sure I want him to be in my life, hopefully for a very long time to come, the next I will be convinced that I "have" to break up with him, based on things I've read on Google (I Google things like "how to know if he's the One" obsessively).

I'm just so sick of doubting myself all the time. I know I don't actively want to leave him, and I know that I care very very much for him and that I really enjoy and treasure his company. But what if I should be feeling more than that? What if I should feel that he's perfect, that he's the best person in the world and that I could never find anyone better? I feel as if I'm driving myself very slowly insane.

Has anyone else experienced anything similar? I hate feeling like this and sometimes feel that I should let him go so that he can find someone who can love him properly, but I know that I treat him with love and that he'd be utterly devastated. I've spoken to him about this before and he's been really helpful, but my anxiety is often so intense and constant that I can't really turn to him every time I feel bad :(

[beatroon]

Hello ubma,

Yes, I absolutely understand where you are coming from and have experienced something pretty similar. You are definitely not alone!

What happens with my anxiety is that I tend to get absolutely obsessed with one thing and worry about it constantly. In my case, this has been things like health, my body shape and of course my relationship. The thing is, if you weren't obsessing about your relationship, you would be obsessing about something else - if that makes sense? And anxiety loves to go after the things you hold most dear, which may be why it's focusing on your boyfriend.

I think the difference between doubts in an anxious person and doubts in a non-anxious person is that normal people have doubts *all the time* and just ignore them. It's totally fine to feel sometimes that your partner is a right pain, and to have fantasies of going off with someone else, or living alone and not having to deal with them; most people would just write these things off as thoughts, and not hook onto them and worry about them. As one of my most stable friends said to me, 'everyone has their own stuff going on all the time and I may look sorted but I'm not' - I think everyone lives in this perpetual soup of uncertainty, and it's just us anxious types that find that so difficult.

So, it's what we do with the doubts that makes us anxious or non-anxious. I would consider going back to your CBT homework, and perhaps setting aside time each day to actively problem-solve (the 'capsule method'). There is a great app for this called iWorry which I find very helpful. I would also check in with your diet, sleep patterns, and really look after yourself. Make sure you have enough nice stuff in your life to be totally distracted from your thoughts for the majority of your day. Finally, it's OK to go to your GP and talk it through with her.

The most important thing is to be kind to yourself, and take your time. Anxiety will tell you that you have to solve the problem NOW and straightaway, but this isn't true. You are allowed to just sit with your anxiety and let things find their level.

Good luck!

[ubma]

Hi beatroon,

Thanks for replying. I think you're right about how other people live their lives, it's just difficult to believe that fully when people so often talk as if they don't experience doubts or they "just know" things when I feel so rarely that I do! As you've said, I know that I worry about other things in a similar way - I suppose the reason why it's so easy to keep feeling anxious about my relationship is because it's based on feelings, so there's nothing concrete to counter that, if you know what I mean?

I think going back to my CBT homework is a good idea. I know that if I just sit with my anxiety it will lessen, and that I won't come to the conclusion that I have to break up with my boyfriend - this has been going on for much of the relationship, and I've always come back to feeling that I want to be with him and that I love him, so I guess that must be a good sign!