Just been diagnosed with Anxiety.

[Matt_222]

Hi all, so I've finally gotten up the courage to go to the doctors and get myself checked out for anxiety. I'm completely new to the idea that I have some form of mental illness and quite freaked out by it, and so I've come on here to tell you my story and see if anybody has any advice for me on how I might be able to deal with it. (I've read the usual leaflets on how to cope with anxiety, yet all they seem to tell me are things that I know I should be doing anyway, yet find myself unable to do).

To start from the beginning, (I am a 22 year old male) I was brought up in a loveless home by parents that hated each other and could hardly stand to be in the same room as each other. I was bullied constantly throughout the entirety of primary school and the majority of high school for being ginger (it may sound trifling, but as a child, being segregated from society purely based on your hair colour apparently can be quite damaging), surprisingly to a worse extent in primary school, where I was shunned by the entire school and had no friends whatsoever.

Every single relationship I've had has been plagued with worry and distrust, and what I dubbed to myself as 'spiralling' from something that is completely inconsequential (or even just made up in my own head), into playing out far fetched worst scenarios that stem in a completely irrational way from them.

When I was 17 years old, my father started cheating on my mother with a crack cocaine addict and spent our entire families savings on fuelling her drug habit. A woman who beat him, alongside her ex partner (an ex convict for murder), who one night came to our house and told us he was going to kill us all if we didn't give him all of the rest of our money.

Fortunately surviving that, and going through a 4 year long divorce (due to inability to sell the property and divide the money from it between my mother and father), I'm now at university studying philosophy in my 3rd year.

Regardless of all the above, I usually manage to live a relatively calm life. However, due to everything that's happened I've stopped myself from being in a relationship with anybody through fear of it ending badly (which i can only assume is a result of seeing my parents live together for 20 odd years while hating each other). When I say "calm life" I mean in comparison to that of late, I have general low level anxiety about everything in life, whether it's work or study or insecurity in general. But recently I've entered into a new relationship with someone, which I've managed to maintain for around 6 months so far. However, I've realised that while in this relationship my anxiety-meter has shot up into the red, and now literally every day I find myself plagued with anxieties, generally caused by something my partner says or does. She knows I've recently been diagnosed with anxiety, and is as supportive as she can be. I really want it to work out, and I want to find a way to stop myself from going down the path of damaging thoughts. My problem is that I can see when i'm letting myself get pulled into a damaging spiral of insecure thoughts, and I know in most cases that I'm being irrational, but I can't pull myself out of it and knowing that I'm being irrational doesn't seem to stop the thoughts from affecting me and causing me to spiral into a depression about things that are so tenuously linked to the offending thought, that i often even forget what it was that caused me to go crazy in the first place.

The general theme is: because my partner did / said something, I infer in some way that this means that she doesn't love me.

When I think about it rationally, I know I'm being an idiot and I know I'm lucky to have someone who'll stick with me and put up with all of this. But due to my anxiety and insecurity, I find myself too scared to actually tell her the things that are plaguing my mind, because I realise to some extent that the things I get worked up about are inconsequential, or would be construed as such by people that aren't obsessing about them like I am. What this also means, is that I when something affects me, I can no longer tell if it is something that I SHOULD get worked up about, or if it's just something inconsequential that I'm blowing out of proportion by worrying about it and how it affects me and my relationship with my partner.

The diagnosis of anxiety disorder by the doctor recently was a preliminary diagnosis based on only a couple of meetings, so I'm not even sure if this is anxiety disorder or something else, or if I'm just generally going crazy (which I quite often feel like I am).

So in summary, I think I have a relationship related anxiety disorder stemming from my home life as a child and how that has affected my perspective on relationships, and potentially a social anxiety disorder stemming from being bullied for the majority of my childhood.

If anybody has any thoughts on this, or any advice for how I can cope, I'd be appreciative of anything right now.

And if, by reading this, you have come to the conclusion that I don't have anxiety and that I am just self obsessed and insecure tell me that also, so I can somehow seek to stop being this way.

Thanks.

[alankay]

I think you're anxious and by no means crazy so let's nip that in the bud. You are just anxious and like me from a less than perfect home. :( Like me you may have a bit of a predisposition to anxiety(my brothers are fine, no anxiety evident) but maybe not.

In any case what recommendations did your doc have? Have you met with a counselor? I'd start there. Matt, anxiety is not "losing it", it's just distress. I know that can be damned uncomfy. Often times there are unresolved conflicts we need to "air out" and get some relief but it sounds like you're in touch with all the crap that might be bothering you.

On the romantic side of course it could raise anxiety as you are opening your heart to someone and a bit of a protective instinct is working against that based on your past. But I think you should trust her. She and you are not your parents. I had this happen as well. If you keep up working "your" issues I bet you'll have a healthy relationship....partly because of what you saw growing up. You don't want to have that type of relationship so will be very aware of that and at some level can cause this anxiety as it's a stressor of sorts(I wanna be damn sure this doesn't go that way").

So anyway see a counselor if you can to talk over your life past and present as It might be very helpful. PM me any time. Alankay

[SunnieDebris]

Matt, I agree with Alan. Maybe I misread, but it sounds to me like you're already in therapy. Either way, that's a good idea. You're not crazy, and I can totally relate to some of your childhood woes. My parents were not great, but my sister was worse. She had some health problems that caused her to lash out at me. She actually chased me around with knives. One day, she came at me and I ran to my room and slammed the door. She slashed at the door from the outside, so when my parents came home, and I told them what happened (there were freaking knife marks in the door!), they didn't believe me. I was also a social outcast, and to be perfectly honest, I do not know why. But it was so bad, that when I got my lunch tray and sat down in the cafeteria, no one would sit at the table with me.

There's an acronym for most of us--SICK--sensitive, intelligent, caring, and kind, who are most at risk for anxiety disorders. It sounds like you might fit into this category. You're not crazy, you're not alone (here or in person), and it sounds like you are taking your diagnosis and your relationship very seriously. Good for you.

I have one last suggestion: when you fight with your girlfriend over something small, and you realize that you were blowing things out of proportion, have a safe word that you can say, that means, I'm done arguing, this is stupid, let's just stop. My wife and I say "shenanigans". It sounds dumb, but it works really well, especially since we both have anxiety and depression. I'm glad you found us! I hope you find the answers that you seek.