Mental breakdown

[Samantha34]

Today started off really good and I've been doing really good for about a week. I've been eating and not washing my hands as much. Today started off great I was happy and everything. My boyfriend took me out to lunch before he had to go to work. Lunch went great the. We went to go refill our drinks and there was a worker who was spraying something on the counter to clean it and my boyfriend set his drink right on the counter. That's all it took to start my anxiety. He touched my leg and that just made things worse. When I got home I changed my pants and washed my hands. Then I was fine until my dad got home. He has work boots and I thought that there might have been chemicals on them and my puppy touched them so I got so worked up that I started crying and stormed out of my house to take a walk to calm down. Then I was thinking maybe there was feterlizer on the ground. I came home and just lost it I started bawling my eyes out. My dad came in and talked to me. I ended up changing my pants again because of the whole there might me feterlizer on them. I have finally calmed down. But very rough day. Don't know where it all came from. I was doing so well and I was having a good day.

[raggamuffin]

It all seems to have stemmed from seeing the counter sprayed and the drink resting on it. Since then your mind played with what if's about chemicals for the rest of the day. That one point was the cause of the anxiety.

What you need to do when you notice an anxiety trigger is to rationalize things immediately. Don't fly off the handle with responding emotionally. It will only serve to upset you and stress you out. Therefore you need to rationalize it. His drink cup touched the counter where the chemicals were. but it's the bottom of the cup and he's unlikely to touch that. He touched my trousers with his hand that was on the cup. But I doubt there are chemicals on his hand or on my trousers.

Maybe even joke about it. If there were chemicals on his hand these are cleaning chemicals so at least his hand and my trousers are a little cleaner now.

Anxiety is driven by the fear/stress and worry we bestow upon it. Therefore you need to try your best to respond logically to situations where you feel stressed. Don't deliberately run away and practice safety behaviour. This only empowers the anxiety when you should be taking steps to realize you have the power to overcome the anxiety and apprehension you have in your life.

Ed