Worried Husband

[robert88]

sorry this may be long, but my curiosity is killling me,

my wife is 25 years old, I have noticed over the years, her lack of ambitions, her having fears of me leaving her, and very unmotivated.

i am currently in the armed forces, love my job, and she has no issue with me being in the forces, since she grew up being around it. Here is my dilemma, i'll start from the beginning, she startles very easily, I find her clingy at times, if I want to leave for a weekend she tends to give me a hard time indirectly, if I do go, she will text me alot. She lost all her hair a few years back due to Alopecia Areata and i think it is over stress.

She feels the need to call her parents every single day. Now she is okay to move away from them, but at one point she wanted to wait until they passed away. Her brother is in the army as well, but getting released.. he drinks alot and caused many problems. Her sister married someone almost twice her age ( daddy issues ) and my wife is currently in Basic training in the army and every night she feels that she will fall a sleep and never wake up, She said she knows she wants this and can do it, but her emotions are getting the best of her and she cannot stop it, she has no confidence to defend her self from people talking back to her, but she wants to.

Now to her parents.. I personally cannot stand them, her mother drinks and gets loud for attention, every one has to know she exists, her father also drank ( why her brother did ), mostly to drain the nagging of his wife. Her mother stresses her out and tells her not to stress or she will get a stroke.. and so on, my wife has been sheltered, never taught anything. Basically fed to survive cause they felt they had to. Her parents had her when they were in their early 40's so she was a big accident. She is very very homesick right now, she is suppose to come home tomorrow for her first weekend off, and she is most scared now that something bad will happen to her. Her parents never taught her nothing, never punished her for her mistakes and never showed her there are consequences for her actions so she can learn from. She is scared to take any sort of risk. Her mom was a stay at home mom and my wife finds this to be safe, but does not want that life.

Who should she see, a psychologist, psychiatrist ? any ideas what could be wrong.

[JustAnotherAttack]

A psychologist will help her work through her problems. They don't really prescribe medications to even people out. This may help her because maybe shes having problems that can be talked through. She just made a huge change in her life it sounds like...with joining the army and all, so she probably is scared and is second guessing things. The thing here is that she needs to know that she is safe and capable of doing anything she puts her mind to. It might take additional steps from you (her lifeline) to reassure her that shes alright. Men often times underestimate their power of making their wives feel better. Just wrapping her in your arms and letting her cry or tell you how she feels might be comforting to her. If you act too worried about her though...she may take it as a sign that something really is wrong and that she needs to be worried herself. Just let her do the talking...and when she asks how you feel or what you think...just tell her that you want her to feel safe and that you're with her 100%.

Women sometimes get the feeling that we arent good enough...especially with anxiety/depression...we feel that we dont deserve someone who doesn't understand fully what we are going through. Its especially hard because often times WE dont even know what we are going through. Anxiety causes a wide range of physical symptoms that physically hurt or are uncomfortable. This often leads people with anxiety to fear the worst and feel like something else is wrong.

A psychiatrist might help, but it depends on what she actually needs. Does it seem like she needs someone to just be there for her? Or does it appear that she may need something to help even out her emotions? There are a lot of medications for a wide variety of emotional issues that can help. I've tried a few of them and I actually have severe panic disorder, PTSD, and severe depression, but I don't take medications for them anymore. If she wants to get better she may need medication, therapy, or just learn how to cope with her feelings and learn ways of self help. :)

[robert88]

hey thank you for the reply.. I am her shoulder to cry on, I find it at times hard to understand what she is going through.. as I am the most rational person in the world.. I do not believe in religion,, and what goes up must come down and so on, So i know about anxiety and depression and unless I can justify being depressed, there is no reason for me to feel this way and I try to find a solution to my problem, as there is an opposite of everything. Something caused this anxiety and well the opposite can fix it. Just how I am, my wife has very irrational thoughts, she is aware of this and knows its stupid to feel this way, but for some reason she cannot rid herself of them, I will keep trying.. She may need to see someone, or could be deficient in her vitamins and minerals, and its throwing her off balance.

[JustAnotherAttack]

I'm pretty rational too...often times its annoying because I can see both sides of things. Its helpful though because my rational side can calm my irrational side, lol!
She needs to know that how she feels isn't "stupid" though. Because her problem could really just boil down to a chemical imbalance in her brain. If thats the case then it really is something that she cannot help. Those imbalances cause all sorts of problems like anxiety and depression even if she truely feels she has no reason to be so upset.
The main thing is taking care of that because if thats the case and all she needs is a medication to even her out then it would be a shame if she didn't do it.
I'm not kidding when I say that it can snowball. One feeling can lead to another and then another which in turn will make her feel like shes got some serious medical issue and will die soon, lol. :)
I can laugh about it now because I went to the doctor and realized that I wasn't having seizures or mini heart attacks like I had made myself believe.
I hope that she gets to feeling better soon. When she does she will realize how important you as a person and as someone who kept her grounded when she felt like she was going insane.
Its so helpful having someone there who wants to help. :)

[robert88]

yeah, doing my best... We will see, I have to reassure her every night that she will not die, and last night just before I see her today she was pretty bad, So i really think its separation anxiety.It almost has to be. I will look around.