Hello I am Helen

[Nanao_May]

Hello everyone,

My name is Helen, I'm a pretty quiet, cheerful and slightly dorky 26 year old living in Melbourne. Over the last year I have formed a very close friendship with someone I live with (at the onset of moving to a new city). This is more or less the catalyst for what has been going on for a good number of months now. No matter how much reassurance I get, I feel as though I start to panic when I am not with this person. All I do now is worry about what could happen if they did this or that, or if I do this etc to the point my heart rate just goes through the roof.

I started seeing a psychologist quite recently about this and I cannot really tell if it is helping. Anyway, I hope to maybe find some kind of guidance on this forum perhaps.

Thank you

[jessed03]

Is it just a friendship?

Often a lover brings on these types of symptoms. But, friendship can too. You must really care about this person :)

Quite a lot of people have reported this type of symptom on here. I've read of people saying it quite a lot. I remember having a symptom that was quite similar for a while too.

It goes with anxiety, so if you can lower your anxiety a tad through daily relaxation exercises (meditation/progressive muscle relaxation/ visualisations/ breathing exercises) then that will help. The lower your overall level of anxiety, the better this symptom

Of course when it comes to working on the symptom, CBT can be a very effective method, as it helps you to refocus on thoughts that aren't anxious in nature, similar to how the 'normies' behave when someone they love is away from them. I'm not sure if you're doing any kind of CBT with your therapist?

Anyway, nice to meet you Helen, I'm Jesse :)