philzoo
09-09-2014, 07:26 PM
I'm a 23 year old male seeking an outlet and some advice regarding my girlfriend's anxiety. My girlfriend is also 23, we have been together for just over a year and a half. This will be a long post, but hey, it's therapeutic and context is everything in these situations I would imagine.
Our relationship ran incredibly smoothly for a very long time, and this all changed at the beginning of August. I found out some terrible things my girlfriend had done to me very early on in the relationship which I was unaware of for a year and a half.
We have been basically living together, or spending every day with each other since I guess around January of this year, 2014. I dropped a lot of my old friends (they are useless, it was the right decision) and moved in to my girl's house in a heartbeat because, well, I'm deeply in love with her and I feel I have a bigger connection with her than anyone else, ever. You can imagine, when I realised all of this was built on lies from the outset of the relationship - I was in shock, when the shock subsided - it was replaced by, well, being very upset.
We talked it all out and we put all of her actions in context (she has had a particular tough time since moving up to my city for university and was sexually abused at the first party she ever attended in university, coupled with this are some more recent and fresh family problems including her parents getting separated). While I knew of her parents, I only found out about the sexual abuse after the truth came out in August, I was told this as a contextualisation for her actions at the beginning of our relationship. So, while we were trying to deal with the problems I had discovered that had been apparent from the outset of our relationship - I was also told about the sexual abuse - which we decided needed to be resolved in some way. We could logically assert that the sexual abuse that occurred in her freshman year resulted in a two year binge of, well, sex, drugs and alcohol. She explained how this carried over into our relationship. How she had been treated so badly by men before that she thought that if she just did whatever she wanted, despite committing to me, she wouldn't feel so upset when I (in her head) inevitably fucked her over.
After a lot of talking I decided that I would try and move on from the cheating at the start of the relationship, we both agreed we're deeply in love and have this deep connection - it turned out to be easier said than done. It all boiled over in the end.
I would wake up some days and have bad thoughts about all she had done to me. Letting me move my life into her house, leaving my family home - and also dropping a lot of friends out of my life (again this was still the right choice but it doesn't make it any easier) all on lie and deceit!
A lot of truths came out about her life, and everything that had happened since the sexual abuse in her freshman year, including on how she had cheated on every boyfriend she had ever had (three including me). It became clearer and clearer to me that this was a deep insecurity, a desire for attention and a feeling of being WANTED by somebody/anyone above all else. Instant gratification.
I felt very lost, hurt and really really foolish. So one day I woke up with my bad thoughts (we had been arguing quite a lot lately, usually me venting about everything that had happened). The bad thoughts were definitely worse than usual - since everything happened I was noticing how she was not really making any changes to appease me. She was behaving exactly as she did before all of the truth came out. She was not AT ALL sensitive to what she had done. I was not sure what to do, this day I wasn't upset - I was really really angry and frustrated.
I spent the day trying to figure out what to do - I felt as though she didn't really comprehend the extent of the hurt she had caused me, I have a really hard time trusting people as it is...even before this happened. I kept thinking of how she had cheated on every boyfriend she ever had, and how she had never been burned by any of them for doing so. How would she learn if I did nothing? I had tried expressing all of the emotions to her, but that wasn't helping my trust and happiness issues. I thought of exacting revenge, but I know myself I wouldn't be able to cheat. It just isn't in me. I love her too much, and my conscience is too strong. I thought about breaking up, no good again, I didn't want to break up.
And then BOOM!, it hit me. It seemed as though it was my only option. I decided I would pretend to break up with her in the hope of making her realise the potential loss for her own selfish actions. Needless to say, this didn't quite run as smoothly as I envisaged. At some point during my "fake" breakup attempt, I lost control. I wasn't really sure how to to tell her I wasn't being real, and this was all just a hoax. I was at a loss of how to deal with it once I had dropped the breakup into the conversation. She thought it was very real, that much was obvious. She was extremely upset, hysterical.
Eventually she sat on the floor, and began to hyperventilate, strangely enough at this stage we were not even arguing or anything - or talking about all that had happened. We were just sitting quietly..trying to process everything. The hyperventilating began, at which point I began to show fear. My sister has epilepsy and instantly I felt as if I had seen this before in my sister. I was very very afraid.
She then realised she could not feel/move her hands. She was having a panic attack, but at this stage neither of us knew that. I looked after her, brought her out for air, then brought her back into our bedroom where I wrapped her in blankets and lied on her very gently to try and warm her up. It eventually passed. I explained my actions, she understood where I was coming from and how I was just trying to make her feel something. I had no idea she would have a panic attack, and neither did she. Now that I know, I will never ever fight with her with the intensity of that day.
So we went to the doctor anyway two days after, and she said that she should be fine. That we should try and cut certain things out of her diet which might aid an attack i.e. alcohol, caffeine etc. We both felt a lot calmer as the doc said she is unlikely to have one again if we take the right steps. She particularly recommended if we are fighting to take pauses if required and try and keep everything very civil. All has been relatively fine since, she has no problem being social or moving on with general life tasks. She even got a new job three days after the panic attack which pays better than her old one!
I realised I needed to either forgive her and trust her, and move forward and forget the past, or end it. I have fully forgiven her and I am trusting her again more and more every day. I love her to bits and we both recognise that we could end up being a very very big part of eachother's lives.
However, since the panic attack I have noticed certain things which are worrying - she does seem to be much more susceptible to being overwhelmed or very upset. One example that comes to mind was we were in a supermarket and she asked if we could get ice cream. I whipped out my phone to see if she could eat it (she has acid reflux as well as anxiety). It turns out ice cream is bad for both. She couldn't deal with this bad news in the moment. You could see it in her expression straight away. I acted with my instincts and began to move around the store very quickly..so we could get out of there before anything was triggered. We managed.
Again, this evening, she was very tired after work. I told her to sit down, relax and let me do all the work. Cooking, cleaning & dishes. She refused to relax, she kept trying to do something. I started to get frustrated because I'm just worried and trying to help - and I told her to please just unwind and let me do it. She started to argue with me about it so I said okay, that's fine, she could do it all. She then apologised. I asked her if it was possible that she didn't want to sit still and be with her thoughts (in the calmest and nicest way possible), she said that it is just second nature for her to clean (she does have a very mild dose of OCD).
Later, I was mopping up the wood floors, and I went to move into our bedroom so I could finish mopping the hall....for one quick second she thought I was going to mop our bedroom floor, too. She was very panicked by the idea of it - even though I had no intention of doing so. I couldn't help but point out the overreaction.
Anyway everything is fine, she's asleep here beside me sound asleep. Nothing more happened.
Regarding the sexual abuse case and anxiety - she does not want to speak with a therapist. She feels more comfortable talking with me about both. She has been making a considerable effort to talk about everything and try and get more in touch with what is going on with her mind and body.
Sorry for the long winded post once again, but I want to give as much context as possible.
I love her to bits, and I only want to help her through the anxiety and worry. I know some things I might be doing are only making her more aware of this new found anxiety. I have been doing a lot of research and asked her this evening what I can do to help, or what I am doing which isn't helping. She told me sometimes my stream of consciousness is too strong and I go on a big rant about something when she is trying to tell me something. I am going to make sure that never happens again. I'm just looking for some friendly advice basically.
I also can't help but feel I had a lot to do with causing it, if not all to do with causing it.
Oh, I guess my stream of consciousness comes across here, too, haha!
Our relationship ran incredibly smoothly for a very long time, and this all changed at the beginning of August. I found out some terrible things my girlfriend had done to me very early on in the relationship which I was unaware of for a year and a half.
We have been basically living together, or spending every day with each other since I guess around January of this year, 2014. I dropped a lot of my old friends (they are useless, it was the right decision) and moved in to my girl's house in a heartbeat because, well, I'm deeply in love with her and I feel I have a bigger connection with her than anyone else, ever. You can imagine, when I realised all of this was built on lies from the outset of the relationship - I was in shock, when the shock subsided - it was replaced by, well, being very upset.
We talked it all out and we put all of her actions in context (she has had a particular tough time since moving up to my city for university and was sexually abused at the first party she ever attended in university, coupled with this are some more recent and fresh family problems including her parents getting separated). While I knew of her parents, I only found out about the sexual abuse after the truth came out in August, I was told this as a contextualisation for her actions at the beginning of our relationship. So, while we were trying to deal with the problems I had discovered that had been apparent from the outset of our relationship - I was also told about the sexual abuse - which we decided needed to be resolved in some way. We could logically assert that the sexual abuse that occurred in her freshman year resulted in a two year binge of, well, sex, drugs and alcohol. She explained how this carried over into our relationship. How she had been treated so badly by men before that she thought that if she just did whatever she wanted, despite committing to me, she wouldn't feel so upset when I (in her head) inevitably fucked her over.
After a lot of talking I decided that I would try and move on from the cheating at the start of the relationship, we both agreed we're deeply in love and have this deep connection - it turned out to be easier said than done. It all boiled over in the end.
I would wake up some days and have bad thoughts about all she had done to me. Letting me move my life into her house, leaving my family home - and also dropping a lot of friends out of my life (again this was still the right choice but it doesn't make it any easier) all on lie and deceit!
A lot of truths came out about her life, and everything that had happened since the sexual abuse in her freshman year, including on how she had cheated on every boyfriend she had ever had (three including me). It became clearer and clearer to me that this was a deep insecurity, a desire for attention and a feeling of being WANTED by somebody/anyone above all else. Instant gratification.
I felt very lost, hurt and really really foolish. So one day I woke up with my bad thoughts (we had been arguing quite a lot lately, usually me venting about everything that had happened). The bad thoughts were definitely worse than usual - since everything happened I was noticing how she was not really making any changes to appease me. She was behaving exactly as she did before all of the truth came out. She was not AT ALL sensitive to what she had done. I was not sure what to do, this day I wasn't upset - I was really really angry and frustrated.
I spent the day trying to figure out what to do - I felt as though she didn't really comprehend the extent of the hurt she had caused me, I have a really hard time trusting people as it is...even before this happened. I kept thinking of how she had cheated on every boyfriend she ever had, and how she had never been burned by any of them for doing so. How would she learn if I did nothing? I had tried expressing all of the emotions to her, but that wasn't helping my trust and happiness issues. I thought of exacting revenge, but I know myself I wouldn't be able to cheat. It just isn't in me. I love her too much, and my conscience is too strong. I thought about breaking up, no good again, I didn't want to break up.
And then BOOM!, it hit me. It seemed as though it was my only option. I decided I would pretend to break up with her in the hope of making her realise the potential loss for her own selfish actions. Needless to say, this didn't quite run as smoothly as I envisaged. At some point during my "fake" breakup attempt, I lost control. I wasn't really sure how to to tell her I wasn't being real, and this was all just a hoax. I was at a loss of how to deal with it once I had dropped the breakup into the conversation. She thought it was very real, that much was obvious. She was extremely upset, hysterical.
Eventually she sat on the floor, and began to hyperventilate, strangely enough at this stage we were not even arguing or anything - or talking about all that had happened. We were just sitting quietly..trying to process everything. The hyperventilating began, at which point I began to show fear. My sister has epilepsy and instantly I felt as if I had seen this before in my sister. I was very very afraid.
She then realised she could not feel/move her hands. She was having a panic attack, but at this stage neither of us knew that. I looked after her, brought her out for air, then brought her back into our bedroom where I wrapped her in blankets and lied on her very gently to try and warm her up. It eventually passed. I explained my actions, she understood where I was coming from and how I was just trying to make her feel something. I had no idea she would have a panic attack, and neither did she. Now that I know, I will never ever fight with her with the intensity of that day.
So we went to the doctor anyway two days after, and she said that she should be fine. That we should try and cut certain things out of her diet which might aid an attack i.e. alcohol, caffeine etc. We both felt a lot calmer as the doc said she is unlikely to have one again if we take the right steps. She particularly recommended if we are fighting to take pauses if required and try and keep everything very civil. All has been relatively fine since, she has no problem being social or moving on with general life tasks. She even got a new job three days after the panic attack which pays better than her old one!
I realised I needed to either forgive her and trust her, and move forward and forget the past, or end it. I have fully forgiven her and I am trusting her again more and more every day. I love her to bits and we both recognise that we could end up being a very very big part of eachother's lives.
However, since the panic attack I have noticed certain things which are worrying - she does seem to be much more susceptible to being overwhelmed or very upset. One example that comes to mind was we were in a supermarket and she asked if we could get ice cream. I whipped out my phone to see if she could eat it (she has acid reflux as well as anxiety). It turns out ice cream is bad for both. She couldn't deal with this bad news in the moment. You could see it in her expression straight away. I acted with my instincts and began to move around the store very quickly..so we could get out of there before anything was triggered. We managed.
Again, this evening, she was very tired after work. I told her to sit down, relax and let me do all the work. Cooking, cleaning & dishes. She refused to relax, she kept trying to do something. I started to get frustrated because I'm just worried and trying to help - and I told her to please just unwind and let me do it. She started to argue with me about it so I said okay, that's fine, she could do it all. She then apologised. I asked her if it was possible that she didn't want to sit still and be with her thoughts (in the calmest and nicest way possible), she said that it is just second nature for her to clean (she does have a very mild dose of OCD).
Later, I was mopping up the wood floors, and I went to move into our bedroom so I could finish mopping the hall....for one quick second she thought I was going to mop our bedroom floor, too. She was very panicked by the idea of it - even though I had no intention of doing so. I couldn't help but point out the overreaction.
Anyway everything is fine, she's asleep here beside me sound asleep. Nothing more happened.
Regarding the sexual abuse case and anxiety - she does not want to speak with a therapist. She feels more comfortable talking with me about both. She has been making a considerable effort to talk about everything and try and get more in touch with what is going on with her mind and body.
Sorry for the long winded post once again, but I want to give as much context as possible.
I love her to bits, and I only want to help her through the anxiety and worry. I know some things I might be doing are only making her more aware of this new found anxiety. I have been doing a lot of research and asked her this evening what I can do to help, or what I am doing which isn't helping. She told me sometimes my stream of consciousness is too strong and I go on a big rant about something when she is trying to tell me something. I am going to make sure that never happens again. I'm just looking for some friendly advice basically.
I also can't help but feel I had a lot to do with causing it, if not all to do with causing it.
Oh, I guess my stream of consciousness comes across here, too, haha!