littleme
02-18-2015, 04:13 PM
Okay. Here I go.
Hi everyone. I have suffered from GAD for my entire adult life, along with Panic Disorder and Society Anxiety. I have gotten a lot better on many fronts in the past 20-odd years. My GAD used to affect every part of my life - I have never been able to have a normal social life, and even still, I often find reasons to bail on social events. I only have a couple of friends that I feel comfortable going out with. I have lost jobs on several occasions when I was younger, due to my inability to manage my anxiety (exacerbated by work stress). I have always experienced insomnia, and noise anxiety has robbed me of my peace of mind in many of the houses I lived (noisy neighbours mostly).
I have managed to conquer many of the above issues - for the most part. The big problem that remains in my life is romantic relationships.
I am 7 months into a relationship with a guy who suffers from PTSD, social anxiety and panic disorder. The deeper we go into this relationship, the more terrified I feel.
I'm pretty sure that this fear is coming from inside of me. But it is also being amplified by his behaviour sometimes. When he doesn't give me affection and/or attention, I feel unloved and insecure - and then the scary thoughts start.
My biggest fear is that he's lying to me, or cheating on me, in some way. We had the 'cheating chat' ages ago, and both of us expressed our distaste for people who cheat, and we both swore we wouldn't never do that. We have both been cheated on before and neither of us would ever want to put someone through that.
But that fear remains with me every day. And recently I think I pin-pointed why.
In the early years of my previous relationship (which spanned 15 years), I had a constant, nagging feeling that my then-boyfriend was up to something. The feeling grew over time, and I became hypervigilant to any sign that might allow me to discover what he was hiding. Eventually I found out. We were staying at his ex-girlfriend's (and my best friend at that time) new place, and she was raving on about how good the bath was. Then she suggested I try it out. This was in the middle of the day, mind you. Weird, right? I thought, yeah, sure, I'll have a bath. I went into the bathroom and closed the door. I waited 5 minutes and then came out, expecting to catch them in a sexual act. They were shooting up amphetamine. And then it all came out - he had been sneaking over to her house and shooting up for the last 4 years. And it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that they were having sex too (my ex gets really horny on drugs). For some stupid reason, I stayed in the relationship, but I remained hypervigilant to any cues that he might be lying to me about other stuff. I pretty much spent the rest of the relationship waiting and watching, lying in wait to catch him out. To this day I don't fully understand why I did that, when I should have just left him.
So I've been this way for more than 15 years. In additotion to my 'usual' levels of anxiety, that incident destroyed my trust in people. Both my boyfriend and my best friend had been lying to me all that time. I don't believe I have ever gotten over this.
Now that I'm in a new relationship, the past has come back to haunt me. I find myself engaging in the same behaviour. On the face of it, he hasn't done anything at all to make me believe he's cheating. But I find myself engaging in the very same hypervigilance behaviour that became a habit for me in my last relationship. It's a compulsion that I find impossible to control.
When I was with my ex, every time he said something, I automatically assumed it was a lie, and my brain immediately went to work trying to determine what the lie was, what purpose it served, and how I could beat him at his own game.
I do this with most people now - not just with my boyf, but many of my friends, work colleagues, anyone who I deem might have a vested interest in lying to me, or manipulating me for their own gain.
Every time he says or does something, I can't help but wonder whether he's telling the truth, and what he might be hiding. Why?
Because I feel insecure in this relationship. Because his PTSD makes him act in ways that make me nervous.
Because my spidey senses are making me feel the same way I felt when i suspected my ex of hiding something. And if I was right last time, that must mean that I'm right this time too. Right?
I feel like a crazy person. I suspect that most of this fear is internal, but I have enormous difficulty trying to work out whether he's actually hiding something or not.
This is a real problem for me. I am terrified of two things:
a) That if I relax and just enjoy the relationship and see where it goes, that I will miss the 'signs' that he is doing something dodgy, and I will be taken for a fool. Again.
b) That if I give in to my fears and cut and run, that I will be throwing away a perfectly good relationship with someone who is simply struggling with their past, in a similar way to what I am. Because I know he has trust and commitment issues too.
For now, I have made the decision just to keep on going and see how things pan out. And try to address this irrational behaviour and manage my GAD as best I can. The fact that I am distrustful of almost everyone makes me think that my boyfriend probably isn't doing anything wrong.
I am in therapy, but I'm not finding it very helpful. Most of the breakthroughs I've had are a result of self-help. A past therapist suggested that I explore doing EMDR. So maybe I will look into that.
But for now, every day is a struggle.
Hi everyone. I have suffered from GAD for my entire adult life, along with Panic Disorder and Society Anxiety. I have gotten a lot better on many fronts in the past 20-odd years. My GAD used to affect every part of my life - I have never been able to have a normal social life, and even still, I often find reasons to bail on social events. I only have a couple of friends that I feel comfortable going out with. I have lost jobs on several occasions when I was younger, due to my inability to manage my anxiety (exacerbated by work stress). I have always experienced insomnia, and noise anxiety has robbed me of my peace of mind in many of the houses I lived (noisy neighbours mostly).
I have managed to conquer many of the above issues - for the most part. The big problem that remains in my life is romantic relationships.
I am 7 months into a relationship with a guy who suffers from PTSD, social anxiety and panic disorder. The deeper we go into this relationship, the more terrified I feel.
I'm pretty sure that this fear is coming from inside of me. But it is also being amplified by his behaviour sometimes. When he doesn't give me affection and/or attention, I feel unloved and insecure - and then the scary thoughts start.
My biggest fear is that he's lying to me, or cheating on me, in some way. We had the 'cheating chat' ages ago, and both of us expressed our distaste for people who cheat, and we both swore we wouldn't never do that. We have both been cheated on before and neither of us would ever want to put someone through that.
But that fear remains with me every day. And recently I think I pin-pointed why.
In the early years of my previous relationship (which spanned 15 years), I had a constant, nagging feeling that my then-boyfriend was up to something. The feeling grew over time, and I became hypervigilant to any sign that might allow me to discover what he was hiding. Eventually I found out. We were staying at his ex-girlfriend's (and my best friend at that time) new place, and she was raving on about how good the bath was. Then she suggested I try it out. This was in the middle of the day, mind you. Weird, right? I thought, yeah, sure, I'll have a bath. I went into the bathroom and closed the door. I waited 5 minutes and then came out, expecting to catch them in a sexual act. They were shooting up amphetamine. And then it all came out - he had been sneaking over to her house and shooting up for the last 4 years. And it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that they were having sex too (my ex gets really horny on drugs). For some stupid reason, I stayed in the relationship, but I remained hypervigilant to any cues that he might be lying to me about other stuff. I pretty much spent the rest of the relationship waiting and watching, lying in wait to catch him out. To this day I don't fully understand why I did that, when I should have just left him.
So I've been this way for more than 15 years. In additotion to my 'usual' levels of anxiety, that incident destroyed my trust in people. Both my boyfriend and my best friend had been lying to me all that time. I don't believe I have ever gotten over this.
Now that I'm in a new relationship, the past has come back to haunt me. I find myself engaging in the same behaviour. On the face of it, he hasn't done anything at all to make me believe he's cheating. But I find myself engaging in the very same hypervigilance behaviour that became a habit for me in my last relationship. It's a compulsion that I find impossible to control.
When I was with my ex, every time he said something, I automatically assumed it was a lie, and my brain immediately went to work trying to determine what the lie was, what purpose it served, and how I could beat him at his own game.
I do this with most people now - not just with my boyf, but many of my friends, work colleagues, anyone who I deem might have a vested interest in lying to me, or manipulating me for their own gain.
Every time he says or does something, I can't help but wonder whether he's telling the truth, and what he might be hiding. Why?
Because I feel insecure in this relationship. Because his PTSD makes him act in ways that make me nervous.
Because my spidey senses are making me feel the same way I felt when i suspected my ex of hiding something. And if I was right last time, that must mean that I'm right this time too. Right?
I feel like a crazy person. I suspect that most of this fear is internal, but I have enormous difficulty trying to work out whether he's actually hiding something or not.
This is a real problem for me. I am terrified of two things:
a) That if I relax and just enjoy the relationship and see where it goes, that I will miss the 'signs' that he is doing something dodgy, and I will be taken for a fool. Again.
b) That if I give in to my fears and cut and run, that I will be throwing away a perfectly good relationship with someone who is simply struggling with their past, in a similar way to what I am. Because I know he has trust and commitment issues too.
For now, I have made the decision just to keep on going and see how things pan out. And try to address this irrational behaviour and manage my GAD as best I can. The fact that I am distrustful of almost everyone makes me think that my boyfriend probably isn't doing anything wrong.
I am in therapy, but I'm not finding it very helpful. Most of the breakthroughs I've had are a result of self-help. A past therapist suggested that I explore doing EMDR. So maybe I will look into that.
But for now, every day is a struggle.