Really need some help - long post read if you don't mind

[gaara]

Hey everyone, just discovered this website after searching the internet on information about anxiety and depression.

I've always been an anxious person about certain things but never as bad as it's been now.

Here's the story:

My girlfriend and I have known eachother for about 5 years but we only started dating 2 years ago. Things were great when we started dating except that I must mention she was cheating on her then boyfriend with me. I know it was stupid and wrong and slimey but I really loved her and she really loved me but she just didn't know how to break it off with him.

Months and months went by where we would constantly fight and fight about how she had to choose either me or him and blah blah blah. Finally around july of 2009 she broke up with him and focused her attention on me. Out of nowhere, even knowing my feelings for her I panicked. I got scared. A trumendous wave of anxiety would sweep over me everytime I was with her. It really scared me that I was feeling this way because I was so calm with her for MONTHS before that moment so why were all these weird feelings rushing in? Did I have commitment issues? Possibly.

Well, one night I sort of broke down in front of her, explaining my feelings and what was going on with me. She got EXTREMELY emotional for obvious reasons and I don't blame her one bit. I desperately wanted to get my old self back. We talked about things and things went back to normal sort of for about a month. But then the anxiety and depression came back again. This happened for about another month until end of september 2009 I finally couldn't take it anymore and broke up with her for the sake of my sanity and hers.

For that month I was really calm and just enjoyed it immensely because I need time to recooperate and it helped. I didn't stop thinking about her one bit and missed her everyday. At the end of the month, I REALLY started to miss her and wanted to give us another shot because I know my feelings for her were still there just pushed away because of my anxiety and depression.

Things started off sort of rocky at first for me because I was extremely nervous the anxiety and depression would come back. I was nervous with her for a couple of months but it was a "good" kind of nervous, nothing like the dreadful anxiety I experienced before.

After that, I have never been happier. Months and months went by and things are going really well until..

Until july 20th 2010, just 7 days before the 1 year anniversary of that night i broke down and explained everything to her. We got into a pretty big fight about something but then made up that night.

Usually when we get into big fights, I stay annoyed with he for a few days then I eventually forget about it, but as soon as the 27th of july came, a wave of anxiety and depression came over me.

It was the exact 1 year anniversary since I told her, and I started to really panic. How can this be happening again?? Bad memories? Probably but everything just had the exact same feel to it. It really freaked me out, it was like somebody just placed me back to where I was 1 year ago.

Every since then, I have been having the same anxiety/depression waves for days on end. There would be times where for a week that I wouldn't feel any anxiety and depression and I'd get so excited that it was gone then out of nowhere, I'd get up and it would just hit me like a ton of bricks.

I just don't know what to do honestly. I love her so much and I really don't want to bring it up to her because It would seriously break her heart and it would ruin our relationship for good this time I'm afraid.

I really think if I can get a hold of this depression and anxiety I could get past this and eventually leave it behind.


Has anyone experienced anything like this before? Is this common? Any helpful suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated. I really love my girlfriend and all I want is for us to go back to the way we were, those were without a doubt one of the happiest times of my life.

It just depresses me because sometimes as I mentioned before, things would be going great for a week or something, then I'd think back for a second and remember how depressed I was and then it'd all just rush back :( It's like my mind is telling me "NO. You don't deserve to be happy, bad things will happen".

I'm willing to try anything but pills are the absolute last last resort as I really don't like the idea of some of the terrible side effects or being addicted/dependant on them.

Thank you for any suggestions in advance and thank you very much for reading this and sorry again for the long post.

Look forward to hearing any responses.

[mamascrazy1985]

hi i was in a similar situation kinda except me and my husband cheated on our spouses with each other. this was long ago. anyways we have been together for five yrs with 2 kids. there is nothing that he doesnt know about me and as you are a guy your gf should be more sensitive. i dont understand why you think that she would not want to be with you because your going through anxiety. she should want to understand and try to help you not run from the situation. thats a commitment issue. anyways anxiety worsens if you let it. stop thinking about it. keep yourself occupied. when you feel the feelings again just say things to yourself like dont do this now,whatever or are you serious. or now is not the time. tell yourself these things seriously it works for me. anyways good luck

[gaara]

hi i was in a similar situation kinda except me and my husband cheated on our spouses with each other. this was long ago. anyways we have been together for five yrs with 2 kids. there is nothing that he doesnt know about me and as you are a guy your gf should be more sensitive. i dont understand why you think that she would not want to be with you because your going through anxiety. she should want to understand and try to help you not run from the situation. thats a commitment issue. anyways anxiety worsens if you let it. stop thinking about it. keep yourself occupied. when you feel the feelings again just say things to yourself like dont do this now,whatever or are you serious. or now is not the time. tell yourself these things seriously it works for me. anyways good luck

Thanks for the reply :)

I'm fighting it. I know deep down I really love her but it's very hard to show because of this anxiety that I'm experiencing.

I have had times where for 4-5 days in a row I felt like my old self and was absolutely fine with her. But then it just came back and felt even stronger. The fact that I thought I was over it and having it come back has put me into a depression, like my only option is to break her heart and end it but I don't want that to happen beacuse I love her very much and I know that if I do end it with her, we'll most likely never get back together again.

I can't talk to her about this because talking to her about it makes my anxiety and depression even worse. Knowing that she'll be feeling scared and nervous that I might end it with her AGAIN will just strenghten my depression.

I know I can fight it but I just need to find a way to do so. I broke up with her once over the exact same feelings I'm going through now and I ended up missing her like crazy after not even a month. I know the exact same thing will happen if I end it with her again.

I just feel trapped inside my own mind and don't know where to go.

[mamascrazy1985]

try to think of other things when you feel anxiety coming on. anything you enjoy to do or something that makes you smile :) good luck.

[sparks]

from my experience with working with people... i find that anxiety seems liek it just happens. it is interesting, though, to realize that it actually has a certain internal structure. that is...in order to create anxiety, a person has to think about stuff going wrong in the future. most people are not conscious of this going on. if you slow down your internal process you might find that this is so.

Nobody can ever feel anxious if they are imagining future scenarios going well and that is all they are imagining.

the good news is, that after you find the structure of the anxiety then you can begin to stop it.

[gaara]

from my experience with working with people... i find that anxiety seems liek it just happens. it is interesting, though, to realize that it actually has a certain internal structure. that is...in order to create anxiety, a person has to think about stuff going wrong in the future. most people are not conscious of this going on. if you slow down your internal process you might find that this is so.

Nobody can ever feel anxious if they are imagining future scenarios going well and that is all they are imagining.

the good news is, that after you find the structure of the anxiety then you can begin to stop it.

Is it possible that bad memories trigger anxiety which leads to depression? As I mentioned in my post, the same sort of situations happened in the summer of 2009 as they did in 2010 and that is when my anxiety and depression started up again.

I kept on telling myself that it was just bad memories and everything was in the past and it worked for a bit but then came back 10 fold.

I've told myself to calm down and think about something different when I feel an anxiety wave coming on and while it does help, it seems to be only a band aid for the moment.

I haven't tried CBT but have heard things about it. Anyone have any good links to some good CBT exercises?

[sparks]

I think it can be possible and I also think that something in the environment triggered the memory and then the anxiety strategy began.

The key here is that there are ways of interrupting and even changing this strategy. I think a good first step is to notice what you are thinking when the anxiety is going on.

There are various techniques to deal with anxiety. Although I am not trained in CBT, there are various techniques in the NLP toolkit to deal with anxiety.