ss_worrier
01-20-2012, 10:14 PM
Hi,
Afraid this will turn into one of those amazingly long posts. So, yeah, one of the things that I feared most actually happened. I have a lot of anxiety around relationships, also with friends but mostly around love relationships, girlfriends etc. I tend to suffer from a fear of being abandoned, and my feeling of always being sort of inferior to others in this department leads me to do a lot very anxious worrying about my girlfriend's ex-boyfriends, close male friends et cetera. I will get completely soaked up in thoughts about her leaving me and "exchanging me for something better", her still having feelings for ex-boyfriends, et cetera. And just yesterday, almost ironically, one of these fears came true.
I knew that the girl I had been dating for approx three months was visiting her ex-boyfriend in another city while already there on a trip with her university. Things have been especially complicated because we met as foreign students in a "third" country, very far away from our continent, so it was never really clear what would happen when she left (I have another semester to go here). That was in its own a huge source of anxiety for me, since I tend to crave certainty about everything, well that feeling probably isn't anything new to anyone reading on this forum. So that's been keeping my worrying busy for the last few weeks/months. When she left from here to go back to her home country I figured that was it, 'cause that was the impression that I had of what she wanted to keep it like. But then she kept staying in touch and talking about how much she missed me. I was pretty okay with the whole thing for a while before she started to take initiatives for this sort of contact; in my head I suppose that I assumed that I had to grab on to this possibility of someone liking me since I don't expect those things to happen that often, due to somewhat low self-esteem and fear of being left alone. Anyway, we kept talking every day for the past week, and yesterday she finally started talking about how she thought it was weird to visit her ex while it wasn't really clear what was going on between us. She also said she didn't know how she was going to feel about him when seeing him. After that, it was obviously not going to work for us, and I made it clear that I can't keep having the same kind of contact as before with her knowing that she feels like this about someone else. We still haven't figured out quite what to do but it seems pretty obvious to the both of us. She still wants to keep in close contact but I don't think I can do that under these circumstances, it would just be too hard.
But what this is, apart from being very tough on me in its own, is also my anxious fear coming true. What I feared and imagined in my head (well, not exactly but along those lines, it was obviously much harder in my head) actually happened. I'm afraid of how this will affect my anxiety in the future, knowing that the thoughts aren't always just thoughts but can actually come true. I am worried that this will make my fear sky-rocket the next time I get into a relationship or just the beginning of something that might turn into one.
On the other hand, it's all pretty interesting. I mean, here I am, in a moment that is in some ways one I've feared so much, and I can ask myself: Was all the worrying necessary and proportionate? No, not really. I didn't really give me any of that comfort that I think that "preparing" myself for those awful situations will give me. I guess all that worrying really didn't make any difference cause in the end things played out partly beyond my control anyway. I do feel sad, more anxious than usual and worried at the moment, yes, but hey I would have been very surprised if my anxiety wouldn't have gotten to me at a moment like this. I do overthink what I will tell her the next time we talk et cetera, but deep down I guess I'm pretty convinced that it really doesn't matter too much cause in the end what happens will happen anyway. More than anything I guess I feel bad for myself, for beating myself up like I do. Why am I so dependent on what she thinks of me? Why do I feel like I have to hold on to something like this even though I know that it would never be good for me? Do I really not think that I am worth better than that? Yes, my anxiety is still affecting me a lot right now, I know that, both my thoughts and my feelings are partly being controlled by it right now. Both my anger and my sadness. But perhaps the most important thing is that I am surviving this too, and I do know that I will feel better about this pretty soon. I will try to learn from this experience for next time.
Okay I'll be expecting some pretty heavily anxious days ahead. This morning has been tough, although not as tough as I would have expected. Wish me luck! :-)
Afraid this will turn into one of those amazingly long posts. So, yeah, one of the things that I feared most actually happened. I have a lot of anxiety around relationships, also with friends but mostly around love relationships, girlfriends etc. I tend to suffer from a fear of being abandoned, and my feeling of always being sort of inferior to others in this department leads me to do a lot very anxious worrying about my girlfriend's ex-boyfriends, close male friends et cetera. I will get completely soaked up in thoughts about her leaving me and "exchanging me for something better", her still having feelings for ex-boyfriends, et cetera. And just yesterday, almost ironically, one of these fears came true.
I knew that the girl I had been dating for approx three months was visiting her ex-boyfriend in another city while already there on a trip with her university. Things have been especially complicated because we met as foreign students in a "third" country, very far away from our continent, so it was never really clear what would happen when she left (I have another semester to go here). That was in its own a huge source of anxiety for me, since I tend to crave certainty about everything, well that feeling probably isn't anything new to anyone reading on this forum. So that's been keeping my worrying busy for the last few weeks/months. When she left from here to go back to her home country I figured that was it, 'cause that was the impression that I had of what she wanted to keep it like. But then she kept staying in touch and talking about how much she missed me. I was pretty okay with the whole thing for a while before she started to take initiatives for this sort of contact; in my head I suppose that I assumed that I had to grab on to this possibility of someone liking me since I don't expect those things to happen that often, due to somewhat low self-esteem and fear of being left alone. Anyway, we kept talking every day for the past week, and yesterday she finally started talking about how she thought it was weird to visit her ex while it wasn't really clear what was going on between us. She also said she didn't know how she was going to feel about him when seeing him. After that, it was obviously not going to work for us, and I made it clear that I can't keep having the same kind of contact as before with her knowing that she feels like this about someone else. We still haven't figured out quite what to do but it seems pretty obvious to the both of us. She still wants to keep in close contact but I don't think I can do that under these circumstances, it would just be too hard.
But what this is, apart from being very tough on me in its own, is also my anxious fear coming true. What I feared and imagined in my head (well, not exactly but along those lines, it was obviously much harder in my head) actually happened. I'm afraid of how this will affect my anxiety in the future, knowing that the thoughts aren't always just thoughts but can actually come true. I am worried that this will make my fear sky-rocket the next time I get into a relationship or just the beginning of something that might turn into one.
On the other hand, it's all pretty interesting. I mean, here I am, in a moment that is in some ways one I've feared so much, and I can ask myself: Was all the worrying necessary and proportionate? No, not really. I didn't really give me any of that comfort that I think that "preparing" myself for those awful situations will give me. I guess all that worrying really didn't make any difference cause in the end things played out partly beyond my control anyway. I do feel sad, more anxious than usual and worried at the moment, yes, but hey I would have been very surprised if my anxiety wouldn't have gotten to me at a moment like this. I do overthink what I will tell her the next time we talk et cetera, but deep down I guess I'm pretty convinced that it really doesn't matter too much cause in the end what happens will happen anyway. More than anything I guess I feel bad for myself, for beating myself up like I do. Why am I so dependent on what she thinks of me? Why do I feel like I have to hold on to something like this even though I know that it would never be good for me? Do I really not think that I am worth better than that? Yes, my anxiety is still affecting me a lot right now, I know that, both my thoughts and my feelings are partly being controlled by it right now. Both my anger and my sadness. But perhaps the most important thing is that I am surviving this too, and I do know that I will feel better about this pretty soon. I will try to learn from this experience for next time.
Okay I'll be expecting some pretty heavily anxious days ahead. This morning has been tough, although not as tough as I would have expected. Wish me luck! :-)