apple1981
01-31-2012, 01:06 PM
Hello, firstly it's not me that has anxiety, I hope it's OK for me to post here, but it's my Mother In Law (MIL) that has been diagnosed with anxiety. She's been ill for over 6 years, although we're struggling to remember when it all started really.
It's really hard to know where to start with all this as there is so much I want to say, so bear with me.
When I say 'we' I mean me and my husband. We only found out it was anxiety (I'm assuming GAD) about 6 months ago when my husband went with his mum to one of the sessions to speak to a psychologist, and she gave him more information in that hour than his mum had told us in 6 years.
She's had her good days and bad days, but lately she's got worse again and I've taken it upon myself to try and help her resolve the issues, but I honestly don't know where to begin or how to help.
I've started by reading up on anxiety, but from our point of view it's hard to see if she fits the classic anxiety symptoms. As an outsider the main issues we see are slight OCD tendencies (when she comes over she checks the kettle several times to see if it's leaked and she often dries it with a teatowel (even though there's no spillage). She also has constant worries that our daughter is ill/hurt/going to get ill/hurt because of things she has done. I could go on forever, but some examples have been that MIL thinks she's dropped her pills and that our daughter has or might find them and eat them. This could be even when she hasn't even brought her pills around to ours. And it was also when our daughter was 1 day old...even when I was pregnant she would worry about the pills she might have dropped when I was 3 months pregnant and my daughter eating them.
Another example is when she leaned over the baby in hospital her scarf brushed over the baby's face. My MIL went on for months about this and if my daughter was OK because of it.
Other examples are "did I leave the tap on, did I shut the door properly, did the plug get wet..."
When she has one of these scenarios in her head she then phones us constantly. On a bad day this can be 20 times in a day.
So is this anxiety?
The advice we were given by the psychologist was whenever my MIL asks about something that needs reassurance, e.g. "I didn't drop and pills did I?" then we're to respond with "What did your psychologist say?". We've been told to never say "No of course not", "Don't be silly" etc or to try and rationalise it with her e.g. "You didn't even bring your pills, so how could you have dropped them?". But it gets very hard. Especially after the 20th time. I feel like I'm having to block her/ignore her and that's heartbreaking to be quite honest. Now if I knew it was doing good, then fine, but we're just not seeing any improvement.
The other advice was for her to do more stuff (she's retired, mid 60's), so she has joined a couple of volunteer jobs a couple of afternoons a week and she also looks after my daughter with my mum a couple of afternoons a week. For a while things seemed to improve, she started going out a bit more with her husband (before he was having to leave her at home as she wouldn't leave the house - she'd make herself ill at the thought of going).
But lately things seem to be getting worse again and that's where I am now...trying to find a way to help her get better.
I think I'll leave it at that for now, see what you guys think.
It's really hard to know where to start with all this as there is so much I want to say, so bear with me.
When I say 'we' I mean me and my husband. We only found out it was anxiety (I'm assuming GAD) about 6 months ago when my husband went with his mum to one of the sessions to speak to a psychologist, and she gave him more information in that hour than his mum had told us in 6 years.
She's had her good days and bad days, but lately she's got worse again and I've taken it upon myself to try and help her resolve the issues, but I honestly don't know where to begin or how to help.
I've started by reading up on anxiety, but from our point of view it's hard to see if she fits the classic anxiety symptoms. As an outsider the main issues we see are slight OCD tendencies (when she comes over she checks the kettle several times to see if it's leaked and she often dries it with a teatowel (even though there's no spillage). She also has constant worries that our daughter is ill/hurt/going to get ill/hurt because of things she has done. I could go on forever, but some examples have been that MIL thinks she's dropped her pills and that our daughter has or might find them and eat them. This could be even when she hasn't even brought her pills around to ours. And it was also when our daughter was 1 day old...even when I was pregnant she would worry about the pills she might have dropped when I was 3 months pregnant and my daughter eating them.
Another example is when she leaned over the baby in hospital her scarf brushed over the baby's face. My MIL went on for months about this and if my daughter was OK because of it.
Other examples are "did I leave the tap on, did I shut the door properly, did the plug get wet..."
When she has one of these scenarios in her head she then phones us constantly. On a bad day this can be 20 times in a day.
So is this anxiety?
The advice we were given by the psychologist was whenever my MIL asks about something that needs reassurance, e.g. "I didn't drop and pills did I?" then we're to respond with "What did your psychologist say?". We've been told to never say "No of course not", "Don't be silly" etc or to try and rationalise it with her e.g. "You didn't even bring your pills, so how could you have dropped them?". But it gets very hard. Especially after the 20th time. I feel like I'm having to block her/ignore her and that's heartbreaking to be quite honest. Now if I knew it was doing good, then fine, but we're just not seeing any improvement.
The other advice was for her to do more stuff (she's retired, mid 60's), so she has joined a couple of volunteer jobs a couple of afternoons a week and she also looks after my daughter with my mum a couple of afternoons a week. For a while things seemed to improve, she started going out a bit more with her husband (before he was having to leave her at home as she wouldn't leave the house - she'd make herself ill at the thought of going).
But lately things seem to be getting worse again and that's where I am now...trying to find a way to help her get better.
I think I'll leave it at that for now, see what you guys think.