Relationship Anxiety

[Darksword1]

Hi there everyone!

After suffering with some pretty crippling anxiety for the past few months I've decided to look online for some assistance!

Background:
I have dealt with anxiety in the past, only small amounts but it's always been there affecting my life in some way or another. I've never been able to drink alcohol in social situations as the idea of it making me ill, makes me ill! This ends with me feeling sick and I have to leave! This is something I've dealt with my whole life and I am yet to defeat it. Two years ago I was left by my partner for someone else, we had been together for four years and had planned a life together, it was all very sudden and it broke me for the best part of a year. This made meeting new people near impossible as I would get so anxious when going on a date that I would get uncontrollably sick and I just couldn't continue. I eventually met someone that I was able to slowly fall for, over the space of 6 months we went from friends, to best friends, to casual datees. At first it was just as difficult as always, I was horribly ill the first few dates we had but due to the amazing person she is she accepted it and stuck with me. I was prescribed 40mg of propranolol to take whenever things got a bit too much and it helped me loads. Eventually this stopped and we have spent the best year of our lives together embracing every opportunity and challenging each other to be better in every way!

About her:
We are quite different people, she's far more outgoing than I am and she loves to try new things and go to new places. I've always been a bit of a home bug and never had the itch to go anywhere or do much! This is what makes us so perfect, we challenge each other in ways that we never thought possible. She allows me to express a new side of life of adventure and learning new skills, I've opened her up to the prospect of love and a caring relationship (she hadn't had much luck with previous relationships and the idea of love what all but dead to her). We have been together for nearly a year now and we never ever fall out, the odd tiff here and there but never have we gotten mad towards one another, it's like a dream!

The problem:
One night whilst out drinking with my girlfriend and our friends I started getting the usual sick feeling I get whilst drinking in social situations. This lead to me feeling unwell whilst we were in bed together whilst she was trying to hug me and make me feel better. For whatever reason I then created a link between the negative feelings and her.. I started to question whether I didn't like her touching me, if she was still attractive, if I still loved her, why couldn't I find this big warm squishy feeling inside me anymore? This ended in a night of whirlwinds and hurricanes in my head that I thought would eventually just go away and disappear forever. Unfortunately that is not what happened! For weeks and weeks I spent every living moment questioning how I felt about this girl, if my sexuality had just changed, if she had changed?? I really didn't know what had happened but for some reason I was constantly questioning how I felt. I spoke to people about this and I have always known throughout the whole ideal that I WANT to be with her, I have no doubt in my mind that I want to spend my life with her because we are perfect together but there are these questions in my head that I just cannot avoid!!

The solution:
I went to the doctors and they gave me some slow release 80mg propranolol that I take daily. I tried this for a few weeks and things didn't really improve so I went back and they have now given me sertraline to take once a day. It's been two weeks since I've started and it's really been hit and miss. I go through stretches of days to weeks of feeling okay, like I love her unconditionally and I KNOW that everything is going to be okay. But then I will have the down patch where it just overwhelms me and I can't function at the thought of "what if i dont love this perfect being anymore? I dont want to spend my life without her yet I may not love her anymore!? WHY?!". It literally ends up with me arguing against myself and trying to find some kind of answer to what all of this is.

Unfortunately after a month of this starting, it took it's toll on my partner and it got her worried as you can imagine. Eventually it basically took hold of her to and she now suffers with something similar, she thinks its link to a depression she used to suffer. We are both on anti depressants, we are focused on staying together, we constantly reassure each other that we will never give up fighting, yet we are both questioning if we even love each other anymore?

I have boiled this down to some form of anxiety, hence why I am here. People have told me maybe I'm trying to push her away to remove any chance of her hurting me first? For some reason my brain is telling me I don't love my girlfriend anymore, it can even get so bad it starts making me question whether I feel anything at all towards anything. This is all driving me crazy and I just pray for the day that things might go back to how they used to be.. absolutely blindly uncontrollably in love :(

Thanks for listening guys. Any input, thoughts, comments are welcome.

[AceParadox]

Hi Darksword!

I read through your post and it sounds like you found a great match. As I reader further, you started to question whether you loved her or not - perhaps you should refer back up to your first "About her" Paragraph - it sounds like love to me. You each have something to offer each other.

Anxiety and depression can be very unwanted guests in a happy relationship - they make things tough for both because they're so taxing on our state of mind, our energy throughout the day just seems to drain and we worry so much about things we never did before. Try replacing those thoughts of "Am I changing? What's happening? Do I even love her?" with "I know I love her still, this is just anxiety and worry speaking. Look at all the memories we've shared together. We'll get through this, both of us."

It's a team game here. You two vs Anxiety and/or depression. Team up like the awesome couple you know you two are and have fun doing stuff that'll distract you from those feelings. Easier said than done, I know, but winning against this mental opponent is all obviously in the head. It's challenging your willpower. Stay strong. Just remember 2 is usually better than 1. A loyal partner at your side, is something special and you're lucky to have that. Do something special for her to make her smile and get filled with fuzzy warm butterflies - it'll make you just as happy.

Cheers,

Ace

[Esva]

Hi
I just wanted to write to say you are not alone with what you are dealing with. I think it's a 'thing'. I suffer from this too so I really sympathise and know how horrible this is. I explain it to others like I don't know what I really think. I have doubts. Do I love them or want to be with them? The doubt makes me panic. It's like two voices are talking inside my head. One saying I don't love them, the other saying don't be silly. I'm not in a relationship so not going through it at the moment but I have gone through the same thing with most of my relationships since I was eighteen, actually this is how my anxiety disorder started. I stayed in a relationship for 8 years once but the anxiety got so bad I had to end it. But....I wasn't like you in the context that I was sure that the relationship was right for me - but you do, which is great.

If you want to chat, feel free from someone who knows what your going through.
Take care