Hi,
I'm 26 (nearly 27) and I'm dealing with depression and severe anxiety. I have a good family and always feel safe with them and likewise with my closer friends. I also have a boyfriend who I love very much but my anxiety is damaging that relationship.
He has never given me any reason not to trust him and has been nothing but supportive through this whole thing but somehow my brain refuses to acknowledge this when my anxiety starts up.
If he doesn't answer a message I start to panic and a thousand things go through my head. Its caused massive arguments before because I've gone off the handle and accused him of all sorts but I don't know why. Even when I'm in that moment of anxiety I tell myself that I'm overreacting but it doesn't seem to get through.
My counsellor suggested thinking about what I was feeling, what kind of thoughts were going through my head and then trying to challenge them. I do this, because I know there's no way he's being unfaithful, I know he's not angry at me, I know he's not forgotten about me or found someone more interesting or doesn't care. If he doesn't answer quickly its usually because he's helping out someone in his family or has gotten busy with something and hasn't checked his phone yet, and I know that's perfectly acceptable, it's not his job or his responsibility to be on the end of his phone 24/7 just for me and I shouldn't need that. But despite all of that I cannot stop the anxiety eating me up. It gets bigger and bigger the longer I wait for a reply and then it blows up and usually causes an argument.
Why can't I calm myself by thinking about things logically? It seems whatever rational thinking I do just gets ignored by myself, like the anxieties voice is much louder I can't compete with it and I'm worried it's going to ruin things because he feels like I don't trust him and I'm pushing him away, which is the last thing I want.