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Married to someone with anxiety

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Re: Married to someone with anxiety

#111

Post by graycat »

brookside wrote: post #12
mrcarlosrendon wrote: post #6

Thanks for sharing. I think its important to discuss mental health issues openly. They have a huge impact on our lives and are quite common (NAMI says 1 in 5), yet we tend as a society to shy away from talking about it and tend to have strange beliefs (they are just a negative person, they should just get over it, their thoughts will be contagious). I think many people never get the help they need because they aren't…

But a depressed person often is a negative person, and moods can spread. Think about working for a boss who is miserable and passes that feeling down onto people who work for her. If that boss goes to to a psychiatrist/therapist because she is having trouble getting along with the people in her life, that psychiatrist/therapist will likely say she depressed, never diagnose her as being a "negative person" which is al…

As is well known among people who study anxiety, commonly anxiety leads to stress, stress leads to depression, the depression may cause problems, e.g., in career, that leads to more stress and, thus, more depression and eventually clinical depression which is dangerous as in fatal from suicide. Then, for the depression it has been common to give some pills that, bummer, increase the chances of suicide.

Re: Married to someone with anxiety

#112

Post by jsprogrammer »

freehunter wrote: post #87
jsprogrammer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My problem with "therapy" is that the word is woefully undefined. Sticking an ice pick up a person's nose, into their brain, and just moving the pick around has been counted as therapy.

Yeah and leeches used to be called "medicine" but if you shy away from doctors because of what the profession practiced in the past (things that are illegal now) you're not exactly doing yourself any favors. Therapy these days does not mean lobotomies.

Ok, so therapy has moved from lobotomies to...

As I said, therapy seems to be devoid of any real definition.

Re: Married to someone with anxiety

#113

Post by theparanoid »

dominotw wrote: post #79
physcab wrote: post #5

Thank you for writing this. When people talk about these issues it becomes easier and more acceptable to society and it helps lessen anxiety stigmas. As someone who suffers from anxiety and who regularly seeks therapy, I can say that the rituals that have helped me are: - Realizing that anxiety isn't who you are, but more like a disturbance that will pass - Eating, sleeping, exercising, and practicing mindfulness go…

>One piece of advice I have for you is to not take on the role of mental health professional in your relationship. This isn't your problem and you can quickly tire yourself out. This is precisely the opposite of what happened in the post in question. Cause of anxiety was wanting to live a lifestyle and not wanting to work a stressful job. Marriage and "permission" to quit solved the issue immediately. None of the the…

By switching jobs I went from anxious and uncertain to happy and outgoing. It's not complicated.

Re: Married to someone with anxiety

#114

Post by whatever_dude »

sp00ls wrote: post #75
benibela wrote: post #36

I have holes in a few of my clothes. Today I went to a shop selling needles/yarn/wool/.., so I could fix them. I arrived at the shop, was too anxious to enter and left again. Guess the holes will have to stay.

I have done something similar. Go to the mall because I need clothes, walk in the door, do a lap around the store, walk out and go home. I know it is ridiculous but in my head it just feels like everyone is watching me, judging me based on what I am looking at. So I just don't even look at anything. I know that isn't true when I'm sitting at home but the second I arrive the anxiety kicks into high gear. It is very fr…

You're describing me. I've always had an extremely hard time buying clothes or shoes because of that. It'd take me many years to actually go and do it, only when I really really needed it. One day I had to do it and I was so nervous while doing it that the salesgirl I was using stolen checks to do so.

I've mostly overcome it in some strange ways. I moved to another country, with a foreign language, and as a result I knew EVERYTHING I did would be severely judged one way or the other, and I would be "doing it wrong". Somehow that made my brain go all "Ah fuck it" mode so today I don't care anymore (for the most part). I just kinda get inside the store and play a role of someone who's buying clothes. I still have moments when I am unable to gather the energy to do it, but I know I can if I put myself into it.

Re: Married to someone with anxiety

#115

Post by digler999 »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #112
freehunter wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah and leeches used to be called "medicine" but if you shy away from doctors because of what the profession practiced in the past (things that are illegal now) you're not exactly doing yourself any favors. Therapy these days does not mean lobotomies.

Ok, so therapy has moved from lobotomies to... As I said, therapy seems to be devoid of any real definition.

psychotherapy is a form of treatment for many psychological disorders as defined by the DSM-V. The treatment varies based on the therapist's style and patient preference, but it always centers around talking to a licensed professional about the patient's feelings, behaviors, thoughts, dreams, fears. Through talking, the therapist can spot patterns of harmful and destructive beliefs and thought patterns. To use a bit of jargon, they can deconstruct a patient's defenses and suggest changes in thoughts/actions that - if followed - may often alleviate some or all of the symptoms. Perhaps the thing that bothers you is that it's an inexact science ?

Re: Married to someone with anxiety

#117

Post by graycat »

dominotw wrote: post #27

>We also made big and brave decisions like my wife quitting her exhausting job up in London and her retraining to work with young people in a college environment — stressful, but local. Looks like now that guy is mainly responsible for all the stress and anxiety of mortgage and family finances. Brave decision indeed, at least form his side, hope he doesn't catch that horrible illness too. There is some evidence that…

As in David Shapiro, Neurotic Styles, the standard neurotic behaviors are hysteria (my description -- over reacting, i.e., volume level too high), paranoia (i.e., threat detector too sensitive; false alarm rate too high), obsessive behavior (can't stop thinking about something), compulsive behavior (can't stop doing something), psychopathic passive behavior (volume level set too low?). The parenthetic descriptions are mine, and I'm no expert.

Obsessive and compulsive often go together and called OCD -- obsessive/compulsive disorder.

Well such neurotic behavior is commonly a case of anxiety.

Some experts claim that it is known that talk therapy doesn't work for OCD.

As in David V. Sheehan, M.D., The Anxiety Disease, even quite broadly across cultures, anxiety disease is four times more common in human females than human males. Then the author conjectures that a disease so pervasive, even one so harmful, must have some reproductive advantage.

To have a hint on just why so "pervasive", it is accepted that dogs can have OCD. So, the common ancestor with OCD went way, WAY back!

Of course, if we want to believe Sheehan on "reproductive advantage" and if we are willing to be politically incorrect and not gender neutral, then the obvious guess is that a woman with anxiety disease is more highly motivated to seek a man and a marriage with him, stay in the home of the marriage and not leave, be emotionally dependent on and physically close to her husband, become a mother, and be devoted to her children.

Then, once we start to believe this scenario, pattern, whatever, e.g., "A woman's place is in the home, barefoot, pregnant, dependent, chained to the stove.", etc., along comes more: Some experts believe that women with anxiety disease do not make good mothers, that is, there would be no "reproductive advantage". So, right, we have a contradiction. So, again right, we don't yet really understand. Right, we are stumbling around in the dark.

I'm not an expert, but I (A) have to question how much even the experts know about this subject and (B) have considered much more about this subject than I ever wanted to because my (late) wife had one heck of a case of anxiety disease, OCD, and clinical depression. To understand better how to help her, I got tutorials from several experts; it appeared that I learned a lot; it was certain I didn't learn enough.

It was also certain that the last medical experts who treated her didn't know enough either. Most definitely, in her case, anxiety disease did not have anything like reproductive advantage.

Re: Married to someone with anxiety

#118

Post by albedoa »

dominotw wrote: post #27

>We also made big and brave decisions like my wife quitting her exhausting job up in London and her retraining to work with young people in a college environment — stressful, but local. Looks like now that guy is mainly responsible for all the stress and anxiety of mortgage and family finances. Brave decision indeed, at least form his side, hope he doesn't catch that horrible illness too. There is some evidence that…

> Given this instantly solved the issue

This is the second time in these comments that you've insisted the change solved the issue. Elsewhere you said[1]:

> Cause of anxiety was wanting to live a lifestyle and not wanting to work a stressful job. Marriage and "permission" to quit solved the issue immediately.

Those were not the cause of her anxiety, and those changes did not solve the issue — they made her symptoms less expressive. He writes as much: "She still has anxiety, and I imagine she always will."

Your speak of severe anxiety like it's a minor bout with "the sads" that can be "solved". He's not talking about the common stresses you and I face daily. It's not multiple discrete episodes. Her anxiety defines much of their life, and even when it's not active, it's ready to be.

If the above quote represents your experience with this condition, I imagine the OP was written for you.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13039162

Re: Married to someone with anxiety

#119

Post by brookside »

Sgt_Apone wrote: post #56
brookside wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a depressed person often is a negative person, and moods can spread. Think about working for a boss who is miserable and passes that feeling down onto people who work for her. If that boss goes to to a psychiatrist/therapist because she is having trouble getting along with the people in her life, that psychiatrist/therapist will likely say she depressed, never diagnose her as being a "negative person" which is al…

>But a depressed person often is a negative person, and moods can spread. That's pretty stereotypical. The happiest people on the outside can hide some pretty dark clouds on the inside; especially in a work environment where outward appearances are important. In fact, I would suggest that the majority that are depressed don't show any outwards signs to working colleagues.

Absolutely, but I can almost guarantee you the person who presents as anxious/tortured wreck is not secretly beaming with contentment inside.

Re: Married to someone with anxiety

#120

Post by javier2 »

sp00ls wrote: post #75
benibela wrote: post #36

I have holes in a few of my clothes. Today I went to a shop selling needles/yarn/wool/.., so I could fix them. I arrived at the shop, was too anxious to enter and left again. Guess the holes will have to stay.

I have done something similar. Go to the mall because I need clothes, walk in the door, do a lap around the store, walk out and go home. I know it is ridiculous but in my head it just feels like everyone is watching me, judging me based on what I am looking at. So I just don't even look at anything. I know that isn't true when I'm sitting at home but the second I arrive the anxiety kicks into high gear. It is very fr…

Hey, this is me as well. Just keep going and eventually the anxiety wears off and you can actually look at clothes. I am sorry :-(
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