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Married to someone with anxiety

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Re: Married to someone with anxiety

#171

Post by JohnBooty »

josefdlange wrote: post #163
JohnBooty wrote: post #89

When your partner has anxiety, every problem you have now becomes two problems. Because when you have a problem (work, health, whatever) you now either have to (1) figure out how to tell your partner without causing a meltdown (which will probably fail no matter what you do) or... (2) just keep it to yourself (obviously unhealthy) So that sucks. You have to partially mitigate it by reducing your partner's overall str…

The last line is the important one. > It's not their fault, they didn't choose this. You did. That's exactly right. You chose it. You chose to be a partner to that person. In the case of marriage, typically that means "in sickness and in health" and so you either step up to the plate and be the support they need, or you realize your mistake and move on before it destroys both of you. That's the positive (yet realisti…

I don't think we're saying anything different, really.

> Mental health issues are not emotions. They may interplay to a degree

Bit of an understatement in many cases, eh? "Interplay to a degree?" No, when it comes to anxiety, the emotion we call "anxiety" is just by definition the primary symptom.

Yeah, they "interplay to a degree" just like 3rd degree burns and having your skin slough off "interplay to a degree."

Nonetheless, your point is correct and vital.

Mental health issues can absolutely not be dismissed. There are deep seated physical and/or behavorial reasons for these problems.

They are every bit as real as breaking one's arm or one's spine, and mental health issues are in some ways much tougher to handle because they are "invisible." At least when you have a broken leg, nobody asks you to run a marathon.

Re: Married to someone with anxiety

#172

Post by lisper »

digler999 wrote: post #168
lisper wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upvoted you, but I would like to say that I think jsprogrammer's remarks being downvoted into oblivion is not warranted. He (she?) may have made his (her?) point inartfully, but it is a valid point: what is the basis for believing that "therapy" (whatever it may mean at this particular point in time) actually works, that it is anything more than a placebo? For example, this to me is a yellow flag: > talking to a li…

> jsprogrammer's remarks being downvoted into oblivion is not warranted. he's making loaded statements out of ignorance because he wont bother to google psychotherapy's definition. There is a therapeutic process to talking and learning to manage emotions and cope with defenses. Licensure is a key feature so you prohibit people from making fake therapeutic claims or quackery. Or to limit taking advantage of emotionall…

> Why can't you face that ?

What makes you think I can't? (And why are you getting so defensive?)

> I dont know why its acceptable to denigrate the field of psychology.

Don't confuse denigration with legitimate criticism. Jsprogrammer's comments may have been loaded and ignorant, but they were not wrong: lobotomization was in fact considered a legitimate therapy in the not-so-distant past. And Psychology has a very checkered history, e.g.:

http://jeffreymasson.com/books/final-analysis.html

And a current replication crisis:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis#Psychology

So some skepticism of the profession's claims is not entirely unwarranted.

BTW, but for the defensive tone, I think your response was very good, and exactly the sort of thing that is needed in this discussion. I upvoted you again.

Re: Married to someone with anxiety

#173

Post by [deleted] »

digler999 wrote: post #168
lisper wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upvoted you, but I would like to say that I think jsprogrammer's remarks being downvoted into oblivion is not warranted. He (she?) may have made his (her?) point inartfully, but it is a valid point: what is the basis for believing that "therapy" (whatever it may mean at this particular point in time) actually works, that it is anything more than a placebo? For example, this to me is a yellow flag: > talking to a li…

> jsprogrammer's remarks being downvoted into oblivion is not warranted. he's making loaded statements out of ignorance because he wont bother to google psychotherapy's definition. There is a therapeutic process to talking and learning to manage emotions and cope with defenses. Licensure is a key feature so you prohibit people from making fake therapeutic claims or quackery. Or to limit taking advantage of emotionall…

[deleted]

Re: Married to someone with anxiety

#174

Post by digler999 »

lisper wrote: post #172
digler999 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> jsprogrammer's remarks being downvoted into oblivion is not warranted. he's making loaded statements out of ignorance because he wont bother to google psychotherapy's definition. There is a therapeutic process to talking and learning to manage emotions and cope with defenses. Licensure is a key feature so you prohibit people from making fake therapeutic claims or quackery. Or to limit taking advantage of emotionall…

> Why can't you face that ? What makes you think I can't? (And why are you getting so defensive?) > I dont know why its acceptable to denigrate the field of psychology. Don't confuse denigration with legitimate criticism. Jsprogrammer's comments may have been loaded and ignorant, but they were not wrong: lobotomization was in fact considered a legitimate therapy in the not-so-distant past. And Psychology has a very c…

I apologize, yes I was defensive. Probably because I need more practice having my ideas challenged. Thank you for bringing this to my attention and I will work on it. (and thank you HN for somehow cultivating a community where we can have such a forum).

Absolutely, I agree that the field is not perfect. Let me address the link you sent (I haven't read the book): Psychoanalysis (also called the psychodynamic method) is but one of several prominent forms of therapy. I've never undertaken it, as I cannot afford to go 3hrs/week for a year or more, so I cannot talk from experience. I have read quite a bit about it from textbooks and I see a lot of merit to at least the theory. Merit, I say, because it appeared to corroborate with anecdotal evidence from my own life. I have seen the pattern in people, over and over again, who re-enact the behaviors they learned during their youth. You particularly hear about it with domestic violence: girls that grow up seeing mommy getting beat up (somehow) (very often) seem to become attracted to violent men and repeat the cycle. Boys who grow up seeing daddy beat up mommy (tend to) become aggressive toward women when they are adults.

So I don't personally think the entire field of psychoanalysis is bullshit. The books I've read said that a good psychoanalyst can shake the patient to their core. It sounds like they are trained to sniff out the patient's malignant / self-defeating behaviors and show them how they are reenacting them in the therapeutic relationship. From there, I don't know exactly how they motivate change, but once they break you down on such a primitive emotional level, once your defenses are removed and layed before you, it makes sense that you would be weakened enough to consider making a change.

So that's my case for psychoanalysis. Now, of course someone could take advantage of that. Maybe a patient is simply bipolar and their problems have nothing to do with reenacting their mom's abuse cycle. An unethical therapist could take advantage of that and milk the patient for 3 years' therapy and then say "oh yeah actually you just need to be on meds". It's malpractice and I'm sure it goes on every day in the medical field. MD's milking medicare. experienced dr's running unnecessary tests "just to be sure" when they know exactly whats wrong. Doing an X-ray in the hospital instead of an outpatient clinic so they can charge 3X more. Malpractice will always be around both in medicine and psychology.

Re: Married to someone with anxiety

#175

Post by throwaway_52049 »

b1tr0t wrote: post #107

OK - I'll bite. I haven't seen anyone mention medications here but personally I use propranolol. Life. Changing. For the first while I took it every day as prescribed for my ET. 20mg. And as I experienced the first pill (effects kick in about 40 minutes after), I had this realization "wait a minute, this is what it must feel like to be a normal person"! That light bulb in itself was incredible. Before that, I hadn't…

I think I had mild self-diagnosed anxiety for a large portion of my life, which really took hold in college. I went through a majority of college without speaking to anyone, evaded those that did try to reach out to me, and eventually dropped out. And my online persona wasn't much different; I still remember strangers messaging me on IRC and my heart rate jumping several BPM from just a "hi".

I think I have arrived at a point in life where I am no longer nervous around strangers, but despite that I can't help but want that feeling back. It's relieving that I can interact with the rest of the world, but I can't help but feel like I've lost an important part of me; not just the anxiety but a major part of my personality.

Re: Married to someone with anxiety

#176

Post by atsaloli »

digler999 wrote: post #169
jsprogrammer wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As astaloli said, the DSM is not valid. If changes in diagnoses are changing yearly...the NIMH seems completely correct in rejecting the book.

> the DSM is not valid. that makes treatment easy then. POOF! all mental illness disappears because the book is "invalid". FYI you're using a defense called denial[1] when you do that :) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial

We do actually need valid treatment.

Re: Married to someone with anxiety

#177

Post by lisper »

digler999 wrote: post #174
lisper wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why can't you face that ? What makes you think I can't? (And why are you getting so defensive?) > I dont know why its acceptable to denigrate the field of psychology. Don't confuse denigration with legitimate criticism. Jsprogrammer's comments may have been loaded and ignorant, but they were not wrong: lobotomization was in fact considered a legitimate therapy in the not-so-distant past. And Psychology has a very c…

I apologize, yes I was defensive. Probably because I need more practice having my ideas challenged. Thank you for bringing this to my attention and I will work on it. (and thank you HN for somehow cultivating a community where we can have such a forum). Absolutely, I agree that the field is not perfect. Let me address the link you sent (I haven't read the book): Psychoanalysis (also called the psychodynamic method) i…

> I haven't read the book

You should. It's an eye-opener.

Re: Married to someone with anxiety

#178

Post by xapata »

soared wrote: post #146

> a 4 hour commute (both ways) What the fuck is this person doing and why do they think its okay? According to that paragraph she's home at 8pm. She leaves for work at 4am. That leaves 8 hours total to eat, sleep, and live your life. He just brushes over that until later when she casually leaves her job (for no reason given). C'mon guy.. that was the root of the problem!

I thought the same thing. A 4-hour (each way) commute means very little sleep. Low sleep for too long means hallucinations and eventually nervous breakdown.

Re: Married to someone with anxiety

#179

Post by witty_username »

shams93 wrote: post #53

It's actually unfortunately normal and healthy to have extreme anxiety when you have no workers rights and its hard to replace a job. As working people we are forced to live with unprecedented levels of uncertainty. Life can be extremely punishing, I've seen both the mediocre and the extremely talented crushed beneath the wheels of the system sometimes seemingly at random. Abuse if the h1b creates artificial shortage…

Most billionaires make most of their money through stocks, so why not invest in those companies and make good money [if things are becoming better for billionaires].

Re: Married to someone with anxiety

#180

Post by pitaj »

throwaway_52049 wrote: post #175
b1tr0t wrote: post #107

OK - I'll bite. I haven't seen anyone mention medications here but personally I use propranolol. Life. Changing. For the first while I took it every day as prescribed for my ET. 20mg. And as I experienced the first pill (effects kick in about 40 minutes after), I had this realization "wait a minute, this is what it must feel like to be a normal person"! That light bulb in itself was incredible. Before that, I hadn't…

I think I had mild self-diagnosed anxiety for a large portion of my life, which really took hold in college. I went through a majority of college without speaking to anyone, evaded those that did try to reach out to me, and eventually dropped out. And my online persona wasn't much different; I still remember strangers messaging me on IRC and my heart rate jumping several BPM from just a "hi". I think I have arrived a…

I think these are two different things.

Social anxiety where being around other people makes you anxious is very different from anxiety where you are just worried all the time.

I say this because you are obviously talking about a completely different condition than the woman in this article.

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