Family members: How to stay sane myself while boyfriend struggles with Anxiety disorder

Mental health
1

Hi all, 

If you have an anyiety disorder and are overly worried about your partner / spouse, you should better skip this post. 

If you're a relative, partner or friend, keep reading. 

I hope I can get some helpful advice from you. My boyfriend has a generalised anxiety disorder (as far as I understood). 

We're trying to arrange treatment for him, but because of the country we live  in and some difficulties with the doctors, health insurance, Christmas holidays and his lack of initiative, we haven't made much progress yet. 

I feel like I can't cope with this. Seeing him constantly switching between panicked, totally down, agitated, medicated and sleepy drives me nuts. 

I can't stop thinking about this. What could we try to get treamtent faster? What did we not think of? How can we get the insurance to pay? How do I convince him to get treatment beyond picking up meds at the GP? He's already a bit annoyed with me suggesting things trying to accelerate the process. 

Also, I'm not able to focus on work or anything else. 

I feel like I'm drowning in a spiral of worrying myself. I also have some very stressful commitments that I can't drop at the moment. 

I feel like I'm not going to be able to come out of this healthy myself. I read all the advice: Is should do sports, make sure I get a break, eat healthy, relax, realize that I can't fix him, seek treatment myself. 

I'm sticking to all that but still I'm scared that this will cost me my own sanity and I won't be able to function any more. 

How do others cope with this? 

Thanks a bunch, 

Laura

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Its good your helping him , but I understand your frustration in that he needs to do it at his pace or he feel more paniced. In the meantime his pace is not your paces and as suck your starting to feel the pains too. Perhaps go to together and work as a team.

It might make things better. Its just an idea. I am sure there are many solutions

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What country are you in? You mention insurance so I gues America.

In UK there are organisations that give therapy on a sliding scale system. You work out with them what your circumstances are and you pay according to your means. 

Good luck and your boyfriend is lucky to have you.

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Hi Jimmy, 

thank so much for this. This was massively helpful. I guess your post made something click in my head to understand: He really needs to do things at his pace and I can't just "prescribe" him what he should do. He needs to make his own experiences, even if it's painful to watch and even when I think he goes wrong (taking benzodiazepines too long etc). 

I started asking him things like "What do you think will help you?", "What kind of treatment do you think you need", "Do you think x will help or rather y". This way, I'm not trying to dictate what has to happen next, I'm just initiating a thought process. 

I guess I just need to somehow prevent myself from going crazy on the way. It'll be an ongoing battle I guess. 

L

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empowering him will bevpositive forbboth of you, you can thennhelp him with the ideas andvplans

 

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Lok up a book called Overcoming Anxiety, Stress and Panic : A Five Areas Approach by Chris Williams

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Hi Walter, I have seen your reply and I was curious which are those organisations you were mentioning in your comments. Would be really helpfull as I am looking for a price wise reasonable therapist?

Thanks.

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Laura how are things going now ?

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Thanks so much for checking in! At the moment not too bad. He seems to be getting a bit better, or the medication is helping. 

That relaxes me a lot, so I could recover quite a bit too. Fingers crossed it keeps like that for a while. 

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Small steps will mean you both get to where you want to be