[Anonymous]

I’m 18 and i have been with my boyfriend for just over a year and a half now, about 5 months ago i was diagnosed with anxiety problems, which when having an anxiety attack makes me feel like i’m going crazy.
Since i started suffering from anxiety it’s completely destroyed my relationship with my boyfriend, i’m constantly freaking out about our future and then i’ll over think things like do we even have a future?! and then i start to panic even more and feel guilt for even having these feelings. I look and think of how we used to be and it really hurts me that things have changed so much, we used to have so much fun and i never seem to worry about everything, could this be because when we first got together we were much younger and we’re just growing up and maturing as a couple.
Also when we first got together we used to see eachother nearly everyday for just under the first year and now we’re trying to see each other less because we feel otherwise we’ll just get sick of each other, now that we’re seeing less of eachother and i’m getting comfortable with it, because of my anxiety i start freaking out thinking are we jsut moving backwards not forwards? is this the wrong thing to do, is there any hope for us?
because i love him so much, with all my heart, and this anxiety seems to make me overthink EVERYTHING and its so so so hard to ignore it and stop worrying but thats the problem with my anxiety its so hard to keep in control of.
what can i do or start thinking about to start rebuilding my relationship? IS there anything i can do?

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Before you can be in a healthy relationship you have to be healthy, yourself. Your anxiety problems require discipline. It sounds like you spin out and begin thinking a long chain of events that could happen — although they haven’t. You need to practice staying in the moment. This is a discipline like dieting or athletic training or academic studying. You need to stop yourself mentally and use physical techniques like breathing for 20 breaths, taking yourself out of the room you’re in, or doing a couple of jumping jacks to remind yourself that…. [i]you’re doing it again! [/i] Keep bringing yourself back to the present.

Let me know if this helps — it’s worth working on, because you’re right — if you don’t get a handle on this it can ruin relationships now and in your future, so start the discipline today! 😀

[Member]

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