You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: Living with Mental Illness : Understanding Anxiety
This is an insightful article, as I have been in a couple of relationships with people who suffered anxiety. The hard part being, they were not "aware" of their condition and always blamed outside influences, which meant I often took the brunt of their melt episodes. One has sought help, and now understands and has coping mechanisms in place, the other is still having a hard time coming to understand that they have an issue.
What advice do you have for those who have close relationships with people with anxiety?
Its really hard to say. I used to work with a girl who had the same problem. Both her and her husband had really serious anxiety problems (imo). Neither of then was open to admitting it though. It was having some really bad effects on their kids, but they blamed these on outside influences, instead of accepting they had some things they needed to deal with themselves. I don't really have an answer I'm sorry.
As I know the person intimately, I believe I know some of the root causes of their anxiety. Its obvious to me. But coming anywhere near these topics and suggesting anything other than their repeated narrative is an invitation for nuclear war as it threatens their very identity. Their whole sense of self is built up around a story that they never seemed to have questioned and will defend to the death.
I’m probably go off topic a little bit but I think the point you make about threatening a persons identity is really incitful. People has very powerful dialogues about how they want the world to see them, and most of the time they convince themselves that their narrative is reality. If you threaten that identity they push back really strongly. Everybody is like this to some extent and I think explains why so many topics are difficult for people to have conversations about. I could write an entire post about this. In fact I just might just do that 🤔🤔😂
I think you should write about the topic.