Will You Still Be There Tomorrow? Treating Anxiety, Improving Relationships

Don't just manage anxiety: Be there

We don't have to break the bank to cope with anxiety but we do have to be there. For ourselves. For each other. That's half the job done.

But isn't a job, it's life: A messy, complicated, nerve-wracking love affair with breathing.

I really can't tell you how important support is in coping with that, and with mental health conditions. There are rare moments, between the devil and the deep blue sea, in which we will all experience it: Genuine validation.

If I told you exactly how imperfect I am, would you still care?

Needs mismatch. It happens. More common than you'd think.

Not knowing what I need.

Not knowing what to tell them. Because I can't fix myself, and neither can they.

There isn't any one strategy you can give someone to manage anxiety. Especially when you're barely holding your head above water.

And yet contend with it we must. All of us, together, separately, dealing with anxiety. It's a real thing. Stress has serious effects on our lives, bodies, minds. You couldn't count. There is no yard stick for tragedy.

treating anxiety IS living with anxiety

Having an anxiety disorder and interacting with the world - it's always a threesome. You, your partner/friend/parent/sibling/the supermarket checkout chick, and anxiety.

Anxiety can easily get between us. Sometimes it's fast, sometimes it's ever so slow. But it's there. Always there. Reliable, in its own absolutely unreliable way.

Anxiety is the ball you're kicking whilst simultaneously trying to create a life. The people close to you may or may not know you're playing dodgeball but you are.

Most of the time I don't feel like saying "hey, could we put off that drink till I feel less like boiled cabbage risen from the grave?". Doesn't go over that well.

Anxiety, Relationships: I need more than just communication

Communication is a start but it's complicated, and it's not always enough.

We can't force perfection on ourselves, or each other

Which was a surprising, even novel, thought since I'm a card-carrying, life-long perfectionist.

Anxiety and relationships, they go something like this:

You can't help someone get up a hill without getting closer to the top yourself.

~H. Norman Schwarzkopf

Anxiety CBT for the week:

Anxiety relief? It's attitude, it's a total nightmare, it's facing the structures of our pain, and it's more than a little luck. More than all that, it's allowing yourself to be less than perfect with at least one person in your life.

Let go, just enough. Let someone see you, no matter how OK or not that seems to be right now.

It isn't going to be pleasant but it just might make you happier. And it's my experience that the more of our selves we can be with as many people as possible, the less likely we are to freak out completely when confronted with the thoughts of loss, love, or letting go.

Fulfillment doesn't come with Rights and Wrongs. There's only sticking it out, and that essential moment of connection.

Anxiety strains relationships. Fear alone is worse

To cure anxiety and keep working at partnerships, friendships, family, whatever you've got - it's about showing up. No matter the cold feet, the stage fright, the catastrophic thinking (or the tendency to wash the dishes after they have, just in case).

I have an anxiety disorder, and when I'm tackling relationship difficulties, or just plain difficulties, then I like to keep that quote in my head.

It reminds me of what I've got, and of what I will not fear tomorrow.