Really worried about friend’s anxiety what best to do?

[Embelline]

My friend is really anxious, in fact we bonded over it as I suffer from very specific health anxiety. She’s been managing well for a few years but the October 7th attacks have triggered something with her - I can completely see why, she has a six month old baby and I remember those days well as an anxious new mum.

but she seems extremely anxious in terms of threat level. I appreciate the world is bleak right now, I worry about it myself, but she is absolutely convinced there will be a similar terror attack here in the UK, focused on families and children.
she keeps reading everything about what happened and what is happening in Gaza and it’s obviously just feeling the anxiety more.

i know we need to educate ourselves and try to each make a difference but I know from experience where you’re in this anxious state it doesn’t help.

i don’t know if this is her previous anxiety or maybe post partum but it isn’t a usual level of worry and I recognise the signs.

she has cancelled lots of plans because she doesn’t want to be out in busy places especially over Christmas and this is what she did before just before she was in a really bad way.
her husband is working away and I don’t really know what best to do to help her. Call Samaritans? I don’t have contact details for her mum. Our mutual friends think just don’t talk to her about the atrocities etc but I don’t want to leave her alone reading all this stuff and getting herself in a state over it.
would her GP talk to me? For me to tell them my concerns not to give me any information.
ive tried asking her to see the GP but she says it’s not her it’s the world.

I just want to be able to help her as I know what it’s like when you’re in that state, I’ve been there myself more than once and it was DH who recognised the signs and managed to help me out of it

any advice would be really appreciated.

Sorry to hear your friend is having such a hard time. I’ve been in a similar place post-natally quite recently and I know it is hard to reach someone who is in the grips of it. Getting a referral for CBT definitely helped and the waiting time was much less on the nhs because being post- natal put me in a priority group. The CBT helped me see the thing to focus on and treat is the anxiety itself rather than the current focus of the anxiety if that makes sense? Recognising the thoughts and state of mind are a symptom of anxiety which can be managed and treated rather than a sign of something to actually be anxious about.

It is a really hard mindset shift as you’ll know yourself - to argue with your own mind that you’re not in danger.
I have a couple of friends who were really good at helping me through the worst bits. One was good at helping me find the most likely outcome of a situation rather than the worst case. She’d walk it through with me and ask me for evidence for each outcome. She’d experienced therapy herself although there was also quite a tough love tone which was good for me but your friend might not appreciate! Then another friend who used to just say “this will pass like it has before” which I found really comforting.

I would definitely encourage her to explore what talking therapies she can access or what else a gp might suggest. My health visitor was also very supportive.

Thank you for sharing your experience it’s so insidious isn’t it? And it’s why I have such sympathy with her as i
know once you’re in the mindset it’s hard to get out of it.

shes really resisting any outward support at the moment but I will persist.