and if so, what support could be given? This is for a close family member (posting with their consent!). Issues have been going on since childhood but with various levels of severity. Person goes through periods of extreme anxiety and other periods without anxiety. Routines and habits remain even without anxiety but aren’t so bad, just a part of life. During periods of anxiety (which can be very long) routines and other symptoms become very difficult and exhausting and make life unpleasant. Person has been to the doctor about anxiety but has kept a lot secret out of embarrassment. She also has like a weird imposter syndrome about it, like maybe it’s nothing or she’s just being dramatic and doesn’t want to waste a doctor’s time, despite it being really hard to live with at times. She has a good job and a family and a generally good life but does really struggle during periods where symptoms and anxiety are most intense (although hides it well).
- since childhood, a lot of ‘routines’ - not typical daily routines but things like, needing to turn all switches on and off a certain number of times before finally leaving it on/off on the ‘right’ number
- anxiety around breathing … hard to explain. When watching a movie, say, if there’s a character who something bad happens to, or who is an unfortunate character, you can’t breathe in while looking at this person, only out. As if breathing in will sort of ‘take in’ their bad luck. Same goes for any kind of stressful or negative words in books and so on.
- similar sort of rituals as above, only this time with touching their face. Sort of ‘brushing away’ negativity. This one’s hard to explain. You might notice this person touching their face but wouldn’t think anything of it unless they explained to you why they do it (will disguise it as brushing away hair or something)
- extreme anxiety about random things - will often be a fixation that causes extreme anxiety for a period of time (days, weeks or even months) before eventually passing or being replace with a new one). This might be a world event or, more commonly, an imaginary health issue. Health anxiety, when it comes on, is severe and usually totally irrational for example, this person will read about a sickness and be consumed by fear that they have it despite having no symptoms and being in excellent physical health. Will be too scared to speak with a doctor and will feel sick with fear and misery about it until it passes. When they finally do speak to a doctor, sometimes becomes paranoid that the doctor has just missed the imaginary condition (although other times will accept that the doctor is right and feel relieved).
- when her child was born she had such bad anxiety that she couldn’t sleep without waking up several times a night to check baby’s breathing, heartbeat, temperature, had a LOT of routines that she did to keep baby safe (irrational ones like having to do/say/touch certain things a certain number of times to keep baby safe
- Very physical symptoms of anxiety including panic attacks.
- Intrusive thoughts about her own behaviour - what if I do this? Or what if I did this? either about things she might do or things she did do. (When I say things she did do, it will be things like - we go for a family party and have a couple of drinks. Despite remembering the night fully and not being a drunken embarrassment, she will be extremely paranoid that maybe she did something massively inappropriate and just can’t remember it
- Sometimes will randomly throw something away because in her head some feeling of negativity will be attached to the item (completely random, the significance comes from in her own head and nothing to do with the item). Like this is a bad luck item, if I keep it X,Y or Z will happen (maybe an intrusive thought that occurred when she picked it up/looked at it), so it needs to go.
- Often late due to leaving the house and then feeling a massive panic that she left something on (that she hasn’t used!) and that her house is burning down, needing to go back and check
- Thoughts and panic about ‘what ifs’ that have caused distress in her life. For example, will have a real panic that she has (despite just sitting having a coffee and doing nothing embarrassing at all) somehow taken a really embarrassing photo, uploaded it to her social media, and shared it to the world, all without knowing. Wont be able to think or focus or move on with her day without checking.
These are just some examples but I need to go to work now so can’t go on! We were hoping to hear from anyone who has experience with similar - is this something a doctor would be concerned about and offer support with? If so, what would be available in terms of help? I know she should just go to a doctor and talk but is feeling anxious about this and hearing opinions will be reassuring and helpful.
Please be kind! Thank you so much