To ask if anyone does this or knows why I do? It’s destroying my life

[Peoplekits]

I’ve been like this since a child. I remember being age 8 or 9 and a holiday or birthday would be coming up and I would just feel SO stressed and anxious that it would all go wrong. My parents used to actually make a think out of it that I would always ruin special occasions. It would be presented as if I had intentionally done this but that wasn’t the case, it was the anxiety taking over and I would panic and stress about the most ridiculous things.

As I’ve got older I’ve realised that this could be linked to self sabotage (I’m late 30s now with a child). I don’t want to live like this and want my son to enjoy life too. We have a holiday coming up and already I’m feeling horrendously stressed. Worried I’m ill, worried the house will collapse while away (!) worried about infection and car insurance and where my birth certificate is!

I do take sertraline and this has helped a bit but still I can’t seem to cope well with special occasions. Can anyone relate to this? How do I stop it?

I think you need medical support, OP. It sounds like you've been dealing with this for decades and that it's really impacting your quality of life. Have you ever talked about it with a GP or someone?

When a child has anxiety, and then is blamed by their parents for it in some way being intentional, I wonder if they then reinforces the anxiety.

As an adult, do you feel at fault for your anxiety? And if so, does that then come with guilt or shame? Because I wonder if the anxiety you experience now is somehow linked to that?

I have anxiety, and now I worry that I will feel anxious in certain situations, which of course then makes the anxiety worse.

Therapy will also be helpful in unpacking that relationship with your parents and how their behaviour reinforced your anxiety. You are doing a good and brave thing to break this chain now for you and your child.

I can’t relate to this but it sounds horrendous. I think my mum may have been similar, I remember her as being negative and stressed in the run up to anything. Horrible to be around as a child.

It’s great that you recognise it, but get psychological help before it takes over.

I can relate especially to the holiday thing, a couple of days before I get so anxious about it, because I don’t know what to expect, whether I will be OK and be able to relax, if I’ve forgotten something vital, that Il catch a bug before we go or during and yes leaving the house! It’s almost like more stress to go on holiday than just stay at home. The way I overcome this is to over prepare and that takes so much time and adds to my stress.

I feel the same about Christmas and birthdays too.

This. Your GP can help - you could have a beta blocker. Lists might also help. Have you done a questionnaire for ND? Do you have a diagnosis?

I used to be like this. I’m autistic and ADHD but have family based trauma and PTSD from my parents.

I’m curious about what happened on your birthdays or in the lead up to birthdays before you started to get anxious about them. It might even be before your conscious memory, but therapy might help unpack it. I wonder if your parents put pressure on for the day to go perfectly and if you felt like you had to perform or be the good girl etc to keep them happy, which perhaps caused you to have a sort of performance anxiety? Sounds like they might have been unhappy if you didn’t make everything go to their plan, as they then shamed you for being worried.

I don’t think this is necessarily something to medicate, and sometimes medication can dull feeling so much that it’s difficult to observe what’s going on more closely and unpack it/understand it. Sometimes it’s just having some understanding and validation that can help the feelings dissipate. It would be great if you can get some therapy to help with this if you can.

I think therapy is a waste of time as you simply regurgitate all your fears entirely. Have you tried a good hypnotist? My experience was amazing!

I am not like this about holidays, but the idea of going to a party or wedding or funeral, anywhere that involves large groups of people, is awful for me. My daughter says that she remembers me causing rows with her dad so I could say “I’m not going then, go by yourself “. I remember that if I was left at home l would be incredibly upset and wish that I had gone.
Still now, I will make excuses to get out of most social situations, and if I really can’t, and then the occasion is cancelled, I am always thrilled.
I also hate going to new places for appointments. I need to know where the door is and whether I need to knock and so as well as looking at Google maps and asking other people, I will often make a dummy run.
One of my children has been diagnosed with autism, in her forties and so have six of my grandchildren, so I suspect that I some of my own life long problems have their roots in autism.

I tend to feel anxious before holidays, even when I am really looking forward to them. I invariably reach a point when I think about cancelling. I experience something similar before parties or other big social occasions. Stressing about things I may have forgotten to do (lock the door, turn off the stove, etc.) also happens to me. It helps to remind myself that I always feel this way and I'll enjoy myself once I arrive, that I've certainly locked the door or whatever. Countering irrational fears with logic is a useful coping mechanism for me.

But that sort of thing may not be useful to you at all if the anxiety is truly debilitating. Are you able to enjoy yourself when the holiday or event starts? Or does the anxiety increase? If so, it might be worthwhile to seek therapy to delve into what is going on beneath the surface.

I recognise this completely. If I have to go to the airport straight from work for any reason I get even more anxious. We tried a big family road trip to the US 3 years ago and my anxiety was through the roof in the run up because we all had COVID one by one and then I got an ankle injury and wasn't even sure we could manage to go. It was also horrendously hot weather so I was literally getting hot and bothered and was in pain and I had to pack for quite a complicated trip.

Menopause has made my anxiety about things like that worse.

Things that help:

I use the Tripit app for holiday planning and then everything is all in one place at a glance.

I made a ticklist in the notes on my iphone for things that I need to buy in the run up to my holiday eg particular items of clothes or toiletries.

I make another ticklist of things I want to pack, and tick as it goes in the suitcase. Separate one for any carry on luggage. Just looking at the ticks reassures me that it's packed.

Lastly, I have realised that you can buy most things when you go abroad so it's no biggie if you have forgotten something.

We have experienced having to seek medical advice/treatment abroad in both English and non-English speaking and while it's a nuisance taking a day or 2 out of your holiday sometimes it's always been ok. So I remind myself that now. As well as the fact that you can do anything online at very short notice now like move money, look for a hotel or transport, find info about closing times etc, so if anything does go wrong it's fairly easy to sort. It's not like the old days where going abroad on holiday on your own and not as a package with a rep felt a bit risky without any help from the internet. I tell myself that as long as we have passports and boarding passes we will be ok. Anything else can be sorted later on.

I think mine is a bit of learned behaviour. My dad used to have severe anxiety regarding travel. Found it hard to leave the house but enjoyed it all once we were there. I think in his case it was trauma from being sent to boarding school alone as a young boy. Mum used to worry about everything. I distinctly remember the piles of toilet paper and other supplies stored ready to pack into the car for a drive to France when self-catering. It was like didn't even enter their head that they could just buy toilet paper in France - they packed everything but the kitchen sink - why?!??

I am the same about my birthday or holiday, I don’t like change from my usual routine. I spoilt special occasions as a child too. I just used to feel so anxious and stressed over stuff that was different to the norm and that includes birthdays.

i ended up being diagnosed with Autism in my twenties.

Yes, I wonder if I have a mild version too. I prefer the familiar and routine. I used to hate special treat days or events in school and would rather have just stuck to the regular timetable.

Ironically I do really enjoy the unfamiliar when it's my choice and its a pleasant thing and I particularly like exploring new places on holiday once I'm there and stuck in. But it's the transition from "at home and relaxed with nothing out of the ordinary to think about" to "go, go, go, let's go and do this new exciting thing" which I find difficult.

Once I'm DOING the thing I just go with the flow and enjoy it.

How were your parents in general? I'm wondering if something happened once on holiday or similar and then they started on the 'you always ruin happy occasions' stuff if they were overly critical, and then it became a self fulfilling prophecy, because you got so nervous that it couldn't go well?

Have you tried cbt? That can be quite useful for stopping negative thought patterns

I could have written this myself - not much advice because I'm really not sure why it's happening myself. I hate the build up and worry that things will go wrong or someone will get poorly.
More often than not I need to take a day or two to relax and feel back to normal afterwards.

I'm currently on the autism diagnosis pathway and it's something that came up in conversation, but not sure if it's actually related or not. I always thought it was more because birthdays and Christmas usually ended badly when I was a child.

Strange, I was going to post on this very subject. I have acute anxiety before going on holiday. I feel sick, can't eat, dry mouth pounding heart. It's awful. I think I might need a higher dose of setriline as I'm on the low dose. I just imagine all the things that could go wrong. But the odd thing is, once I'm through security it's like a switch has been turned off ! I can eat, drink and be normal. I love flying !
I've thought about seeing a hypnotist as well. I wish I had an answer for us all.

im a therapist and this is definitely something you can treat through therapy.

you should have an NHS talking therapies service near you which you can access for free.

You can’t stop the thoughts from coming into your mind but you can decide what to do with them when they arrive. The key is to train your brain to use its attention like a spotlight - you can decide whether to turn the light on, or off, when a thought comes in.

There are lots of workbooks available online too - this is a really good one that you could try working through on your own.

You can definitely reduce your anxiety - hang on in there!

Autism? I can relate. I prefer to stay home.

This workbook might be useful for you to work through - focus on the specific thoughts you have before holiday and work out whether they are actually true or not.

I think these sound like intrusive thoughts which can be a symptom of OCD. I have two friends with quite severe OCD. Both have described thoughts like these to me and once the thought is there no amount of reassurance can make it feel better. There is a specific type of therapy for this i believe. Either way it sounds like therapy would help you to explore your memories.

@SimplyReadHead Thank you. I'll have a look.

I've always been like this. I've been on anti-depressants for 30 years and it hasn't helped with this particular issue. However, 3 years ago I was diagnosed as autistic and then things started to make sense. Birthdays and holidays are out of the ordinary occasions, with quite a lot of unexpected and uncontrollable elements to them. Once I understood this as an autistic person and once my partner did too we managed things very differently.

Following, I get extremely anxious before social events

Thanks I will look into that app it may help.

I think it just sounds like anxiety. If medication helps you, it might be worth asking if there is one that you can take as a sort of extra when you know this kind of thing is coming up.

I get it, for me I think it's related to ADHD as I worry about all the things which I might forget or not prepare properly. I also sometimes wonder if I have some autistic traits because anything which throws me out of my familiar routine just completely drains me and I find it very stressful. Or could it be more like OCD, like you HAVE to get certain things right otherwise the terrible thing will happen?

But equally I think worry and uncertainty over whether something will go well is the definition of anxiety really, isn't it? I don't know that it always has a deeper meaning like self-sabotage etc.