Hope it's ok if I join in. I've suffered with anxiety since I was about 11, though my parents were oblivious to it. I tried hypnotherapy years ago and it didn't help one bit. But, as recent years have passed I've been feeling gradually better and more on top of it. Until this week. I rely on routine to keep me ticking over and to keep my anxiety at bay, even small changes to plans really throw me off kilter. So this week with the snow, being trapped indoors and with my child off school, also miserable and stuck indoors, I have slowly been feeling more and more out of sorts as the days have gone by. Feeling really withdrawn, quiet, anxious etc. This morning was supposed to be my dd's first day back to school, however there has been a big water supply meltdown where we live, loads of pipes have burst leaving half the town with no water so many schools have closed - my dd's school have merged with the other school in their academy and they are being schooled in a different village today. But the chaos at drop off, the change of plans, people beeping their horns at me (because I stopped to let through a driver coming the opposite way), got told off by a man at the school carpark for trying to use the carpark when "we all know we aren't allowed to use it" - well, no, my daughter doesn't usually attend this school so why would I? Anyway, after drop off I just found myself sitting in my car bawling my eyes out this morning, just sobbing, feeling just like I used to feel years ago - filled with anxiety, feeling really low, and like everybody is out to get me, like I am a pathetic waste of space. It's like all the progress I have made over time has vanished in less than a week and I'm back to the anxious mess I used to be. How can one week out of routine cause such a backwards step? I felt bad because my dd saw how stressed and upset I was getting and I feel like it makes her anxious too. I felt like all of the people I saw around me were aggressive and horrible and looking for an excuse to have a go at me. I cried all the way in the car to the supermarket, then when I got home a neighbour across the road asked me how I was I and I just burst into tears, I'm so embarrassed.
Just so disappointed that I am so weak. I thought I had got stronger, that I had got better, but clearly that's only in the right conditions. I feel so pathetic that it only takes a change in my routine to let all those feelings come flooding back again. They were obviously there all along, just lurking beneath the surface.
I fell out with my DH last night because he often speaks to me like I'm an idiot and it affects my self esteem - and now my DD has also started to be patronising towards me (she is 9!). It's because I worry about things and when I mention my worries he dismisses them and acts like I'm being foolish and pathetic (things like leaving the house with the washing machine on, I worry it might start a fire, or letting our dd travel in the front of the car when I feel she would be safer in the back etc). When I tried to tell him how it made me feel he got defensive and stormed off in a mood. So it's hard to feel I can talk to him about it because I suspect he would be irritated by it and think I should get a grip. 