How do I explain anxiety to my partner?

[mariinaa]

My partner is struggling to grasp the entire concept of anxiety. It’s something I’ve been struggling with since childhood since I’ve been through a lot of trauma. We’ve been together nearly 3 years and have a beautiful 18 month old little girl.
Everything is good except for when I get my anxiety attacks which are happening more frequently recently. Whenever I try to explain what it is that’s happening to me, he’ll act like he understands but later his reaction to one of my anxiety attacks will be “come on, stop feeling sorry for yourself” :/ which is exactly what he said this morning as I was curled up on the couch crying my eyes out, shaking and desperately trying to catch my breath.
The amount of times I tried to tell him what is wrong, he says I’m exaggerating and just being miserable for no reason. He says it so much that it makes me feel stupid, like I really am being dramatic and I should “get over it”.
Since it has been happening so frequently, and he has been no help at all.

I’m looking for a way to really show him and explain to him what anxiety is and that I really need his support when I’m feeling at my lowest.

Sorry you're feeling like this and it is hard to explain it to someone, especially your partner who may feel responsible / frightened as well as irritated/ frustrated! Can you show them the NHS pages? Pick out the clinical bits that apply to you and say this is me, this is my condition, to try and be looking at it together as a condition that you need help to manage?

I'm sorry you're struggling, op. I know how awful anxiety is. I don't know if you can ever really get someone to understand how it feels unless they've experienced it for themselves. Until I started having attacks when in my early 40's, I never understood it either.

One thing, and I mean this very gently knowing how hard it is, the very very worst thing you can do when having an anxiety or panic attack is to lay down and curl into a ball. All you are experiencing is a flood of cortisol hormone which causes All of those awful feelings. It's an overreaction of our fight or flight impulse happening for no particular reason. You have to burn off that hormone, and the quicker you do it, the sooner you will feel better. Walk around, bounce lightly up and down, do some deep breathing, sweep the floors, anything to physically distract you. I know it's hard but it works and you can do this. I'm sorry your partner isn't more supportive.

Thank you, I never knew that, normally my initial instinct is to hide in a corner or curl up and cover my face so my daughter doesn’t see. I’ll try and do something active next time it happens.
I’ll have a look around the internet, maybe there’s an article I can send to him which will educate him a bit 🤔

What is he scared of? There must be something. My husband is scared of heights. He can't stand the feeling of being stood at the edge of a cliff looking down. I explained to him that's how I feel when anxious ... a panic attack is someone holding him over the cliff. He gets it now as he can relate to that physical fear.

Op, I can't recommend this book highly enough. It changed everything for me, honestly.

www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/26452130-dare

What does he fear?

Are you on medication?

Next time it happens, jog on the spot for a while rather than lie down. Exercise and getting your heart going can help with the physical symptoms.

Like another poster said. It’s hard to understand something you haven’t experienced yourself but I’d never invalidate what someone else is going through just because I haven’t!

Your partner saying that to you is going to set your anxiety off a 100x more. It’s a fact you don’t say to depressed or anxious people to just get over it and that you’re over exaggerating! That’s made me so mad. I’d collect information from the nhs and shove it under his nose