Alcohol and Anxiety - Please help me :(

[Louise990]

First of all I should mention that I suffer with severe anxiety and OCD - I'm currently having CBT but I'm just not coping.

I'm 35 weeks pregnant and I've got worked myself up into such a state.

I haven't touched a single drop of alcohol during my pregnancy and would never in a million years dream of doing so - I love my baby way too much..

Last night I was sat on the sofa with my boyfriend and I turned to him and kissed him on the lips. It completely slipped my mind that he was drinking a can of beer and the moment I felt that his lips were cold and moist I completely froze and had the biggest panic attack.

I wiped my lips with my sleeve straight away and then got a baby wipe and scrubbed them. I didn't taste any alcohol but feeling the cold and wetness from his lips was enough to send my OCD out of control.

I appreciate any replies but please don't try and make me feel better by saying a drop of alcohol in pregnancy is not harmful - this is irrelevant to me. There is no excuse whatsoever to drink any form of alcohol in pregnancy in my opinion and knowing that other women have sips or even the odd glass of wine/can of beer when pregnant doesn't comfort me.

I feel like I've ruined my pregnancy and can't cope knowing that I've managed to avoid it for 35 weeks and now I've gone and done this.

Please help me.

[Louise990]

I do see a mental health professional as I've already mentioned but they can't work miracles - believe me, I'm doing my best. Anxiety isn't something that you can cure over night but I'm trying to be positive and hope to God that I'll cope when baby's here, as well as these next few weeks.

sunny I'm still feeling the same as yesterday really. I was hoping that things would have improved a little but I'm still having the anxious thoughts. Trying to keep busy by cleaning the house and getting things ready for when the baby arrives. I just want to put this behind me. I know how small and daft this must seem to other people but my mind has blown it way out of proportion and I'm struggling to get back to a rational way of looking at it.

[RedToothBrush]

Louise, I read your thread a couple of days ago, and have really pondered over what to say.

I suffer from severe anxiety over certain things, so its not a totally alien thing to me.

One of the things I've noticed in several of your posts, is you try and rationalise things in order to make them understandable to others, or almost justify how you are acting to yourself, despite the fact you know you are behaving irrationally and know what the 'normal' response would be.

In effect the whole time, this means you are beating yourself up over things instead of almost accepting that 'it is what it is' and thats about the level of it. Sometimes I think the more time you spend analysing it, in a way, the more time you devote to it dominating your thoughts. Instead, its better to simply look for solutions to your behaviour not the rationale behind it.

In all honesty, I haven't tried CBT for various reasons, as I don't think its right for me. (Long complex explanation which actually involves an element of my anxiety which I'm not going into here) After a lot of persuading from DH, I was persuaded to have a lot at a book called 'The Chimp Paradox: The Mind Management Programme to Help You Achieve Success, Confidence and Happiness', which is a book written by the man who has lead several psychological teams in British Sport (Bradley Wiggins and Chris Hoy both sing his praises, amongst others). There are a lot of other similar books about Mindfulness out there; this one is just the one I've happened to pick up and is currently very popular.

The point with it, is one of its main ideas is that it has this idea, that you don't have to rationalise things, and can be very aware of the 'real' logic but the 'chimp' emotional part of your brain takes control and over rules the human logical part of your brain. It helps me understand that actually there isn't anything wrong with me as a person, and I am a normal person, its just the way I process things is not always working in the best way for me - not that its inherently wrong as such.

I don't see any reason, why you couldn't continue with CBT but also look at this approach too. Whilst the two approaches differ, you might gain something from each. (In fact there is something called MCBT which combines the two so they can be used to compliment each other).

It might not help you - I'm well aware that there is no magic answer here - but it has made me more accepting and 'at peace' with my anxiety as a whole. I'm not looking for blame/trying to rationalise everything in the same way.