OH anxiety, please talk me down

[PassiveAgressiveQueen]

I have been with my OH for over 20 years, a couple of years after we got together he began having panic attacks about almost everything fun.
We didn't recognise them as this for quite a while but i spotted the pattern that he was sick on days when we were due to go out, he refused to agree for many years.
Once he did agree he went for a 6 week course of CBT, which honestly did bugger all, and he has been on pills ever since.
He has improved a lot we can now go to the cinema and out for meals, and if i introduce new people to him slowly after a while we can go out with them (well he still gets sick but ignores it).

I regularily ask him to go for help but he refuses, he has refused again today and i want to say, get help or get out. i have been considerate and caring for 18 years now I WANT A LIFE with my partner.

I am sick of doing so much stuff by myself as he is too ill (amazing how often he is ill days we have planned that involve new people, like my work collegues).

I think him having counselling will be a positive - not least because you will think 'at least he's trying'

Other than that I think the next step might be acceptance...
I know how annoying it is- I will make lovely friends and then they all start suggesting doing stuff with the dhs too- dh looks stricken - I say no- two years later they are all tight buddies and somehow were on the periphery again.
I turn people down a lot- then they stop asking.
However, I still prefer my dh to theirs which is a good thing I think. ;)

I don't really understand why you can't socialise on your own?

because i am sick of making excuses "oh sorry he will never come to visit you, it isn't you it is him, he is sooo shy" repeat

I have terrible anxiety similar to your OH.

I totally agree with your instinct to tell him to get help (take responsibility) or get out.

You can't avoid real life. You can't make your mental health issue into everyone else's problem.

There is not much help available for mental health issues atm but it is possible to help yourself. Being anxious while you do something does not kill you. I made a decision as a teen never to allow myself to say 'no, I am not doing that' just because I feel anxious about it.

Sometimes I am so bad I struggle to go out of the house but I mostly make myself do it.

He is not even trying. He has decided that how he is going to deal with his problem is by giving in to the anxiety and letting everyone deal with the fall out.

I dunno.

Dh works very long days in a shitty stressful job where he has to be 'on' the whole time. I don't see why we have to turn his weekends into over-coming anxiety sessions.

Well helmet that's fine for you because you aren't at the end of your tether with your h's anxiety. You are happy with how things are and don't mind him avoiding things he is anxious about.

That is not how the OP feels. Her OH's way of dealing with his anxiety is making her feel miserable and alone in her relationship.

When you feel miserable and alone in your relationship you have to do something about it.

I will not let my anxiety rule my life, weekday or weekend. I don't think letting anxiety rule you life helps you get better.

In this case the OP's H is letting his anxiety rule his life and it is ruling the OP's life and their relationship too because he refuses to acknowledge that it is a problem or that he needs to try and get better. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to put up with that.

She's not asking him to transform into a person without anxiety. She's just asking him to try and deal with the anxiety.

Oh yes I didn't mean it to come across as 'put up with it op' and apologies if it did.

But her dh has said he will go to counselling- it sounds like he wants to change and acknowledges her frustration...so that is a tentative move forward.

Yes helmet it is, i am giving him 2 weeks to actually phone somebody up.

He's reluctantly agreed after pestering and then said he doesn't think it will help.

TBH it is his attitude to it that is the most destructive thing. Counselling definitely won't help if he has decided before he goes that it won't and been pestered into it by his partner.

Counselling may not help anyway tbh as mental health support IME is extremely poor. My anxiety is related to trauma and I think I have PTSD though there is no way to get a diagnosis, GP advised against referral as he felt I would be misdiagnosed as having borderline personality disorder (which I don't have) because I am female and in his experience they use that diagnosis as a catch all. He felt treatment for BPD would not be helpful for me so being misdiagnosed just to get some support would not help.

I eventually got longer term person centered counselling from a charity with his support and which helped much more than NHS cbt - most of which was trying to teach me to cope with anxious feelings and not avoid them, which I was already doing and to see that my anxieties were not based in reality - which was directly unhelpful as my anxieties are fears based in real things that have happened to me but which have been ratcheted up to a high level and are out of proportion.

People with anxiety need some investigation re what is causing the anxiety in order to get the right kind of support. IME this virtually never happens with the NHS because the services just don't exist. As a patient you have to be so proactive and involved in your own care and if you are you can expect to be told 'you aren't bad enough for any help'.

You have to help yourself. You just have to have an attitude that it is a problem and that you need to take responsibility for it because sadly support often just isn't there or you have to find it yourself.

Seriously passiveaggressivequeen - I don't think you need talking down at all. This has been going on for nearly 20 years. The best he can do when you've reached the end of your tether is be pestered into going to something he clearly has no intention of really engaging with because he's trying to shut you up?

thanks offred, so is off-red pink?

Ha ha! It's of-Fred from the handmaid's tale by Margaret Atwood.

I can understand if counselling hasn't worked in the past why he feels it won't help, it seems very common to feel like that, but I totally empathise with your sheer frustration at his negative attitude towards it - totally understandable. I think success with counselling is down to being up for the challenge of CBT (I had it and found it very challenging, very hard, but ultimately brilliant, has really helped with social anxiety and OCD and coming to terms with childhood stuff), also whether he gets on well with the counsellor and if they are good at their job. Apparently it is very common to change counsellors, I did and otherwise I think it would not have been successful at all as the first was patronising and not great at their job, made me feel uncomfortable. Perhaps some books on CBT and anxiety would help you both initially. You can self refer to a lot of mental health services which he may feel more comfortable doing, I have never felt comfortable talking about anxiety with GPs. Good luck!

No amount of counselling can change someone from an introvert to an extrovert.

Whether he is able to come up with some techniques that enable him to attend slightly larger functions with you, so that he will simply hate every minute of it rather than being so ill he can't even go, he's still not going to metamorphose into someone different.

You're asking him to regularly do something he hates, which you know he hates, which brings him absolutely zero benefits, which infringes on his free time, in order that, what, you don't have to tell people that your husband isn't the sociable type?

If he was having problems at work, that would be different. If he was unable to function in meetings, or meet new colleagues, or even hold down a job full stop, then that would be disrupting his life. But that's not happening - you've said he's perfectly polished at work.

It doesn't sound like he's unhappy with his life, it's more than you're unhappy because he's different to you in a sociable sense.

Having panic attacks is a sign of anxiety not introversion. They are distinctly different things.

Whether he is able to come up with some techniques that enable him to attend slightly larger functions with you

Going to someones house to visit for a couple of hours, there would be 4 of us in the house.

I don't think this is introversion. It came on with panic attacks two years after you got together. The GP referred him for treatment for anxiety... That says anxiety to me.

Functioning at work is irrelevant. People with anxiety are not always anxious about everything all the time.

That said it is affecting his work if he is taking sick days to avoid things he is anxious about and it is certainly affecting his relationships.

It does completely scupper his plans to "network" at work, just realised that today

he can stand in a packed hall and give a presentation on work, he can do everything but socialise.

I completely understand why he does this.

At work you have a narrow subject in which you are knowledgeable and a fairly precisely scripted role. You know what to do, what to say and what to expect.

In a social situation, you have no script, have to think on your feet and could be expected to talk about just about any subject. I find that a great deal harder.

I would sooner stand up in front of a couple of hundred people and give a talk on the very specific subjects I know lots about than stand in a roomful of people I don't know with a drink in my hand and have to think of interesting, original and relevant questions to ask them.

In dhs case I would say it's both anxiety and introversion.

So a bit like how I feel about skiing - arghhh god no, no way can I go down the mountainside
and
Fuck that who can be arsed with all that shit anyway?

What will you do passive, if he doesn't make arrangements for help? I think it was my post that you commented on. I honestly don't know how to go forward. My H is so incredibly moody with it. Its just miserable.

Nottalotta yes it was your thread. well he has contacted a mental health team, but they need a referal from the GP (even though going private).
This team do counselling and Psychotherapy and they will asses what he needs (£140 and hour for psychotherapists) so hopefully he will believe them and it will help.

Just seeing him trying is the most important bit. Having him say "i am not coming because i don't want to today, but i promise to come next time" and he does.

Gold - you wrote " I would sooner stand up in front of a couple of hundred people and give a talk on the very specific subjects I know lots about than stand in a roomful of people I don't know with a drink in my hand and have to think of interesting, original and relevant questions to ask them."

Can I just point out that NO ONE is actually expecting you to do that except you? Unless you happen to be someone very famous .

Everyone else just goes to parties and asks the same boring questions, such as

" how do you know [ host ] "
" do you play football/ work with [host ] "
" where do you live / work "
" have you seen this film / TV show that everyone's talking about "
" what do you think about [ current political issue] "

It doesn't matter if they are not revelant , they are just conversation starters.

Just thought I'd mention that . Sorry for detour OP

K1mberley, I'm sure those conversation starters feel simple and natural too and the responses to other people's questions probably come quite easily too. Lucky you.

I was just trying to explain that it is not that easy for everyone, It can make some people, including me, quite anxious. That is the reason that her OH finds it easier to do a work presentation than enter a less structured social situation.

I didn't say anything about how these questions feel. Let alone that they were simple or natural . Nor did I say anything about dealing with the responses . Nor did I say it was " that easy " .

You are reading lots of things into my post that I didn't say.

I merely responded to your statement that you HAD to think of interesting, original and relevant questions . Who is it who REQUIRES YOU to think of such questions ???

I'm guessing that it's YOU who is putting this pressure on yourself . I understand that social chit chat is hard for many people , myself included . But you won't make it any easier but putting these slightly ridiculous expectations on yourself .