NC for this post.
I will preface this by saying I have had lifelong anxiety since a child (trauma) for which I have sought a lot of therapy and CBT and my anxiety is well under control day to day generally. It no longer rules my life but it never fully goes away. I suppose if I am triggered?
When I was a small child my abusive father did many things but my most scary vivid memory was he something to me in his idea of jest/fun which was actually very very frightening for me and I have had a phobia surrounding this since I was 5.
Secondly my DP is the best partner I have ever had and he is very respectful caring and loving although he does not seem to understand what anxiety really is or how it has affected me. He says he doesn’t get anxious.
we recently did an activity together and I was anxious about it as it involved my phobia and I explained it to him. I really wanted to do it though and initially it was fun. DP encouraged me to go out of my comfort zone during it and at some point, I was saying ‘no I don’t want to do this’ and he was insistent it was fine, but I trusted him so I kept going even though I didn’t really want to. Ultimately, I had an accident and had to encounter my phobia in the worst way for me. I also injured myself in the accident. I was very scared and anxious but I used my CBT techniques to rationalise to myself so I stayed amazingly calm but I was worrying out loud asking questions.
I was not initially upset with DP about this accident although I felt he had not taken into account that I was uncomfortable and out of my comfort zone and had asked to stop - I could have stopped but I didn’t so that’s on me.
What I am upset about is that he was annoyed by my anxious reaction. He went very quiet, told me I was over reacting and it was all fine. He then was getting exasperated when I was trying to explain myself (why anxious) and I then became more anxious worrying he was angry with me for ‘over reacting’.
I didn’t cry or get hysterical I was very calm considering I was in pain and scared.
All I really wanted was a huge hug and to feel safe and acknowledgement that it WAS scary. And I didn’t get that from him and I am really sad about it. He did all the right things otherwise, he helped me, he looked after me physically, he listened, but it felt like he wanted to run away from me emotionally and something was missing? He’s never done this before so it made me feel really unsettled. At one point he was staring into his phone while I was talking to him.
I felt like I had to drop worrying about it for his sake so I have moved into laughing at it being a very funny story. I’m questioning whether I am self centred and annoying? Especially when I was asking questions like ‘should I get medical attention?’ and he was like ‘absolutely not!’ I did ask him outright what was up and he said he ‘didn’t know what to do’.
should I just let this one go as a miscommunication of needs? I don’t want to keep going over it too much with him