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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

I don't want to change myself? Anxiety and therapy related.

152 replies

OddSocksAndHollyhocks · 13/12/2022 14:41

OK, odd one.

DH and I have been having marriage counselling, mostly to address our poor communication. Our relationship isn't terrible, in many ways it's good. But we have very different communication styles and both feel unvalidated and argue a lot.

Anyway. Therapist seems to have struggled to find a solution for us or to "solve" us as a couple. He's tried all the standards - finding shared passions, looking at our childhood and saying we're repeating parental patterns, suggesting mindfulness. In the last session, he seems to have settled on my anxiety and is now saying it's the cause of everything. He wanted me to name my anxiety and give it a colour and see it as separate to me...presumably so I could banish it.

The thing is, I've lived with my anxiety forever. I'm a very high functioning anxious person. I'm anxious about pretty much everything, have constant voices in my head BUT it doesn't stop me. I have a great career, friends. If I want to do something, i do it. It just often takes me a lot of self reasoning or finding a way I feel more comfortable with to achieve the same result. Its only when DH is in the equation that it gets more complicated as he thinks he's protecting me by just saying we won't do things that could make me anxious. When in reality, that's making me feel like I'm in a cage where I never get to actually live.

I don't feel like I need to get rid of my anxiety. But therapist has pinned it as the cause of all our problems. I feel like that's just an easy cop out. Not sure what to do next...

OP posts:
LaPerduta · 15/12/2022 23:17

OddSocksAndHollyhocks · 13/12/2022 21:32

Also closer to how I feel about it than many responses here. Many parts of how I am are actually helpful....the racing mind allows me to hold a freakish number of concepts and projects at once. I function on little to no sleep. I am an absolute perfectionist and overachiever without ever burning out. I'm actually massively empathetic although I'm just waiting for that to be shot down here 😁 My fight or flight instinct has got myself, my family and friends out of a number of tricky situations. And I'm renowned for being incredibly good at organising things with an extraordinary attention to detail.

I know people will argue these things are not tied to anxiety. No, not always. But in my case they are very closely intertwined and all part of who I am.

Well your anxiety doesn't seem to derive from low self-esteem, at any rate.

OddSocksAndHollyhocks · 16/12/2022 10:41

LaPerduta · 15/12/2022 23:17

Well your anxiety doesn't seem to derive from low self-esteem, at any rate.

Thanks for your helpful input

OP posts:
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