Listen to Your Anxiety

I’m going to let you in on a little secret; Almost everyone is excessively anxious about something, but no one wants to admit it. Perhaps you are stressed about your romantic relationship ending, or maybe you are on edge about being laid off from your job. The dread of the upcoming exam overwhelms you, and those credit card bills are piling up. Anxiety has a nasty tendency to overpower our thoughts and emotions and manipulate us into making decisions that we later regret. Here is how anxiety affects relationships.

What Does Anxiety Mean?

Anxiety is an emotion that feeds on worrying about current and future events. While it is normal to have short-term and periodic anxiety, such as being concerned about an upcoming test or job interview, anxiety can become a crippling condition when it is persistent and affects every day functioning. Anxiety conditions can be grouped into several categories.

These include:

· Generalized Anxiety Disorder – This is a condition that is characterized by intense worry about many different things. The victim often catastrophizes about ill-defined things that they believe will happen in the future. Often, there is little or no concrete evidence of these things occurring. People suffering from GAD may struggle with everyday activities due to this intense worry.

· Panic disorder – This condition features sudden and very intense bouts of fear that may be triggered by a variety of factors. Although sporadic, these panic attacks can be crippling and may affect the individual’s ability to function.

· Social anxiety disorder – Social anxiety disorder is characterized by intense fear of social situations. People struggling with this condition will often fear being scrutinized or judged by people, leading to struggles with interactions with other people.

When confronted with anxiety, most people either disregard it and bury it deep down or attempt to quash it by excessively asserting themselves in tense situations. Rarely do either of these options create the desired outcomes. But I’m here to tell you that there is a third option that you most likely haven’t even considered. Rather than neglect your anxiety, what if instead, you chose to embrace it?

Signs of Anxiety in Relationships

Anxiety in relationships can manifest in a variety of ways. For instance, someone struggling with anxiety may become overly dependent on their partners. They will cling to them and seek constant reassurance. In addition, they may find themselves overthinking, constantly planning for worst-case scenarios. Another way anxiety may manifest in a relationship is indecisiveness, people struggling with anxiety may often be indecisive, especially on issues that affect the relationship or their partners.

How Anxiety Affects Relationships

Your anxiety is overwhelming you because it is trying to tell you something. I cannot tell you how many people I have met who are stressed about their romantic relationships, but they can’t quite put their finger on what feels wrong within them. Rather than spending some time reflecting upon their current relationship dynamic, they often disregard their authentic feelings.

And I can’t help but wonder how relationship dynamics might change if people took a moment to recognize how their anxiety was impacting them.

I’ll give you an example of what I’m talking about. Let’s say that your partner has recently started acting strangely, and you have taken notice. Your immediate reaction might be to either pretend as though nothing is out of place or keep pressuring your partner to tell you what is going on until they give you an answer that helps you feel better.

Both of these responses might temporarily relieve your anxieties, but the fear and doubt will continue to linger until you truly understand what is currently happening between you and your partner. And that requires both of you to sit with the anxiety and acknowledge how your fears of abandonment, manipulation, infidelity, and betrayal, are impacting your relationship dynamic.

Treatment for Anxiety in Relationships

Therapists often use a variety of tools to deal with anxiety in relationships. They may use medication, which involves prescriptions such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and similar drugs. While these may not cure the condition, they help to make it easier to manage the symptoms and therefore reduce the patient’s agony.

Another counseling approach is cognitive behavioral therapy. In this treatment modality, the therapist will work with the client to get to the root of the problem by pointing out the contradictions between the client’s internalized thoughts and their externalized behaviors. Cognitive behavioral therapy helps the client receive the tools that they need to manage their condition and offers a shot at significantly reducing the impact of anxiety on the client’s relationship with their partner.

Learning a New Skillset

My clients are very smart, determined, and capable people attempting to fix complex relational struggles by using their current ways of thinking and problem-solving. But I am here to tell you that an emotional problem cannot be resolved with an intellectual solution. You have to learn a new way of thinking: a new skill set to add to your repertoire. At Coltharp Counseling, I can teach you how to find a balance between honoring your anxiety and listening to what it has to say without allowing it to overwhelm you.

It takes time and practice, but it can pay dividends once you learn how to master it. I will help you transform your anxiety from being an intrusive force into a personal strength.

Schedule a free 15-minute consultation with me so we can talk more about how your anxieties are impacting your relationships, and how I can help.