Dear Scott:

You wrote: “when I speak in terms of danger, how can one evaluate when there is a problem within a relationship?”-

there is no danger for you in your relationship with your girlfriend. And this is the point, again: you are not in real and imminent danger in regard to your relationship with your girlfriend. It only feels this way.

I will explain: for a young fawn, a baby deer, he/she is in real and imminent danger if his mother disappears. If she disappears from his life, abandons him, or consumed by a predator, then the fawn has no way to feed himself and is an easy prey.

We humans are animals, evolved from animals. We carry the same instincts. A child is as afraid to lose his mother as an fawn. A child doesn’t know that there are social services and he can be taken care by a foster home. A child knows what a fawn knows: no mother means death.

Now, since you are an adult, can feed yourself etc., you don’t need your girlfriend for your survival. And so, if she breaks up with you, you are not in danger. It only feels this way because it is the danger that you felt as a child, fearing the loss of your mother, that is being reactivated.

anita

Dear Scott:

Anxiety is the repeating experience of fear in the absence of danger. Again, there is no danger to you if the relationship with your girlfriend ends.

Try and let this sentence sink in: there is no danger to you if this relationship ends.

You wrote: “there is always something to lose” – correct. And anxious people fear losing all kinds of things. After all, a person can become fearful if their favorite TV show is cancelled on a particular night. Or if the person thinks: what if my show is cancelled! Does it sound ridiculous to you? Not to the person experiencing the fear. You can try to talk to that person, to tell him there is no danger here, but he feels the fear and fear is convincing.

Anxious people, most evident with people suffering from OCD, fear their thoughts. A thought itself is experienced as danger (I may lose my TV show, or I may lose my girlfriend). Thoughts are not dangerous. Neither are feelings, and so, fearing a thought and fearing a feeling is what anxiety is about: repeating, ongoing fear in the absence of danger.

You asked:”is the amount of worrying I’m doing normal or the type that I’m doing?” – the amount of your worrying is normal for an anxious person and not, for a person who is not anxious.

If you experienced a safe childhood, and not the fearful childhood that you did experience, you would not be anxious now.

If your aim is to heal from your present anxiety: individual work is one way. The other is directing your behavior when you communicate with her. If you don’t act fearfully in communication with her, you will, over time, weaken the fear. You can make a specific list of your fearful behaviors with her and make it an objective to no longer behave in those ways.

anita

Dear Scott:

OCD like other defined disorders exist on a continuum and your symptoms are indeed on that OCD continuum. Are you on SSRI antidepressants? For how long?  And are you considering an anti anxiety drug, for the short term?

You wrote: ” It’s difficult to separate anxious and inaccurate thoughts from normal and realistic thoughts”- this is what Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is about. You can get a good book/ workbook on CBT, with exercises you can do. The principle of it is correcting our thinking. By doing so, or as I say, fitting our thinking with reality, our feelings automatically improve.

I think it is a good idea to have a serious conversation with your girlfriend. Indicate to her specifically what behaviors you would like her to change, as long as it is reasonable on your part. You can negotiate certain things with her. For example, the time between you texting her and her responding to you. You can suggest an hour limit, ask her if she thinks it is reasonable, get her input and together decide on a time limit.

anita

Dear Scott:

I was on Zoloft for about 17 years. I was prescribed it for the purpose of relieving my obsessive thinking- that was my main trouble at the time. I felt it worked back then, that it was like a pair of scissors cutting of the chains of obsessive thinking. I liked it so much that I had the psychiatrist up the dose to 400 mg per day. After years of that, he lowered it to 300 mg per day following some research results about a higher dose causing seizures. I was also on Clonazepam (Klonipin) which is a benzodiazepine for all those years, mostly 4 mg per day.

Looking back, my function in life did not improve whatsoever during those seventeen years. As a matter of fact, it got worse. My life circumstances got worse. But I did experience relief of subjective distress and there is the Placebo Effect, of course. I can share more about my individual experience with these and other drugs, if you’d like. But different individuals react differently and psychiatrists’ strategy is that of trial-and-error: try this, up it, how do you feel…more? less? something else…

Regarding your girlfriend, do communicate, come to agreements, and hold her accountable to what she agrees to do, as in the example I gave. If she doesn’t, you will have to move on. Really, there is no danger to you if the relationship ends, no matter how you feel about it. Neither the feeling nor the situation of that relationship ending is dangerous.

Your “journey towards success” is most important. It is a journey that requires much work and patience, lots and lots of patience. The process, the journey cannot be rushed. Take care of yourself in different areas: drugs if necessary, for relief, short term, I hope (particularly the benzodiazepines); CBT exercises/ therapy, being assertive in all relationships and selective of the people you interact with, choosing who is helpful and who is harmful to your well being. And please do post again, anytime. I will be glad to reply each and ever time you post.

anita