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rebbieh
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06 Aug 2012, 1:39 am

I guess separation anxiety is quite common in children. Anyone experiencing separation anxiety even though you're an adult? I do. Not severely but I feel separation anxiety in anticipation of parting from my family or my boyfriend for a longer period of time. Now, for example, my boyfriend's been here for a week. We live in different countries during the summers (he's Dutch and I'm Swedish) and he's going back to the Netherlands tomorrow morning. Won't get to see him for a month or two. That makes me very anxious.

The anxiety's always the worst before and during the separation. Less than an hour or so after parting, I feel quite okay again. Sure, I'll miss my boyfriend, but I won't miss him constantly. I'll be okay but then I'll have one day when I really miss him. Then I'll be fine again and after a while I'll have one of those days when I miss him a lot. That's how it works for me. It comes and goes in waves (same goes for missing my family), but right now I'm really anxious about him leaving.

Can anyone relate to this?



Shellfish
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06 Aug 2012, 2:24 am

I can't comment on the anxiety but I live in a different country to my family (parents and sibs) and the anticipation of leaving for me is always worse than the actual event, as well as having days when I miss them terribly and others where I miss them less (this gets easier with time, just used to it I guess). What I am trying to say is that most of the emotion you feel is probably quite typical.


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polarbeareyes
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06 Aug 2012, 4:21 am

I definitely have separation anxiety with my partner. Sometimes I can miss my partner so much it hurts when we are just in separate rooms. Sometimes we are only streets apart. Sometimes several hundred miles. I just cannot deal. Being at work is a challenge. I also have some kind of anxiety when my partner is with me, but we are away from home. I am horribly anxious and stimming and likely to have shutdowns until we are back home.


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LtlPinkCoupe
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09 Aug 2012, 8:25 pm

I have separation anxiety whenever my aunt has to leave after visiting, cuz she's pretty much the only person who really, truly understands me. I remember one time when I was 9, and she left after spending about a week at my mom's house....that day she left and I think the day after, I was literally depressed and just stared into space miserably, crying randomly, or lying in my bed with a stuffed animal. Something similar to this happened two years prior, as well, and my mom got mad at me both times. That of course made me feel worse, since I knew my aunt would understand why I was depressed.

A couple years ago, I printed out an email that my aunt sent me, hi - lited the parts of it that I really liked, and carried it around in my wallet....but I've lost it since then. :( I still have the Pikachu plushie she gave me for my 8th birthday; I guess I could just hug and sleep with that to make the separation anxiety sort of go away.


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